Thursday, December 27, 2007

Productivity

Christmas is over and it's been a really great holiday, catching up with old friends and family with whom I haven't been able to share the holiday season for the last seven years. Now I'm listening to Chet Baker, Stan Getz and Bill Evans on YouTube as I write. I am so grateful to the people who take the time to post these videos - it's a great way to spend a productive morning.

Two friends sent emails this week advising they're closing their Facebook accounts. This is intriguing to me since I'm writing about social networking. What intrigues me is why people join a social network and how they find the time to keep up with it. I don't have time and have barely used my Facebook account. Both of my friends have said it's too impersonal, that if they want to keep in touch with a friend, they would prefer to email them. I would have to agree with that. And I'm finding that the people who do have something they want to share, they blog. But if they have something they want to share in 140 characters or less, they tweet! And today, catspyjamasnz has just introduced me to twittervision.

Yesterday I was writing to a a former colleague in the UAE, Marc Corbeil, who suggests that the Interwrite pad can replace the need for tablet pcs or smartboards. I remember when smartboards were installed in all the labs at AAWC and now they're obsolete! The Interwrite pad allows the freedom to teach anywhere in the classroom and to make any flat surface interactive. By loading tablet PC windows onto a conventional laptop and using an Interwrite pad, you can write on the screen. I contributed to Ghassan's laptop page - although I am not using laptops here, I am enjoying the exchange of ideas on his page.

For some reason, it doesn't matter which browser I use, they freeze and I have to restart and find all the pages I...Latest tweet from elemenous....Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack! She just posted this 3 minutes ago. The link was posted 10 minutes ago by the Canadian Press. Now you see why I like tweets - short, sweet, to the point.

1 comment:

Jane Ross said...

Hi Janet,
It was great to talk to you through Wimba the other day. Sadly my Internet connection dropped out and I couldn't reconnect! I live in the mountains and the communications are very bad - even the telephone! Anyway I have added you to my blog links for FET 8611 to make it easier to read posts.