Tag: bookmarks

Keeping Tabs 7/11: 5 Sites Taking Up Space in my Browser this Week

Some sites get written about. Some sites get looked at and then forgotten. The five sites below have been open on my browser for at least a week. I’ll be bookmarking them and closing their tabs in my browser as soon as I post this.

What MySpace’s Tom Anderson Thinks of Google+

More people than I care to count, including me, have been pontificating on the possible impact of Google+ this week as the launch begins to go global. It all feels a little like critiquing a newborn’s progress toward an eventual Ph.D. Even so, looking through the whole thing through the eyes of someone who tried to build a social network and then took many admitted wrong turns was interesting. Anderson at once holds a sort of humility and optimism as he writes. The piece has a definite tone of, “If not me, then I’m glad it’s these guys.”

The New Aesthetic

No designer am I. It’s probably why I’m so curious to learn how design works and what the edge of a field I know little about might look like. This tumblr page has yet to fail at giving me a new angle from which to view the world or at least providing me with better questions. It’s getting thrown in delicious as well as my reader. If you’re going to check it out, be sure to see where it all began.

eLearning Africa News Portal

After two summers working with teachers in Kenya and South Africa, I’ll admit to a bit of withdrawal. For as much as teachers in North America like to talk about helping their students connect globally, I’m struck by our general lack of knowledge of what education looks like in various African nations. Fifteen minutes skimming this portal could prove prospective changing.

WikiViz 2011: Visualizing the impact of Wikipedia

I like a challenge. More importantly, I like a challenge that requires literacy. The WikiViz challenge is a competition calling for visualizations telling the story of Wikipedia’s impact. I’ve seen countless keynotes and listened to even more podcasts explaining the site’s importance. I’m keen to see what happens when the story leaves traditional narrative arc behind and gives us something to see. If you’re interested, the deadline is August 19.

BO.LT

I love this. Copy and edit any page on the web. It reminds me of those booths at the state fair when I was younger that let you superimpose yourself onto the cover of Time or People. I wonder if BO.LT let’s you put the site on a T-Shirt after you’re done.

Keeping Tabs: 5 Sites Taking Up Space in my Browser this Week

Some sites get written about. Some sites get looked at and then forgotten. The five sites below have been open on my browser for at least a week. I’ll be bookmarking them and closing their tabs in my browser as soon as I post this.

http://freze.it/

I know I’ve probably asked for a service like Freese.It before, but I cannot remember why. They allow users to archive any webpage they want. More than a PDF, Freeze.It archives a webpage’s code, takes a screenshot and then creates a tinyurl for easy reference. At the moment, I definitely don’t need it. I’m bookmarking it in the belief that someday soon, I’ll think it a lifesaver.

Top Web Annotation Tools: Annotate+Bookmark+Collaborate from MakeUseOf.com

Throughout the last school year, I’ve asked my students to use reframeit.com when reading an article for class to prepare for discussion. The site has helped me see where the preponderance of students found meaty material in what they were reading and where I could focus some questions to help them read more deeply. I stumbled upon this article when doing some research to help a friend who wanted something akin to a sticky note function when annotating a webpage. Of the services mentioned I’ve actually used, it’s certainly proven a respectable list.

Classical Music: A History According to YouTube from OpenCulture.com

I love this. The article highlight’s Limelight’s curation of a collection of Youtube videos as a tour or primer on the history of western classical music. While I certainly remember my grandparents taking me to the symphony when I was younger, this collection helped me understand where Vivaldi stood in relation to Bach.

“Critical Pessimism” Revisted: An Open Letter to Adam Fish from henryjenkins.org

How, how, how in the world did I go this long without finding Henry Jenkins’ blog. This was the first entry I read. From there, I opened each successive entry in a new tab as though to click away would be to lose the careful, reflective thinking Jenkins offers readers. He’s safely in my feed reader now, but this post stands as a wonderful conversation point on the democracy of the web.

http://cac.ophony.org/

I’d never heard of Baruch College, CUNY until I ran into the writing of its Fellows of the Bernard L. Scwartz Communication Institute. These folks have game. And it’s not just heady, academia babbling. Each post gives me more practical thoughtfulness on the mix of media, message and culture. I’ve not made my way completely through their archives, but I’m working on it.