Blog | Teddy Svoronos

Keynote is in a rut
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on October 19, 2024

Readers of this blog know I have often sung the praises of Apple’s Keynote app as a teaching tool. Its animation capabilities, particularly with Magic Move, allows me to easily make effective visualizations of statistical concepts for my class. Its Keynote Remote feature allows me to control Keynote on my... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
Feature @ the Center for International Development
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on February 27, 2024

The folks at CID wrote a feature on my work and approach to teaching. You can access it here! Happy to discuss any or all aspects of it.
Tags:
- Misc
Using Google Colab to teach R
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on June 23, 2023

I was lucky to be a participant at the TeachECONference, presenting on my use of Google Colab to introduce students to R (with my colleague Sharad Goel). Video below, and sample Colab notebook here! [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- R
Guesting on Mac Power Users
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on May 23, 2021

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited back to the Mac Power Users podcast for the third time (previous visits here and here). This time we focused heavily on video conferencing for obvious reasons, and I talked about some tips related to Zoom window management, making use of... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- Productivity
- ipad
- online teaching
- podcasts
- zoom
Free Options for Sharing Handwritten Student Work
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on January 16, 2021

A recurrent problem during my statistics course last semester was that it was difficult for students to share handwritten work, diagrams, and drawings when I sent them into breakout rooms to work on a particular problem. [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- tfh
- zoom
Teaching Remotely with Slack
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on January 14, 2021

As I prepare for my Spring semester, one of my biggest wins from the Fall was my use of Slack as a clearinghouse for discussions, announcements, and questions related to my course. I made this short video summarizing how I used it. [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- slack
- tfh
Recommended Student Settings for Zoom
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on September 13, 2020

I made a short video illustrating the Zoom settings that I believe are well-suited for my style of teaching. I’m assuming students are using around a 13” laptop without an external monitor. If you think your students would find this useful, please feel free to share! [Read More]
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Putting a timer on your shoulder using an ATEM Mini
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on September 9, 2020

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Tags:
- Pedagogy
- atem mini
- ipad
- online teaching
- virtual cameras
- zoom
The Promise and Peril of Virtual Cameras on Zoom
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on September 7, 2020

A problem and a potential solution [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- atem mini
- mmhmm
- obs
- online teaching
- virtual cameras
- zoom
Playing a Collaborative Playlist on Zoom
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on August 13, 2020

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Teaching from Home: Three Reflections After a Week of Teaching Online
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on March 29, 2020

Last week was my first full week of teaching online. Like virtually every other teacher in the world right now, I learned a lot about what works for my course and what does not. There were many realizations that I had about the logistics of my class: for example, I... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- online teaching
- tfh
- zoom
Teaching From Home (TFH): Writing on a Tablet
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on March 20, 2020

No matter what we teach, many of us make use of handwriting when in the classroom. We write on a whiteboard/blackboard, or write on handouts using a document camera, or write on slides being project on a screen. Writing helps guide learners toward the ideas that you consider important, and... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- apps
- handwriting
- ios
- ipad
- Keynote
- online teaching
- presentations
- tfh
- zoom
Teaching from Home (TFH): Hardware
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on March 19, 2020

First, to whoever is reading this: I hope this finds you safe, healthy, and (relatively) happy. While this is very far from the first thing on folks’ minds, I’ve received a lot of feedback on my online teaching setup and online teaching strategy, and thought I should share my ongoing... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- apps
- edtech
- handwriting
- ios
- ipad
- Keynote
- online teaching
- presentations
- tfh
- zoom
Producing, Recording, Editing, and Sharing Animated Videos on iPad
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on December 4, 2018

A significant part of my pedagogical approach involves the creation of short, animated videos that convey statistical concepts. Students watch these videos and answer a few quiz questions, which I can then use to make better use of the time we have in class together. [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- Productivity
- ios
- ipad
- production
iWork gets LaTeX equation editing
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on June 15, 2018

In April of last year, Apple released an update for Pages that supported rendering equations entered using LaTeX or MathML. I was really impressed that Apple chose to support not one but two standards for entering equations1, but was pretty bummed to learn that equation rendering was specific to Pages.... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- Productivity
- ios
- ipad
- Keynote
- latex
15 Minutes on Two-Stage Exams
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on January 16, 2018

I delivered a short presentation on two-stage exams1 at the Harvard Initiative for Teaching and Learning Annual Conference back in September. I’ve talked about these in the past, but this time (a) there’s more of a focus on quantifying collaboration, and (b) there are some neat visuals that I couldn’t... [Read More]
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My Tech Setup in the Classroom
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on November 26, 2017

I’ve talked at length about the technological details of my teaching setup, and I frequently get questions about exactly how it works. This post is an attempt to document my current setup1. Before reading on, it’s important to note a few things: I do mean current; it’s constantly in flux... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- apple tv
- ipad
- Keynote
- presentations
Collaborative Exams on the Teach Better Podcast
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on October 10, 2017

My journey through the world of podcasts continues, this time on the Teach Better Podcast (an excellent podcast that you should check out if you have any interest in pedagogy and higher ed). This one has (almost) no technology in it. Instead we discuss a collaborative exam structure called Two... [Read More]
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Summer Podcasts
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on August 31, 2017

This summer I was lucky enough to guest on two podcasts. [Read More]
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Interview: Live Annotation of Student Work with GoodNotes
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on July 13, 2016

I was recently interviewed on ABLConnect, a Harvard-based “online database of active learning efforts in post-secondary classrooms.” I talk about my use of GoodNotes to take pictures of student work in class, embed them into a GoodNotes document, and annotate them without skipping a beat. It’s a great tool to... [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- apple tv
- ios
- presentations
- workflows
Mac Power Users #319
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on May 10, 2016

This week I was on Mac Power Users to talk about my workflows related to teaching and academic research. I’m a huge fan of MPU so it was quite an honor to be on. [Read More]
Tags:
- Pedagogy
- Productivity
- Research
- apps
- handwriting
- icloud
- ios
- ipad
- Keynote
- latex
- notetaking
- podcasts
- presentations
- Workflow
- workflows
Annotating Screenshots in iOS with Mail
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on March 7, 2016

Gabe Weatherhead has an awesome post about how he uses the awesome Pixelmator to annotate screenshots. It’s awesome. [Read More]
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In Praise of GoodNotes
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on November 19, 2015

Note: I have no affiliation whatsoever with the developers of GoodNotes, nor do I receive any compensation from them. I just really, really like their app. [Read More]
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A Good Day to Keynote Hard
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on October 16, 2015

Keynote on iOS got an update yesterday, with a zillion improvements, the biggest of which are multitasking and Bluetooth keyboard support. These are features that are being added to lots of iOS 9 apps, but on Keynote they enable three fantastic use cases during presentations. [Read More]
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Showing Context with Magic Move
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on July 30, 2015

I use Keynote for all of my presentations. It’s a hassle to have to run them off of my own devices instead of using a venue’s PC (though it’s getting easier), but it’s worth it for one reason: making animations is incredibly easy in Keynote. [Read More]
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Interviewed by Noteshelf
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on February 23, 2015

I was interviewed by the makers of Noteshelf, one of the first (of many) handwriting apps that I bought on the iPad. Though I’ve since switched to GoodNotes for its more advanced features, Noteshelf is the app that has come closest to emulating an actual notebook and pen in my... [Read More]
Tags:
- Productivity
- apps
- handwriting
- ios
- ipad
Save files on iOS with Workflow
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on January 4, 2015

I like getting work done on my iPhone and iPad. At times it gets impractical (I’m looking at you Stata), but there are lots of simple actions that I can do from my iOS devices, oftentimes faster than I can do on my Mac. One task that I always thought... [Read More]
Tags:
- Productivity
- icloud
- ios
- Workflow
How I will write my dissertation
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on December 26, 2014

In the spirit of getting my procrastinating done during the holidays (that’s how procrastinating works, right?), I thought I’d share how I choose to write complex papers. For my purposes, “complex” means any paper that involves some combination of: [Read More]
Tags:
- Productivity
- Research
- latex
- markdown
Contradictions of the MPH
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on November 13, 2014

But the more time I spent as a student of public health, the more my worries of impracticality gave way to a funny feeling of being left out. Our professors were trained as statisticians, economists, and sociologists; what was I being trained as? Was public health a discipline? An area... [Read More]
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Increasingly Irrelevant Distinctions
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on May 26, 2014

When I started graduate school a few years ago, I was terribly concerned about my notetaking setup (in retrospect, I should have been more concerned about statistics). I was about to get hammered by information that took a variety of forms: lots of equations and diagrams, but also enough discussion-oriented... [Read More]
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On Rigor 2
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on May 25, 2014

This is a followup to my previous post on external validity and rigor, and a further attempt to pretend that this blog is not just about productivity, apps, and hacks. [Read More]
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Wireless Presenting Just Got a Lot Easier
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on April 3, 2014

Much has been said about Apple’s updates to Keynote, Pages, and Numbers last year, and much of that has been pretty negative. However, Apple has been rolling out updates to these apps over the past few months and, as of the latest update, has made a wonderful thing possible: it... [Read More]
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MOOC Money
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on February 24, 2014

Caroline M. Hoxby recently published a NBER working paper on the role of MOOCs in the future business models of both “selective” and “non-selective” postsecondary institutions. The bulk of the paper would be interesting only to an economist, but the end is where things get interesting. [Read More]
Tags:
- Commentary
- Pedagogy
- edtech
- moocs
On Rigor
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on February 23, 2014

Lant Pritchett wrote a piece for the Building State Capacity blog about the notion of “rigorous evidence.” At the risk of putting words in his mouth, my sense is that his argument boils down to this: promoters of evidence-based policy overplay their hands by focusing exclusively on internal validity1. He... [Read More]
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EZ does it
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on February 20, 2014

While discussing research workflows with colleagues, I’ve been surprised to hear that many get the full text of a journal article by coming across an article, navigating to their school library website, searching for the journal under E-Resources, clicking on the journal link, digging down to the article of interest,... [Read More]
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Teaching Regression Discontinuity
By Teddy Svoronos
Posted on December 29, 2013

A very enjoyable post on the regression discontinuity study design over at the must-read Development Impact blog. I was lucky enough to introduce this design to a room full of policy master’s students this semester, and I agree completely with all of Evans’ points. In addition to being a conceptually... [Read More]

Keynote is in a rut

Feature @ the Center for International Development

Using Google Colab to teach R

Guesting on Mac Power Users

Free Options for Sharing Handwritten Student Work

Teaching Remotely with Slack

Recommended Student Settings for Zoom

Putting a timer on your shoulder using an ATEM Mini

The Promise and Peril of Virtual Cameras on Zoom

Playing a Collaborative Playlist on Zoom

Teaching from Home: Three Reflections After a Week of Teaching Online

Teaching From Home (TFH): Writing on a Tablet

Teaching from Home (TFH): Hardware

Producing, Recording, Editing, and Sharing Animated Videos on iPad

iWork gets LaTeX equation editing

15 Minutes on Two-Stage Exams

My Tech Setup in the Classroom

Collaborative Exams on the Teach Better Podcast

Summer Podcasts

Interview: Live Annotation of Student Work with GoodNotes

Mac Power Users #319

Annotating Screenshots in iOS with Mail

In Praise of GoodNotes

A Good Day to Keynote Hard

Showing Context with Magic Move

Interviewed by Noteshelf

Save files on iOS with Workflow

How I will write my dissertation

Contradictions of the MPH

Increasingly Irrelevant Distinctions

On Rigor 2

Wireless Presenting Just Got a Lot Easier

MOOC Money

On Rigor

EZ does it

Teaching Regression Discontinuity