Again, in no particular order– just things I want to keep track of that I have left open in my browser for a while now:
- “Reading in a Whole New Way,” which is a very readable/accessible piece about how technology has altered the sense of “book,” from Smithsonian.com. And this is a link to the article itself, where there is worry about the iPad.
- Speaking of which: “Revisualizing Composition: Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students” is a WIDE whitepaper/study about the way that students use writing technologies to write in different aspects of their lives. There’s a lot here, but I was struck by the idea that students write as often for “personal fulfillment” (with Facebook, texting, etc.) than for school.
- “Nine Important Trends in the Evolution of Digital Textbooks and E-learning Content,” from something called “xplana.” I think these trends are debatable at best, but I like things that speculate about the future of publishing, especially when they are horribly wrong.
- I really liked this cbd post “Taking Notes,” and I wanted to keep a link– a note?– of it for future reference. Lots of good stuff here.
- To be honest, I don’t know if this is worth passing on, but I will anyway: From Inside Higher Ed, “An Adjunct’s Novel,” which in some ways seems amusing but in many ways seems rather predictable to me.
- Here’s a link to an iPhone app I might try out later, something called the Sleep Cycle alarm clock. Though the whole thing seems a bit problematic to me. First off, I set an alarm for a particular time not because it is the “best time” for me to necessarily wake up, but because it is the time that I logistically need to wake up to go on with my day. Second, I don’t get how this app could possibly work, and I guess what bothers me most is that the reviews suggest that it does indeed work.
- I might get this book called The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business because it does sound pretty interesting. But to be honest, between stuff I’m reading for school and for fun right now, this is going to have to go down the list a bit. Still, for the Kindle (iPad, of course) edition, it might be worth it for the next time I’m on a plane.
- What’s the point of an iPad? How might it be used in the “real world?” Here’s a link from Apple to tell us. I’ve pulled my iPad out a couple of times in my first year composition class and what I think is interesting is that my students in that class seem pretty dismissive of its usefulness. So much for “digital natives” understanding this stuff so much better.
- Speaking (again and again!) of the iPad: I recently won an iShine give-away from PadGadget by being early enough on Twitter to retreat an article from the site PadGadget. Here’s a review of the iShine, which I mostly agree with. I prefer to have my iPad in its Apple case because it’s easier to prop it up and such, but the iShine bag is handy and easy too.
- Finally, this is something I really ought to do with my laptop: from Lifehacker comes “Starting from Scratch: A Step-by-Step Guide to Reinstalling Your OS.”