Friday's Five Geeky Tech Things

In the spirit of Web 2.0, I have decided to compile a list of five geeky tech items on occasional Fridays. The Friday Five is manageable list of five tech related items that allows me to get some interesting things out for folks to try. My goal is to find things that make life on the web easier and more enjoyable. The items on each list may be compiled thematically, or they may just be a hodgepodge of unrelated items. Here's the first one:

The Friday Five
(look em all up online here!)

1. Jing: Screencapture software for Windows and Mac that allows you to take a picture of whatever is on your desktop and save it to your computer. Jing also allows for the creation of screencasts (think mini movies) where you "film" whatever is happening on your screen (voice is included, too). Easy to use and fun.

2. Sharetabs: What a cool website, and perfect for educators. Sharetabs basically allows you to collect all of the links you want to collect in one convenient link. As their site says, "Add a list of links to the form below and submit it to get a single link to them all, conveniently displayed in tabs. Great for sharing in Email, IM, Twitter, or SMS." In fact, the link to all of these five items can be found at http://www.sharetabs.com/?friday_five_april_24. Great resource for teachers!

3. Geeky Science Papers you Need to Read: maybe a bit geeky, but interesting and free for the hardcore web folks or wannabes (no, I'm not thinking about myself, but if the shoe fits, right?)

4. 25 Places to Find Awesome Stock Photos, Free and Cheap: Want to include professional grade photos in your presentations or class materials? Worried about copyright or illegal use of intellectual property? Just want to find some cool photos? Here's the place to do it. Most sites are free, but some are inexpensive, and most allow their photos to be used in educational or non-commercial settings.

5. The Web in Numbers: Interesting Read about the rise of social media on Mashable. If you were ever interested in just how big Facebook, Twitter, and other sites are truly getting, then this is the site for you.


Enjoy!

The Constancy of Ideas

Let's talk turkey here. Life is driven by ideas: family, love, work, play. It is safe to say, in reality, that we are made up of the collected ideas we hold various degrees of faith in. We are artists, poets, thinkers, logicians, writers, speakers, etc. The ideas are self-generated as well as foist upon us by outside influences- good and bad. It's like a matrix, an inter-connected web of the perceptions or labels that are tagged to us. I have been thinking about this idea for a while now, having felt the pinch of perceptions formed by others about me and changing them, if possible. Or if not to change them, then to at least to recognize them and limit the power that they have.

But it is funny to recognize that there are perceptions of us that are completely divorced from the inner reality we all possess. So, say, I decide to go out and buy a motorcycle- hypothetically. The idea kind of flies in the face of the notions most people have of me: staid, thoughtful, stoic (I guess). Which is an interesting place to be, in the middle of a social experiment. I mean, we all change ourselves from time to time, right, break the mold and renew again. So it's a good thing, really, to try new things, if at the very least to keep people on their toes, and at the most to see and experience new elements of life.

And another thing to consider is that if you never change, people really do get sick of your amazing potential. And you might be sick of it yourself, too.

The Times Union Tech Blog

I am very excited! I have been asked to write a guest post for the Albany Times Union's Technology Blog, and am currently gathering the info I need for a run at the "big time." Dave Adkins, a regular contributor to the blog and a colleague (I presented with Dave at a seminar on Cyber Safety at Voorheesville High School last month), asked me to sub for him while he was away. This is both exciting and daunting at the same time.

I mean, what can I offer to the discussion that these techies (Dave, or should I refer to him as Dr. Adkins(?), has a PhD. from the State University in Information Science and is Director of IT for New York State United Teachers) haven't already discussed? What can I add that won't seem trivial or banal?

I suppose I will go from the perspective of a teacher, and simply rewrite the post I gave here about RSS feeds and my cell phone. The way I see it, that post is applicable to all interests and professions...we all want to be up on the latest trends in blogs, right? (Is my inner geek showing?) And, at the very least, it seems like a reasonable thing to write about from a teacher/techie angle. So problem solved, I guess. I'll let you know when the post comes out!