I confess I’m fascinated a little by the Kindle, though I find the price of the device steep, and I rarely buy books.  I frequent the library and see no point in owning novels, unless it’s a great book.  New Kindle is expected out this week.  Pictures and info available here.

I notice that Google Book Search is offering 1.5 million books (most are probably the types of ancient writings no one in their right mind would read) access on an IPhone or Android device.  More access is great, though I find it hard to see me reading much on my Touch.

I use Google Docs as my main online word processor and usually for short texts.  A new one is on the scene called Shutterborg.  Will have to try it out.  Composing documents online is great for things you don’t care too much about.  But I still feel uncomfortable with anything that I spend significant time on being out there.

StumbleUpon has 7 million users. Come on! Few have heard of this service, and this number seems grossly exaggerated.  If they are counting me, I haven’t logged into their system years ago for a limited week period of time.  Rules for data collection need to be established for online services like Twitter and StumbleUpon.   They need to track concurrent users, eliminating any record of someone logged in years ago, or multiple account-users.

Another book is banned.  This time Bless Me Ultima.  I’m always surprised how many books are taught.  If parents were a little more aware (if they read more), maybe  more would keep axed from the curriculum.  One of my students favorite books was Always Running, and it has some serious profanity.

Mystery readers: Interesting idea for SSR. Though I think most teachers would prefer the PA announcements ended altogether (at least in my school.)

I’m liking the multiple inboxes implementation with GMail.  I can keep my inbox free, redirect some into a to-do box, and for long-term, future consideration.  It’s a nice way of seeing all the messages that need my attention, instead of burying them in a folder/label.

I’ve been getting more comfortable embedding content on our school’s website using Scribd.  Here’s one that allows you to add animation.  GoAnimate.com.  Looks a little cheesy, but I’ll have to see if you can make anything professional looking with it, or if everything comes out looking cheap.

Real world math lessons using Google Earth.  Need to check out the quality of these lessons.  Google Earth is fun, but can it offer real educational benefit to students.

What is Microsoft Semblio?  Microsoft is the name dropping machine these days: Gaze, Azure, Mesh. Now, Semblio.  Make it easy to develop online course content.  I will have to explore this one more.

For fun: Paul Smith is planning to travel across country on the kindness of Twitter users.  I’ve read two articles in the last year about people with these cross-country dreams going terribly wrong.  I don’t see this as a good application of a tech tool.  But I wish him luck.  It will definitely show the quality of the Twitter folks if he makes it the distance before the rules are broken.

Software picks: Texter and Fences.  Texter looks useful for creating simple macros for commonly repeated text strings like signatures or code excerpts. I haven’t used this one yet, but I think it has a clear value.  Fences is another Stardock product that I’m using for organizing icons on the desktop.  Avoids that cluttered desktop I fear so much to the point of hiding icons altogether to avoid it.