Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Before I dive back into the deep waters I've been swimming in lately, I thought I'd pause and show you some of the things I'm looking into and where I find them.

For new info and inspiration:

David Pogue is the Technology Editor for the New York Times (sounds like a great job to me!).  He writes a column, runs a blog, and creates fun little videos that explore some service, some bit of software, or a piece of hardware that he's been investigating.

Wired is a great source for technology news.  I especially like their Gadget blog.  But I also visit the Politics blog for info on issues related to technology.

And where would any of us be without CNET? I like their Software blog, Tom Krazit's Apple blog, and I go for the straight news too.  But you can pick your own favorites here.

That's largely where I get news of stuff to look into or be aware of.  So here's what I'm looking into.

I heard about Library Thing from a friend online, so I explored and discovered I like a lot.  It's a cross between a social networking site, an online editable database of your books and CDs, and an online library catalog.  The programmers have started to take advantage of the confluence of all of this information by allowing you to compare your library to other members's libraries.  They also catalog the tags you use to catagorize your individual entries and collect them in a site-wide tag cloud.  This allows you to see what other members read in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, or history.

Library Thing is a membership driven site, but it's free.  You can see my profile here, and from there you can explore my library.

Next on my things to explore list is a pen top computer.  Yes, a pen top computer.  There are two makers who are currently focusing on separate demographic groups...

Leap Frog is making and marketing the Fly Fusion.  This little thing is pretty cool.  Lots of school-type functionality in a computer the size of a large magic marker.  Software is targeted for ages 5 to 18, though personally, I think 18 is really pushing it.  I think 8 to 15 year olds are most likely to embrace this gadget.  It's not all that expensive either, it retails for less than $80.00.  And the software packages average $9.99 a piece.

A company out of Oakland CA called Livescribe is making and marketing an adult version of the Fly Fusion called the Pulse Smartpen.  Again, the size of a magic marker, this pen top computer records audio as you write and links the audio to the words you've written.  Imagine being able to go back over random points in a lecture by tapping on your notes, or creating meeting minutes that call up audio records of the meeting? Scary cool.

The Pulse is considerably more expensive than the Fly Fusion.  The smaller (1GB) model is $149.00 as advertised on the web site.  But at that price it should have a fast processor and as well as more memory than the Fly Fusion.  I've got a query in to Livescribe about that, and I've asked Leap Frog for a spec sheet on the Fly Fusion (they don't have one attached to their web site).

Currently, I'm looking for curricular uses for these tools, not just individual uses.

I plan to purchase one of each of these in the first quarter of the new fiscal year (July 08) and try them out on my county technology advisory committee.

Well, that's what I'm up to these days.

Daniel



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