MakeUseOf has posted GradeGuru’s Top Ten Student Tools for 2010, a compilation of online student technology and tools that students will find useful this upcoming year, regardless of field or level of study.  The list covers all aspects of study, including chat, note-taking, collaborating on assignments, and even maximizing dorm space.

You may be familiar with a few of the tools, such as Skype and Chegg, but the list includes several newcomers as well, including:

• StudyRails, a planner which allows students to plan their study time in order to complete assignments on time. StudyRails helps students manage their time effectively through features such as blocking distracting websites, and will even send you text message reminders when it’s time to get to work!
• Study Tracker – the iPad app. by GradeGuru that helps student track their performance – students can record their study time and grades per class to monitor their effort and outcomes

These tools offer the ability to manage all aspects of your academic career, from brainstorming and quizzing yourself to scheduling dates with the library. It’s time to start planning for the upcoming year. Will you be prepared?

For the complete list of tools, visit: GradeGuru’s Top Ten Student Tools for 2010

ABC News released an article today about the trend towards college students sharing notes through online knowledge-sharing networks such as GradeGuru. The article, “More Students Paying for Class Notes,” explores the future of university level note-sharing in a world where students are increasingly using social media and online networks as tools for academic support and peer collaboration.

The article cites GradeGuru’s growth to over 300 universities in two years as an indicator of the rapid rise in demand for online communities centered on student collaboration. It highlights communities such as GradeGuru as not only serving as a note-sharing center, but also a forum where students can “build online communities, form study groups, and give feedback by rating each other’s notes.” GradeGuru is unique from the other sites mentioned in that all content on the site is available for free.

Skepticism of student online communities is addressed in the article, as some instructors believe students use note-sharing services as a substitute for going to class. GradeGuru founder Emily Sawtell said that based on McGraw-Hill Education’s research, students who use GradeGuru don’t attend class any less, instead using study materials found on GradeGuru as additional support. Further debunking the idea that students use collaboration tools as a substitute for doing their own work is cited support from academia, including GradeGuru’s recent selection as a 2010 CODiE Award Finalist.

As for GradeGuru’s success, Sawtell states, “I’d like to think it’s [successful] because it serves a need. It really taps into an activity that students wanted to be able to do, and it makes it now more efficient and gives students more reason to be open and collaborative with their peers.”

For the full article, visit: More Students Paying for Class Notes

GradeGuru will be presenting this week at the annual Campus Technology conference, the nation’s premier higher education technology conference where leaders in higher education discover and share the latest in applications, social software, and immersive platforms.  Held at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston from July 19-22, GradeGuru will join organizations and universities including Oracle, Elluminate, University of Michigan, Harvard Business School, among others in focusing on technologies of strategic interest to the mission of higher education.

The speakers, presenters, and panel members at the Campus Technology conference are “technology visionaries and thought leaders in higher education,” according to the organization’s About Us.

Kevin Cafaro will represent the GradeGuru team at the conference and host a presentation titled “Digitizing Student Learning Through Collaborative Networking.” The session, held Wednesday, July 21 at 2pm, will delve into how social media and web 2.0 collaboration technologies have the potential to influence student behavioral patterns and transform the way instructors educate by empowering students to help themselves and each other.  If you are in the Boston area, feel free to stop by and check out GradeGuru’s Poster Session!

For a list of other Campus Technology 2010 presenters, visit CT 2010 Poster Sessions.

GradeGuru has just been recognized as an Effective Practice Award Recipient by the Sloan Consortium, an association of institutions and organizations of higher education engaged in online learning.  The award will be presented at the conference, held on July 21 in San Jose, California.

The  Sloan-C Effective Practice award recognizes educators, institutions and organizations for effectively innovating to realize the potential of online learning in higher education.   Candidates for the award are judged based on strict criteria including demonstrating researched evidence of a significant impact on learning outcomes, broad scope and application in multiple learning contexts, and an overarching test of agreement that “Every institution should be doing this!”

Emily Sawtell, GradeGuru founder and Senior Director of Student Innovations at McGraw-Hill will be accepting the award on behalf of the GradeGuru team and will present at the 3^rd Annual Sloan Conference on “Ushering in the academic social web to enhance student engagement and increase retention.”

“The GradeGuru Team is honored to be an Effective Practice Award recipient. We are thrilled that our work to help students help themselves and each other is being recognized by the academic fraternity,” said Sawtell.  Recognition  of the Sloan-C Effective practice award demonstrates GradeGuru’s ability to facilitate the practice of collaboration, knowledge sharing, peer review and support and online study groups among college students.

For more information, visit: McGraw-Hill’s Knowledge Sharing Network GradeGuru Wins Sloan Consortium’s Effective Practice Award

The University of Delaware’s fashion magazine UDress, keeps their readers updated over the summer through their online blog.My post about GradeGuru and my summer internship experience was recently featured on the site. The post highlighted my first day as an intern and recapped the projects I have worked on, including social media research, personal and professional outreach and the revamp of the Fall 2010 Campus Brand Ambassador program.

The post is the first of a three part blog, so you and UDel readers will be able to follow my experience here at GradeGuru over the next few weeks!

For the full blog post:

http://udressmag.com/real-wide-world/347-intern-in-the-nyc-part-1.html

Socialbrite.org just included our Top 10 Student Tools that will make learning and college life easier for students this fall semester. GradeGuru’s Citation Manager and Study Tracker are featured alongside Skype and Google Docs as tools that will help students start their year off right. The Study Tracker iPad app is included on the list as an innovative and effective way for students to track their class performance, and the Citation Manager is highlighted as a “real time saver” for managing sources in class assignments.

To see the post, visit: Social Tools for Social Change

Ray Schroeder,  Professor and Director for the Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the University of Illinois at Springfield recently featured GradeGuru in his Education Technology blog.

In the post Professor Schroeder highlighted the change from traditional study groups and their speculated nonexistence due to the uprising in new digital technologies.  The post also mentioned the reviving of traditional study groups through tools like GradeGuru that offer social networking and the opportunity for students to take study groups online.

To see the full post visit: Education Technology-GradeGuru

Video games are no longer just an excuse to skip class, sit in front of the TV and beat a high score. Across the country, college professors are engaging their students by incorporating video games and augmented reality into the classroom. Here’s a look at how universities are implementing gaming into their curriculum:

1. Northern Illinois University- Professor of engineering Brianno Coller invented a video game where students must complete the necessary formulas and algorithms to successfully maneuver a video game car around an oval track. Coller’s educational technology has been deeply incorporated into the curriculum in two engineering classes and is used for regular homework assignments, and even the final exam.
2. University of New Mexico- Assitant professors Christopher Holden and Julie M. Sykes created Mentira, an augmented reality game used in Spanish classes at the University of New Mexico. Students play the game to enhance their conversational skills by solving a fictional murder mystery. Students are equipped with university-provided iPod Touches and travel to Los Griegos, a nearby Albuquerque neighborhood to begin their detective work. When they enter their location into the wireless handheld devices, they find a clue or a virtual character who converses with them in Spanish about a suspect.
3. Saint Norbert College- Professor Paul Waelchli of Wisconsin’s Saint Norbert College has integrated video games into his coursework to study the correlation between gaming behaviors and learning behaviors. Waelchli plans his lessons to incorporate group work centered on video games and the strategies included in such games. The games featured vary over a wide spectrum of options; sports-based games cover topics like franchise management and data construction, while Grand Theft Auto helps with problem solving and critical thinking.
4. MIT- The MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program has been working with augmented reality technology to engage people in simulation games. Players use handheld computers that set them in real-world locations to collect simulated field data, interview virtual characters, and collaborate to investigate artificial scenarios. These games encompass a variety of subjects; for example, Mystery at MIT is a game about environmental health and Timelab is a game based on the local impact of climate change. This new educational technology creates fun and effective location-based learning games.

It’s clear that video games, a long time favorite of college students, are developing into great, engaging academic tool. With the continued support from professors and universities, it looks as if the future of gaming, augmented reality and new media as an educational resource will be further integrated into the traditional learning environment.

Your notes got you through the semester… now they can get you through the summer…

Share your notes on GradeGuru

this week only for

50 bonus points

Then cash-in your points for $ and prizes this summer through our rewards partners:

Share your notes from any semester for 50 bonus points. Offer ends Sunday, June 20^th at 11:59am EST. Valid notes must be free of copyrighted materials like tests, images or anything taken directly from your professor or the internet. Maximum of 50 points awarded per user, despite quantity of notes shared.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our GradeGuru iPad Giveaway! All of your retweeting, liking, posting, inviting and sharing resulted in over 7,000 entries!

See who won the GradeGuru iPad giveaway below:

And the winner is…. Worldemotion55 from Lehigh University!

Congratulations Worldemotion55 on being the winner of the GradeGuru iPad Giveaway!

Thanks again to all those who entered!

Didn’t win this time? Keep a look out for future GradeGuru giveaways and promotional offers. In the meantime start sharing your study materials to earn points and redeem rewards now.