Jotform

On the delightful availability of free form creation tools!
Well lets face it, as a researcher and an academic, I am not as excited by the prospect of the latest 4D TV innovation, as I am with the prospect of discovering a new website or app for creating forms. I love tech, as much as I can understand of it, and I love using it in both my research and in my classrooms. If I can put something online and have it available to my students, I will do it. So consequently, the discovery of jotform.com is something similar to discovering youtube and instant streaming after having trolled the old neighborhood video store for years.

Pros:
1. I can convert any form into an online jotform. From creating membership submission forms for the nonprofit I advised, to creating peer evaluation forms for my class, to survey forms for my research, I have used this website every which way. With great results.
2. The forms are mobile responsive so I can generate a link or a QR code and have my students fill in surveys or forms during class using their smartphones. Yes! I encourage them to bring their smartphones. Let's face it, they are going to bring them to the class to facebook and IM anyway, I might as well help them put those to a better use.
3. The myriad ways you can download the data! Excel or PDF.
4. The ability to go back in and correct form submissions if there have been errors. Which invariably a student does make every now and then.
5. Neat little widgets for calculations within the form, or for adding paypal right there in the form. Pretty handy.
6. Finally, the myriad other apps. I have tried and used some, since I am an avid google user. However, I have only discovered a handful so far.
7. User friendly menus for each form tool, especially the one that lets  you copy and paste a whole list of potential options for the drop down menus.

Cons:
Unfortunately, the list is pretty long. This might just be a downside of using the free version, but it does sour my experience a bit. Not enough to stop using jotform, or to stop inciting people to use it. But just enough to make me think about looking for alternatives.
1. The form designer tool is a bit clunky and doesn't allow a lot of flexibility.
2. The tool for entering a title does not have an HTML editor. Sucks some of the control for designing away from the user.
3. The matrix survey tool does not have an option to assign calculation options. This means, that I cannot just enter my survey form in a grid or a matrix to make it visually appealing and easier to navigate, nor can I easily upload my grading rubrics, without resorting to complicated patterns with the radio buttons.
4. I have yet to have success with the "convert to a pdf form" menu!
5. To that previous point, it does not let me upload a previous paper or pdf form and read survey items from it. This would certainly reduce the time and work required to convert old surveys into jotform surveys.
6. 100MB of space for the free version is a bit tiny. In this day and age of large file sizes, I am unable to ask my students to submit videos or pictures on their forms. Wish I could. However, as an educator I really cannot afford the hefty monthly subscriptions required.
7. With only a 100 submissions allowed in the free version, I am not able to use jotform for peer evaluations and have to resort to google forms, which leaves a lot to be desired. Realistically, if I collect peer evaluations for even a class of 25, I need to be able to have (25x24) 600 submissions. From just one class. Or better yet, if the matrix form tool worked the way the others do at allowing form calculations and filling out idisyncratic headings into it, I may not need so many different forms. However, in either case, jotform leaves me in a soup and I always end up using google forms.
8. The inability to use data analytics in live for each item. For example, google lets me collect data and publish the analytics (as a pie chart or a bar graph) it live as my students are filling it. This makes it such a great tool in the classroom. However, jotform does't do that. Which means I cannot use it to gauge student reactions or comments in live form, I have to wait to get back to my computer in office and do the number crunching myself.

All in all, please know that I may be asking jorform to rival Qualtrics, that I have used often for really serious research. However, I am pleased with Jotform. As an educator, I wish there was more free space and more user submissions allowed so I could use it with my students. However, till I find greener pastures, I am really excited about this tool.

To all you working mothers out there...

Sitting in my office, with un-shed tears shining in her eyes, was this beautiful, hard working, and bright student, who said, "Dr. Priya, I have a five year old son, and it is so tough because I was studying yesterday and he wanted to spend time with me, and I kept saying, five more minutes..." This student is a full time employee, a full time mother, and just so happens to be a full time student as well. She wasn't complaining, no, rather she had approached me to get pointers on how to prepare for internships, and the conversation veered to struggles for carving out time.

Those tears in her eyes, tugged at my heart. I didn't just see her, but I saw in her my mother, who worked full time all the years that I was growing up. Even thirty some years later she has guilt  for some innumerable oversights she remembers. I saw all those friends and colleagues of mine who work full time and do the best for their children, and can yet never seem to shake the guilt off of their shoulders. The guilt of not being able to spend another hour with the child every day, or the guilt of  not being able to serve a three course dinner, or the guilt of missing a school recital, or that of not being able to make that important science project with their kid. Guilt for every time they were simply human. Growing up it seemed that the one defining emotion my mother always bore in her heart was this guilt.  I don't think my father has guilt of any kind in his heart about missing any of my school plays. Chances are that he doesn't even remember he missed any! I still love him, and I still love my mother.

In fact, I would never have it any other way. Having grown up with a full time working mother has made me the person I am today, and I love her.

Mom, maybe I neglected to express to you what growing up with you did for me. So here it is. I learnt that a woman is more than a wife and a mother - I learnt that from watching you. I learnt that my identity can be carved by my intellect, my contribution to the society, my education, and my profession. I also learnt that I am actually independent and capable of not only taking care of myself, but also striking the fear of god in my siblings! I developed my love for books from all those trips to the college library, when there was no daycare and you took me to work with you! In a way, I learnt to be a better professor by watching you with your students. Most of all, I would never change a single day of interaction that you brought to the dinner table, because you saw the world in a different way, every day, than papa did. I grew up with two strong, independent, and brilliant individuals, who brought their work and their experiences home with them everyday, and made me yearn to, one day, be like them. I do not want to change a single day of my life with you. Well, except maybe that day when I wanted those blue earrings and you wouldn't let me buy them!

Some days, when I get ready for work, I see you in the mirror, the way you looked in the morning, getting ready for work. Some of my favorite memories are of sitting there on your bed, on Saturday mornings, watch you tie your sari and do your makeup for work.

Or the times when at the age of five, I would come home from school at one o'clock in the afternoon, and spend the next four hours alone at home waiting for you to come home. Now, these were the days before there was cable TV. These were the days when in India, you had only one channel, DD or Doordarshan, and they played chitrahar on Wednesday nights and a movie on Sunday nights. That's it. Hello! I had the most fun then. It was my own world, unfettered by what others might approve or disapprove of, unhindered by the imposition of appropriateness. I developed my skill for story telling and story writing in those four hours. I discovered that I had a talent for singing and developing plays. My success as a theater actress and director in later college years attests to that.

I am not writing to reminisce about my childhood, nor am I writing to put down stay-at-home moms. No, the whole point of the feminist movement was to help give the ability to women to choose their own path in life, and not feel guilty about it. 

I am writing for my student. I am writing for all of my students who are working mothers and can't stop feeling guilty, for all of my friends who are full time working mothers and seem to make a profession of putting themselves down for missing something. Finally, I am writing for my mother.

Ladies, please pat your backs. I am not going to give you the standard, "You are doing the best..." line. No! The reality is you will not be there for every minute of your child's life as much as a stay at home mother might be able to. Despite all of your work and best intentions you will miss something. But you know what, that is okay. It is okay because you are giving your children a different childhood. A childhood that will show them what being a strong, independent and accomplished person means. That will teach them, like no other life lesson, that men and women are equals. That will make your children stronger than you can imagine and give them a world view and exposure that they might never have had otherwise.

So please, all of you working mothers, stop feeling guilty, if only for a few hours. You too Mom!!

Fathers are hard cotton-balls!

...I was nineteen and still able to compose verse and learning the concept of oxymoron...

This morning, while browsing through my old files in a bid to back up my laptop after I lost almost 3GB of crucial data the night before, I found a poem I had written years ago. The files upon files of my poems, tucked and forgotten in a lonely folder, deep in the recesses of my computer's hard drive were serendipitous on Father's day. I have been absorbed reading all my creations and marveling at the fact that I could write like this (not any more). However, this poem made me nostalgic. My father and I have a deeply loving, deeply flawed and a deeply contentious relationship. I forget at times how much we love each other, and I forget at times how much I miss him. This one is for you papa, from both the nineteen year old Kanu and the one sitting across oceans from you wishing she could share a meal and a hug with you on Father's day today.

"Fathers are hard cotton-balls!

You know the lifeguard will save your life,

You have this assurance before you jump into deep waters.

You know, the same way, that your father will save you;

You have this assurance before you jump into life’s deep waters.

You know he’ll be there, through thick and thin,

Stoic, stiff-lipped and soft beneath.

Oops! But what when you’ve made a mistake?

He’ll get angry, shout at you, thunder like Thor,

And then, just like him shower you down (now we’re wet!)

But that’s not all!

He’ll heal your wounds, soothe those aches,

Suture cuts, which life has made.

In his own very special, severe way,

He’ll help you right the wrongs you have made.

Fathers are hard cotton-balls you know,

Strong, capable, dependable, indifferent, casual,

Despotic, tyrannous, absentminded (Good Lord! What a mixture!)

But beneath all that they have delicate hearts, which care for you,

And love you more than anything else in the world.

They’ll risk their life and all their savings,

To see you successful and happy in life.

They’ll never let you know how much they’ve sacrificed;

But rather push; push you so hard you’ll think they are merciless,

Punish you so badly at your mistakes, you’ll think they are most cruel.

But you never realise that in doing all that,

What strength, what willpower has gone.

They love you – so they’re cruel,

They love you – so they push,

They love you – so they sacrifice,

They love you – so they get hurt.

It’s true; Fathers are hard cotton-balls you know."

Is it really just about fiscal issues?

Finally after months and months of inactivity, of total apathy on my part, something has me all fired up! I just finished watching the GOP republican debate, and it seems my emotions are running amok! So I am writing while the analysis of the debate is on at various news channel. My first rant though, before I go on to what troubled me about the debate, is about how I am really not sure that I appreciate all the analyses. I sometimes wish there would be a news channel that does what it is supposed to do - give us a completely unbiased account of the days events. I do not really want anyone to tell me how to make up my mind about issues, how to frame opinions or even how to vote! News channels should not tell people how they "should" think, but rather just give a dry version it all! I miss those days!

Now on to the issues that emerged out of the debate that got me all fired up! although I do agree we need a change in leadership to repair the economy and all the issues attached with it. I do believe that if we only keep our eye on the fiscal issues we loose sight of where America and the rest of the world is headed.

The biggest one: about the lack of sensitivity to issues concerning the science and environment. Making a statement that the science does not agree is inane if nothing else! Are you kidding me!? Do we not all know what are renewable and nonrenewable resources of energy. Irrespective of whether we agree or not that human activity affects climate and the current climate change, can we not agree that coal, petrol and other fossil fuels have a limited storehouse? Can we not agree that burning fossil fuels produces smoke and releases gases into the atmosphere not part of the nature? Can we also not agree that air, wind, water and sun are all natural sources of energy, sources that barring calamities and the total destruction of this planet are going to be present no matter what? Now finally can we not all agree that harnessing these sources of energy for majority of our energy needs makes much more sense? We teach our kids to be responsible, isn't it time we actually show them what it means to be responsible! Instead of hiding behind the excuses that science does not agree, can we not take it upon ourselves to be careful and respectful of the fruits this earth gives us! Really did we not all watch the movie Avatar? did we not get the message? Perhaps not is what I think after listening to the majority of the GOP candidates!

America is seems has an unabashedly short term orientation. We are all set to finish whatever non-renewable resources we have without any regard for the future. As long as we can maintain our lifestyle for the next 10 maybe 20 years, why should we care about our future generations? Why not be more foolish than our ancestors were in the dark ages and this time instead of burning people at the stakes who believed that the earth is round and actually revolves around the sun, instead of the other way around, this time we will burn people (figuratively of course) that say that human activity is destroying the planet earth! Ha, lets all do it, lets collectively regress to pre-rennaisance Europe! Atleast the aboriginals, and all the so called pagan religions had it right! Worship mother earth, the sun god and the wind god! I have to admit those religions would seem to be based much more on science than our current philosophies!Isn't it time we developed a long-term orientation and thought of more than just instant gratification! 

Don't even let me get started about what I think about the notion of "I do not want Govt to tell me...let people decide what is best! I do not want the govt to hand guns to an officer, let people own their own guns! " To a certain extent it makes complete sense to let people decide their destinies. But if we look at this philosophy closely, it doesn't explain then why we need to have any govt at all. Why should the govt worry about creating jobs too? Why does the govt need to maintain law and order? Why don't we all just get our own guns and go back to living in the wild wild west! I thought that our society, and the goal of any society, is moving forward and making sure we do not repeat the mistakes of our past. Making sure that the society becomes more civilized, that social structure is maintained and people feel so safe that they are free to pursue happiness! However, if we are letting people go back to the Darwinian era of every man for himself, and the survival of the fittest, then we are no better than some of the so called third world countries.

Kanu ki Shaadi Part 2

This is actually Day 4 and I am thoroughly jetlagged and tired and annoyed with both Delta and Air India!! Let me start by telling you where Day 2 and 3 went by - at the airport and in travel!

Day 2 started early in Atlanta and went smooth till we reached JFK and encountered the incompetent ground staff of Air India in the airport. It started with an empty counter at 9:30am in the morning which should have been a 24/7 counter. Finally the workforce arrived at 11:30am, consisting mostly of what appeared to be hormone high incompetent adolescents, who couldn't figure out their own computer system, could not get our itinerary correct and took thrice as long to understand what to do. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was going to go wrong, but oh well I chalked it down to lack of sleep. Well what do you know...?

Day 3 : After a relatively comfortable flight, great service and food (I have to give that much to Air India) we reached India, after a tiring 14 hour nonstop flight, only to find that our bags had not arrived and infact had been misplaced! All four of them! How does an airline do that? Was it the Delta flight from Atlanta that misplaced them or the Air India flight from JFK? No one seems to know. So here we are, Greg and I, with just one spare set of clothing if any (we had filled our carry on bags with the electronics we were carrying so that no one steals them from the checked bags). We filed a complain and drove five hours home. Greg called the Delta and Air India offices all evening to try and figure out what happened to the bags...no one knows. So here we are, at our own wedding without even a stitch of clothing. I do not have my clothes, makeup, toiletries, shoes, and neither does Greg!

Day 4: After countless hours of calling Air India (no answer and busy tones the whole time), Delta (same results), JFK and Atlanta Delta offices this is what we know:
Operator 1 says, "Ma'am your bags should have reached Delhi today..." and then she hangs up without any more information.
Operator 2 says, "Ma'am your bags never reached JFK. Please call me in two hours and I will followup your case and tell you what we find." This was at 1am in IST (a few minutes ago). We had been calling non stop for the previous 24 hours already, so neither Greg, nor Yashika or I have the energy to wait and call them back. Day starts at 7am tomorrow morning and it is time we all hit the bed with exhaustion and worry!!

I hope Day 5 brings some good news :(...

Kanu ki shaadi (a.k.a Kanu's Wedding) Part 1

I started this blog a year ago in the hope that I might be able to regain my former flair at writing. I have long since given up the hope for that ever happening in the near future. However, a few hours ago I realized this is the best way for me to update all my friends on what is happening and is about to happen in the next few days.

Well for starters I am about to get married. Now for those of you who know my aversion for the institution, this might come as a shock to say the very least. Sorry for disappointing you all. For those of you who were waiting with abated breath for me to take the plunge someday, with someone - anybody - your days or waiting are over! Yes, I am doing it!

So here is the plan: from tonight till the end of our trip to India (my fiance and I), I am going to make it a point to get online and write on my blog about everything that happened in the day (with pictures whenever possible). I will however request you to have patience with my periodical inability to stay coherent during a narration :)

Day 1 and counting down...It is 11pm on a cold Saturday night in Atlanta. I am sitting here in Greg's mac (do not ask me how I am managing to work on one of 'these' machine!), and instead of checking my work mailbox, much to my chagrin I am busy filling the reams of paper (alright virtual space) about the countdown to the D-day. The dooms day for both of us! Our flight to India is in a few hours and in a bid to keep jetlag at a minimum I proposed we go to bed early and get through the 12 hour layover, Greg on the other hand is proposing to stay up all night and all day and then crash like a log on the plane. He even has some Tylenol PM in his overnight bag I think. Of course we are both arguing over which is the best method and thus no one is sleeping, so I guess we all know who is eventually winning! Urghhh!!!

I walked for my graduating last evening and my cheeks are truly hurting from all the smiling that my face seemed to be unable to control. I can only wonder what I am going to be doing on the day of the wedding.

I hate spring in Georgia, I hate spring these days, period. I sneeze, my eyes are itching all the time, I have really bad asthma and I cant even climb the one flight of stairs i need to climb to get to my bedroom. The sheer number of medicines I am taking everyday is mind boggling! Of course it doesn't help that I am working on my dissertation these days and I just cannot afford being sick at this time.
However, I found the most amazing explanation for what is happening to me ;-)
see:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1301