Faculty Protip: Aggregate for Sanity!

Let's face it: it's annoying to have to manage many different systems! Log in to First Class to check email; then to Banner to input grades; to Digication to check on your students' ePortfolio projects; then Canvas to build course content; then your own personal calendar (Google Calendar, or iCal, or whatever); then your social media and favorite blogs or news sites ... it never ends!

This proliferation is exactly why it's important to aggregate whenever you can - avoiding overload is a crucial key to using tech effectively. Here are some aggregations I use, and you can too!

1. Merge your communications. When you send an Announcement or message through Canvas, did you know that a copy automatically goes to First Class too? Nice. Easy.
2. Merge your calendars. The magic of RSS makes it easy to put your course calendars right into your personal calendar - why check two different places? It's as easy as copy/pasting a link: here's the guide.
3. Merge your info streams. If you have a bunch of favorite sites and/or blogs you like to check for daily news, imagine a world in which you could simply access a single site with the newest information from all of them at once. For personal use, try an app like Feedly; if you're using sites for your courses, you can add the feeds from news sites and blogs directly into your Canvas Announcements area - and your students will automatically get the latest news!