More research tools. There are a lot of bibliography makers out there, but this one is simple to use and the basic account is free, plenty enough for my zemi students and their research.
EasyBib is nice because you don’t have to download anything to your computer. You can also share your bibliography if you work together in a group.
Google’s applications online go beyond an office suite, this calendar makes it easy to coordinate your own life, and share coordination with others using their calendars too. This is particlularly valuable in setting meeting times.
I have 3 different calendars in one, with stuff added to some of them. My personal calendar has all my information, but does not include the phases of the moon, for example. I have a calendar for my friends and family, and another for my volunteer work, and finally another for my “paid hobbies” (work). I have my reminder deadlines inserted automatically (by a service called Remember the Milk, another upcoming tool). I can control who sees, and who can interect on each calendar (I have one for students if they want to make an appointment with me, for example). Versions in English, Japanese and many other languages.
Sparknotes is a site designed to help high school and university native speakers of English in their studies. Many professors look down on such sites as being a kind of cheating, but for non-native speakers it is an invaluable reference in how to do summaries. You can look up pretty much anthing, but they specialize in literature. They have complete chapter-by-chapter summaries of the most popular books in high school. They even have some audio versions you can download and listen to on your mp3 player, and text versions for your iPod or phone. This is where books start turning into bits.
Research is always part of a student and teacher’s life in a university, in any language. Zotero makes collecting research on the web a lot easier. This Firefox plugin (they have a new MS Word plugin too) helps you collect your research, organize it and keep it ready for use at any time. Just hit the Zotero button in the corner of your browser, up pops a small window, you can collect the link, the entire page, or parts of the page, as you like.
Zotero really shines when you need to make a bibliography. You can go to Amazon, or any other site with standard references, and Zotero will collect all the bibliographic data for that book, magazine or web page. Select all the ones you want, set a format for your bibliography (MLA, APA or others) and it automatically creates the bibliography.
They are working on a Japanese version, and the next version will also make all your data available across the web. I do research on about 4 different computers and this will be a godsend.
Zoho is a suite of office software that you can use online, or you can download onto your computer and use offline, and then synch with your online content. So you get the best of both worlds. Speaking of both worlds, you can get Zoho in Japanese too. With about 20 diffferent applications (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, email, planner, chat wiki, notebook), you can’t go wrong. Especially since it’s all free.