I’m loving MindMeister
This past December I decided to upgrade my MindMeister account for one year. I had played enough with MindMeister that I knew I really wanted to seriously play and needed more than the three mindmaps that the free account would give me. I have not regretted this purchase at all! I’ve built mindmaps for:Workshop Home/Resource PageCollaborative Notetaking at a Conference, as well as aMore Formal Presentation. What I found while developing the last …
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| June 20 2010 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Twitter as Communication Device
So many people still don’t “get” Twitter because they don’t understand that Twitter is a two-way communications technology like email, instant messaging, and text messaging. In workshops about Twitter @befitt explicitly says that you need to stay active on Twitter for at least 3 months to decide whether or not it is working for you. I think this is a great idea. I think, however, sharing some of those “gems” of stories about how Twitter “works” are valid as well. This is such a story… A couple of weeks before the …
...Continued | December 28 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Online Stopwatch: Instant Brilliance
Ever have that moment where you see a new technology and just say “this is brilliant!”?
...Continued | August 12 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
My New Tech Toy: Oakley O Rokr Pro
I’ve been busy this past year with getting the textbook published and finishing the dissertation. Busy enough that I barely blogged (obviously I’m trying to change that). And although many people assumed that I would see downtime after graduation, I’ve really been going mach 10 since mid-May. Last night, however, I finally had the time, energy, and money (yes, summer school does pay!) to reward myself for a year well done (did I say I finally finished my dissertation?). I got myself a pair of Oakley …
...Continued | June 24 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Drop.io’s Present.io is Cool
I’m finally playing catch up with my RSS feeds and I’m excited to say I’ve started flipping though the LONG lists of “new techs” be talked about in various blogs. Currently I’m reading through Free Technology for Teachers. Now I had already used Drop.io this past semester for my HUM/WST209: Women and Film course. But I was excited to read about that Drop.io had a presentation mode. I’ve played around …
...Continued | May 31 2009 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
PMOG Motivates Me
I’m excited to be more actively exploring new technologies again. The other night when I couldn’t sleep one of the people I always look to for finding out about new technologies was my good friend and constant twitterer CogDog was playing around with PMOG. Yippy...I’m so excited about this tool! I’ve been wanting to, and will now that I’ve got the super motivator, write curriculum for an intro to gaming class. Yeah, yeah...your snarky laughs are the same ones people gave a couple decades ago when faculty …
...Continued | May 17 2008 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Socializing Kids
My partner in scholarly crime gave me a Webkinz frog for the holidays. She knows that I like to play with various online technologies and generally sign up for most social networking sites to see what they can do. While we were at NCTE we briefly talked about how her nieces and nephew play with Webkinz; thus, the reason I got one for the holiday. So I happily went to the Webkinz website to get started. I was amused by Miss Birdie and got cranky listening to her …
...Continued | January 14 2008 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Thinkfree Has Portfolios
Thinkfree, an online document production and sharing tool, now has portfolio construction capabilities. I’m excited that this is another online “office” like tool that students can use without purchasing MS Office. I’ve been running my eng102, second semester FYC, courses in Google Docs this summer. I’m thinking I might try running my eng111, technical writing, in Think Free. Ultimately these types of sharing programs are what my students’ future employers are more likely to use. I’ll be presenting and writing up the results of the …
...Continued | July 11 2007 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Future Mail
How would I use Future Mail with my students? Easy...have them set up email reminders for deadlines and such on the first day of class. How wonderful is that? Honestly, however, I’m thinking this could be a useful tool for myself as well. I’m constantly emailing myself with notes. Wouldn’t it be great to acknowledge that sometimes I don’t need those messages to self, yet?! PS...as I’m chatting with people in the CTL we talked about how useful it could be to have your students email themselves goals for the …
...Continued | April 06 2007 | CommentsPosted in New Tech
Snapper
James, one of the cool and hip dudes in our CTL, just told me about the Firefox addon Snapper. It basically allows you to snip images from a webpage and downloads them as PNG (Portable Network Graphic) files. For those of us who ask students to play with new technologies, and need to make “how-to” sheets, this at least allows you to capture specific images on the page (instead of doing a “PrtSc” and then cropping). However, the best part of this app is that it puts a little red …
...Continued | April 06 2007 | CommentsPosted in New Tech