Omnivorous Surfer

I have encountered and learned from the Interesting Ways series so many times and yet never thought about sharing it here. Then today I found this page by creator Tom Barrett where he includes links to all of them. This puts all the information he has put together at your fingertips

He has used Google presentations to create slides with uses and tips for using technology in the classroom, inviting others to add to the content. The result has been a rich resource of tested-in-the-classroom ideas for a wide range of topics. Examples of topics include using audio, the Wii, Twitter, Prezi, or Google Docs in the classroom; and  supporting spelling or writing in the classroom. This morning I was looking at Twelve Interesting Ways to Use an iPod Touch in the classroom,; I found things I had never considered and a piece of technology I did not know about, a way to share audio from a single iPod Touch with 5 students.

Note that since content may be added as teachers share their ideas, the number in the title may change. For example, the link I found and used to the iPod Touch presentation specified "Eleven," while the current count is up to twelve. By the time you look, it may be at thirteen!

If I weren't already so invested in Blogger, I would switch to Posterous. In fact, I might even think about doing that anyway. Blogging just doesn't get any easier, especially if you want the ability to use or embed almost any kind of media in your posts.

What makes it so easy? First, there's no registration, no login requried. Second there's no post creation interface: you simply send an email to Posterous. Third, there's no uploading: you simply attach any photos, videos, audio, etc. to the post email. Fourth, if you include a link to, say, a YouTube video, the video will automatically be embedded into the post. Begin to see what I mean?

If you want to get fancy, you can use Posterous to distribute audio podcasts via iTunes. If you want to autopost to Twitter or Facebook, or your photos to Flickr, you can set that up pretty easily, too.

Your site can be private if you wish; you can simply password-protect it and send the password to anyone you want to share it with. Or, if you want a group of people to be able to post (and posting is so easy anyone who can email can do it), you just add their addresses to your site; they don't have to register or do anything extra.

A quick read of the FAQs will give you a better overview of Posterous' features. If you're not already blogging, this would be such an easy way to start! What are you waiting for?

TechRepublic is a wonderful source for nearly all things technology for me, and this tip really will be useful. In a nutshell, it will do a quick look up for you in a matrix of data. For example, I have a huge...well, really large...spreadsheet of codes and other information for several hundred individuals. When I need to look up  specific data for one individual, I do a find for the name and then look across to find the data, which may be a few columns over. Using the tip in this TechRepublic article, I can prepare the spreadsheet in advance so that I can use drop-down lists for the particular individual and column I want, and the data I need, located at the intersection of that row and column, will "magically" appear at the top of the spreadsheet.

While this is not a beginner operation, it is something even a beginner can do; the directions are very specific and accurate. I had trouble grasping what it would do from reading the text, so I created an identical spreadsheet and followed the steps. It works like a dream. (See results, with my notes of what it does, at left.) If this is something you could use, give it a try. It could be a real timesaver.

I've been looking for a different online bookmark manager, and today I stumbled across one by accident that I think will serve my purposes. I wanted something other than a social bookmarking site that would let me 1) organize the bookmark list in some easy fashion and 2) share it with either selected individuals or everyone. Symbaloo does that, and with a flair!

Though screensavers aren't really needed to protect monitors anymore, this article from MakeUseOf suggests 10 creative, functional ways to use screensavers.

A lot of people already know to use a password-protected screensaver to lockdown their computers when they're away from their desks. Be aware, though, that that might cause problems for IT people who might need to work on your computer. Just have to mention that since it's happened to me before! :-)

Depending on your operating system, the "desktop art gallery" may be quite easy to accomplish, and that can be quite soothing when you are working in a windowless office.

Using an art gallery of motivational "posters" is a neat idea. A word cloud for "motivational triggering life goals," as mentioned in the article, can be created easily using Wordle (see Tagul and Wordle).

If you're into RSS feeds, Twitter, or Digg, incorporating one of them into a screensaver might be something you'd like.

I find the suggestions in  "Screensaver & Learning" to be intriguing.

If you're on a business/school network, you might check with your IT people on any suggestions that could pull data/images continually from the Internet as there may be some bandwidth issues to avoid.

I think it might be time for me to bring screensavers back for a trial after reading this one!

Wow! I have put information in a Word table simply for the purpose of sorting. Or sometimes I have used Excel and then copied and pasted into Word. In Office 2007, at least, you don't even have to use a table to use the Table/Sort option. Check this blog post at TechRepublic for details. Cool!