Tech Note: Acrobat.com's free cloud tools

Free stuff from the cloud: Adobe's good looking "online office applications" and web conferencing in the form of a mini-Connect.

The office applications are the standard trio: word processor, presentation software, and spreadsheets. You can't help but compare with a famous trio from Microsoft but these offerings have their own look (but with a lot of compatibility). The word processor is called "Documents" but some people will remember it as buzzword. That was a FLASH-based word processor that Adobe bought a couple of years ago. Adobe promised to keep buzzword alive—and free.

buzzword is a fun program with good looks and high functionality. I have used it as a collaborative work space. (And now you can't help but compare with online tools from Google.)

For desktop conferencing, acrobat.com now offers a free 3-seat "room" in Adobe ConnectNow. Upgrades are available, too. For $15/month, the suite of tools includes 5 seats in ConnectNow. For $39/month, the number of seats jumpts to 20.

Disclosure statement: I have no relationship with the products named here and I have not received any compensation or free product for mentioning them. (This blog's only monetary reward comes through google.adsense links, which are selected by Google, not by me.)

© 2010 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (http://www.marybold.com/, http://www.boldproductions.com/, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

Conference Hand-outs: List is Still Building

The list of conference PPTs and hand-outs is still building, but a nice set is already available on the web from the 2010 Assessment Conference at Texas A&M. The gathering broke at mid-day today with an unusual snowfall. Big fluffy flakes as we exited the meeting.

© 2010 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (http://www.marybold.com/, http://www.boldproductions.com/, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.

SACS' Wheelan at A&M Assessment Conference

One more SACS remark...

Today's main event at the Texas A&M Assessment Conference was the person fast becoming everyone's favorite speaker, Belle Wheelan. In fact, most casual conversations for the first several hours of the day began the same way: isn't she a great speaker. (And then they related where they've heard her speak in the past year.)

Wheelan is doing more for the assessment world than any amount of P.R. could accomplish. Her plain-speaking about the Department of Education is instructive and with humor she communicates what higher ed needs to understand about "the issues," chief among them distance education requirements.

She ended the morning at a luncheon devoted to the SACS 5th Year Interim Report requirement. The bottom line advice: "read the instructions" and "take it seriously."

© 2010 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. Email contact: bold[AT]marybold.com. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (http://www.marybold.com/, http://www.boldproductions.com/, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as legal or professional advice. Bold is the co-author of Reflections: Preparing for your Practicum or Internship, geared to college interns in the child, education, and family fields. She is a consultant and speaker on assessment, distance learning, and technology.