Organizing & Planning

These resources are useful in organizing your life, whether it's concepts or the tasks necessary to get things done.

Name	Comments
Axon2007	What it Does: Organize and process ideas in multiple ways. Runs on: PC only Price: $135 Uniqueness: It's one of only a few tools to provide this combination of functions Best Feature: The extraordinary versatility of the program Worst Feature: The unfamiliar (but logical) and sometimes awkward interface Learning Time: Hours --- Export/Import: Good My use: Regular --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: "The Axon Idea Processor provides a specially designed environment that supports and empowers the thinking processes. Objects and Links form the basic entities for idea processing. These entities are displayed in a multi-level, 3D workspace." It's true. Organizing note: In initial stages when planning
CmapTools	What it Does: Concept relationships - Useful in group situation Runs on: PC, Mac, Linux Free Uniqueness: It's one of only a few tools to provide this combination of functions Best Feature: Public server allowing group projects. Worst Feature: Initially difficult to see how powerful it is. Learning Time: Hours --- Export/Import: Medium My use: Infrequent --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: I have used it quite successfully in several courses. It was particularly helpful in promoting class interaction. Organizing note: Useful when trying to make connections between concepts
Filemaker Pro	What it Does: Database tool (relational) with exceptionally straightforward interface Runs on: PC, Mac Price: $250 Best Feature: Allows fairly easy keeping of detailed grading and attendance records and personalized Emails. Worst Feature: You'll have to invest several days of time to get comfortable enough to use it (or any database) easily. Learning Time: Days --- Export/Import: Good My use: Daily --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: You want to pay for Filemaker if you do a lot of database work and want a really good user interface. Any time you get over about 100 things that need to be remembered, sorted, searched - up to that point Excel may be easier. If printed output appearance is critical FileMaker is excellent. - Access (in MSOffice) is licensed, but tougher to use. Base in Openoffice is an Access clone, and currently very flaky. MySQL is free and even tougher for the non-techie. Organizing note: Any time you get over about 100 things that need to be remembered, sorted, searched - up to that point Excel may be easier. If output appearance is critical FileMaker is superb Review & Comments about Filemaker Pro in Academic Tools Blog
Freemind	What it Does: Relationship diagrams - brainstorming etc. Runs on: PC, Mac, Linux Free, Open Source Best Feature: Very rapid development of a set of concept relationships Worst Feature: Cannot add much text or images. Learning Time: Half Hour --- Export/Import: Medium My use: Infrequent --- Confidence in Evaluation: Medium Comment: A simple but elegant tool for organizing a bunch of ideas. Ideal at the brainstorming phase of a project. Quicker to use than cMap, but not as powerful. Review & Comments about Freemind in Academic Tools Blog
KeyNote	What it Does: Outline note taker and organizer Runs on: PC only Free Best Feature: Speed of access. Simple format Worst Feature: If you don't like outlines you'll hate this. Learning Time: Half Hour --- Export/Import: Medium My use: Regular --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: Wonderful outline/notetaking/organizing tool. It's no longer being updated, but it's still very good. See the commercial product myBase for its successor. Organizing note: Particularly collecting stray pieces of info - because it's so fast Review & Comments about KeyNote in Academic Tools Blog
MS Excel	What it Does: The standard spreadsheet Runs on: PC, Mac Drexel Site License Best Feature: Easy lists Worst Feature: Time to learn its vast array of features. Learning Time: Hours --- Export/Import: Good My use: Daily --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: For any heavy user it's worth adding the spreadsheet assistant mentioned elsewhere, and then learning how to record/write macros (VBA). Organizing note: Excellent for small lists.
MS Word	What it Does: The standard word processor Runs on: PC, Mac Drexel Site License Best Feature: Outlines for those who love them. Styles for those who love them. Worst Feature: Complexity beyond the simple. Immediately Useful: Yes --- Learning Time: Hours --- Export/Import: Good My use: Daily --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: For those writing a lot it is very much worth exploring the bells and whistles - they can make a very big difference. Organizing note: The outline mode is very good for organizing.
myBase	What it Does: Outline organizer like Keynote - excellent internal search Runs on: PC only Price: $59 Best Feature: Splendid search - many features. Worst Feature: Must like outlining. Learning Time: Hours --- Export/Import: Good My use: Daily --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: "myBase is a versatile free-form database system that allows entry of unstructured text, webpages, images, documents, emails and even arbitrary files without regard to length or format. All information is compressed with the integrated zip utility and stored in the tree structured outline form." True. Use the free program Keynote till you want more. Organizing note: The search is more powerful than Keynote Review & Comments about myBase in Academic Tools Blog
pb wiki	What it Does: Online, easy wiki (collaborative, interlinked document) creation. Runs on: Web Free Best Feature: "Easy" creation of interactive websites. Worst Feature: Must learn wiki formatting rules. Learning Time: Hours --- My use: Regular --- Confidence in Evaluation: Good Comment: I use for having students submit "logs" of weekly activity that I want to be visible to others. It's very successful although there are inevitably plagiarism possibilities.

 

 

Update: 2006-11-26