Heard on the California School Library Association listserv: One way to find suggestions for books similar to the one you just read is by going to Literature Map: the tourist map of literature and typing in an author's name. What you get is a bunch of other authors scattered around on the page, with the most similar ones closest to the center. This works well with some, but not all authors. Still, it is kind of fun and a different way to look at authors -- show your friends, students. See if your favorite author is "on the map".
The new issue of Booklist was sitting next to my netbook, so I experimented with a few authors including Alexander Smith (Yippee! He has another book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series).
When I entered a new or lesser-known author such as Kathy Carmichael, author of "Diary of a Confessions Queen" (a Booklist starred review), the following message appears:
Kathy Carmichael has not found a place on the map yet.
Do you like Kathy Carmichael? If so, please click here and tell Gnod what else you like. So we can put Kathy Carmichael on the map as fast as possible.
Visited the MacWorld 2010 Exhibits in San Francisco last weekend. This was the first year without Apple. Many products were for businesses or consumers, but I looked for potential education applications. Here are a few things of interest:
MacSpeech Scribe - Personal speech transcription for the Macintosh. Good for those who are well-organized speakers, long commuters, and not-so-good typists. Those who are used to dictating letters to an assistant would find this tool handy. It looks like DragonSpeak Natually Speaking software, but for Mac.
Eye-Fi - Memory cards make your camera wireless. Features include online sharing, automatically geotagging photos, hotspot access across the USA, Ad Hoc Transfers, and endless memory. [Note: not for Flip video, which uses a thumb drive, not a memory card.]
GetUncommon.com - Your iPhone is the canvas. GetUncommon.com or you provide the art for your iPhone. Limitless inspiration for decorating your iPhone. Interesting. Guess if you can afford an iPhone you can afford making it "special".
ImageQuest Pic-to-nym - a visual puzzle that compines graphic recognition, contextual relationships, and vocabulary skills to guess the word that links a set of images. Entertaining for all ages. English Language Learners (ELL) should find pictonyms fun and instructive.
zBoost - extends cell zones. Products for car and for home/office.
Microvision Showwx - laser pico projector. Made for ipod. "Amplify your images from a device that fits in your pocket.
This year, I've been learning Adobe Illustrator and Graphic Design Fundamentals. My son alerted me to GoMediaZine ("real world advice from working artists and designers"), a site that has tons of tutorials for designers and illustrators. For example, see the GoMediaZine tutorialby Barton Damer that that shows how to make intricate patterns based on Adobe Illustrator.
This weekend, the California School Library Association started getting registrations for School Library Learning 2.0 from CSLA members who are enrolled in a Teacher Librarian certification course. CSLA greatly appreciates this special professor and her students!
CSLA members who take the course are cheered along by members of the CSLA 2.0 Team. In this case, students are directed to follow one another and comment/cheer/encourage their classmates. It is an ideal way to learn and "build community".
Years ago, my daughter created South Park characters that represented each member of the family. Mom had a coffee cup in hand. Her big brother had a beer mug. All-in-all, she did a great job creating us. At the time, she couldn't digitally move the images. But now you can create an avatar (representation of yourself) on the SP Studio and move then to your blog or other places.
Remember good ole' Netscape Navigator and the early days of the Internet? (1989) The early days of Silicon Valley? Here is a documentary of way back then...in the beginning:
AT&T News Room (1/26/10): In 2009, AT&T certified 370 wireless specialty consumer and machine-to-machine devices - such as eReaders, netbooks, digital photo frames, personal navigation devices, and home security monitoring and smart grid devices - for use on its mobile broadband network.
Major emerging mobile devices can be grouped into five categories:
eReaders: AT&T provides the mobile broadband connection for top selling eReaders, including the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook. AT&T has signed agreements to connect the Plastic Logic QUE™ proReader and Interead’s COOL-ER 3G, both expected to launch in the coming months.
Netbooks: AT&T provides embedded wireless connectivity for netbooks and laptops from major computing device manufacturers, including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung, among others.
Personal Navigation Devices: AT&T provides the network connection to the only wirelessly connected, dedicated personal navigation devices in the market, the Garmin nüvi® 1690 and the TomTom XL 340S LIVE, both featuring local search and fuel price services, among other content.
Digital Photo Frames: AT&T will provide the wireless connection for two digital photo frames – Isabella’s VIZIT and the Pandigital Photo Mail LED Digital Photo Frame – both expected to be in market in the first quarter of 2010.
Telematics Devices: AT&T enables telematics service for a major luxury automotive OEM and has plans to expand to other automakers. A telematic device can be used to receive general information via the car radio, and data relating to the vehicle location, destination, or an emergency call can be sent to a central station.
