Free Technologies for the Office

1. Free Technologies for the Office Brandy Wilson Career Counselor Binghamton University

2. Why focus on free technologies? • How can we meet students? • Facebook, AIM • New technology can cost into the thousands • Let’s not reinvent the wheel • Career counseling technology is behind the times

3. Handouts/Disclaimer • Please check the SUNY CDO site for a copy of this presentation • Disclaimer: While I have used many of these personally, some are based on other recommendations. Please take the time to explore and experience these tools for yourself.

4. Outline • Free Technologies • Counseling • Connecting with Students • Marketing • Website Enhancement • Office Tools • Where to Find Them • What is your office doing?

5. Counseling

6. Borrowing from Others • Purdue – Career Clusters • http://www.cco.purdue.edu/StudentMajorList.shtml • Ball State – Quest – Majors & Interests • http://bsu.edu/students/careers/quest

8. Borrowing from Others • National Resource Center • http://www.sc.edu/fye/resources/index.htm • NCDA • http://www.ncda.org/ • Even if you are not a member, their resource area is free and full of information

9. Interactive Timeline • http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/

10. Mission Statement Builder • Franklin Covey • http://www.franklincovey.com/fc/library_and_resources/mission_statement_builder • Step-by-step guide to creating a unique, personalized Mission Statement

11. Career Videos • Career TV • http://www.careertv.com/about/index.asp • Career video website • Interviewing • Salary reports • Career related videos • Etc.

12. Researching Companies • Zoom Info • http://www.zoominfo.com/#

13. Students with Criminal Backgrounds • Hire Network • http://www.hirenetwork.org/index.html • Provides resources and assistance information to people with criminal backgrounds

14. International Students • Foreign Labor Certification Data Center • http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx • Provides data on companies supporting H1B Visa’s • Similar to http://www.h1visajobs.com/ (requires paid subscription)

15. ePortfolio • Epsilen • http://www.epsilen.com

16. To-Do List Managers • Remember the Milk • http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ • Rainlender • http://www.rainlendar.net/cms/index.php • Point Motivator • http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/PointMotivator/index.html • Awards and subtracts points based on your progress

17. Personal Finances • Mint • http://www.mint.com/ • Wesabe • http://www.wesabe.com/

18. Connecting with Students

19. Instant Messaging • Pidgin • http://www.pidgin.im/ • Meebo • http://www.meebo.com/ • AOL, Yahoo, MSN • Trillian • http://www.trillian.cc/

20. Create Your Own Chat Room • Chatmaker • http://www.chatmaker.net/ • Create your own chat room • Invite anyone by sending them a special link

21. Marketing

22. Calendar • Google Calendar • http://www.google.com/calendar/render’

25. RSS Feeds • Allows you to view updates from a variety of websites from just one link • igoogle.com • Google homepage • Google reader

29. How to Add RSS Feeds to Your Site • http://www.rssgov.com/rssworkshop.html • This site will walk you through creating and adding RSS feeds.

30. Blogging • Blogger • https://www.blogger.com/start • Word Press • http://wordpress.org/

31. Twitter • http://twitter.com/ • Keep in touch with groups • Maximum of 140 characters at a time

32. Website Enhancement

33. Website Tracker • Google Analytics • http://www.google.com/analytics/ • Find out where they “click” from, what they are clicking on, how often, etc.

35. Broken Links • Xenu Link Sleuth • http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

36. HTML Generator • NVU • http://www.nvu.com

37. Tag Your Website • How to add tags to your website • The Site Wizard • http://www.thesitewizard.com/sitepromotion/meta-tags-nvu-kompozer.shtml • Revver.com • http://revver.com/video/666038/website-tips-adding-title-tags-keywords-description-tags/

38. Tag Your Website • What tags should you use? • http://www.tagcloud-generator.com/ • http://tagcrowd.com/

40. Social Bookmarking • Similar to your favorites folder online • Saves the address of a website for future use • Can file the website under different tags (headings, knowledge areas, etc) • 7 Things You Should Know about Social Bookmarking • http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

41. Social Bookmarking • http://del.icio.us/ladare • http://digg.com/about • http://www.simpy.com/ • http://www.spurl.net/ • http://www.mixx.com/

42. Office Tools

43. Surveying • Survey Monkey • http://www.surveymonkey.com/

44. Create a Poll • Doodle • http://doodle.ch/main.html • Create polls on your website, through email

45. Conference Calls • Free Conference Call • http://www.freeconferencecall.com/index.asp • Allows you to make a conference call with up to 96 other lines • Only normal long distance charges through your phone company apply

46. Library Catalog • Library Thing • http://www.librarything.com/

47. Creating PDF’s • http://www.pdfonline.com/ • http://www.koolwire.com/Default.aspx • http://www.acrosoftware.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp • Turn a document into a PDF file • Submit/email document to site, receive the emailed PDF version a few minutes later

48. Convert PDF’s • pdf2txt@adobe.com • pdf2html@adobe.com • Send a PDF document to this email address as an attachment and it will come back as a plain text file or in HTML format • http://pdftextonline.com/ • Convert your PDF to word and maintain the fonts and formatting

49. Edit PDF’s • Split & merge documents • http://www.pdfsam.org/?page_id=32 • Edit document • http://www.pdfhammer.com/

50. Microsoft Office • OpenOffice • http://www.openoffice.org/ • GoogleDocs • http://docs.google.com/?pli=1 • Zoho • http://zoho.com/ • 150 Free Microsoft Office Tools • http://bhandler.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!70F64BC910C9F7F3!1344.entry