Bonus Points!

Earn five bonus points for a course you are currently enrolled in with me! E-mail me the title of the last posting in this blog by Tuesday, August 31, 2010.

Replacing a Pile of Textbooks With an iPad

Would you prefer your textbooks on paper or on an iPad? An iPad is expensive, but books loaded on an iPad could be interactive (a teacher or a student could highlight a passage and leave a note or questions) or have supplemental graphics. As the author concludes, not matter how many books on your iPad, it will still weigh the same. See Replacing a Pile of Textbooks With an iPad.

Now Playing: Night of the Living Tech

After Wired magazine ran a recent story titled "The Web is Dead," the New York Times responded with this review of the face pace of change "in the Internet-era media and communications environment." Innovation has resulted in "a proliferation of digital media forms and fast-shifting patterns of media consumption." See Now Playing: Night of the Living Tech.

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime

Our portable technology allows us to fill any spare moments with calls, games, or online tasks. A recent NYT article suggests there is a down-side to all that multi-tasking - one that students should note. Scientists state that "when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas." See Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime.

Facebook Unveils a Service to Announce Where Users Are

Facebook's new Places feature will let users broadcast their location. As described in a recent NYT article, users can use their smartphones to "check-in" when they get to a location. That update gets sent to friends, and users can see who else has "checked-in" at the location or is close by. Privacy advocates have raised concerns about releasing this kind of information, but the potential for targeting advertising makes it an appealing feature for businesses. See Facebook Unveils a Service to Announce Where Users Are.

Making Lunch a Social Networking Game

How can you make ordering fast food a social networking game? The new restaurant 4Food will allow customers to order a custom burger, name it, and broadcast their creation to friends via social networking sites Twitter and Facebook. Each time someone orders their custom burger, the creator gets a food credit. See Making Lunch a Social Networking Game.