If you are a techno-gadget geek like I am, I am sure you get all types of questions around the holiday time of the year about digital cameras, camcorders, laptops, digital audio players, and many other types of gadgets that your friends and colleagues are wanting to purchase.
Today (11/20/05), in the Sunday newspaper Parade Magazine, the issue is devoted to technology gadgets, podcasting, and online shopping tips for tech. If you already recycled the Sunday paper, the archive of the articles may be found online here starting 11/28/05. Of course, as the Gadget Queen, I own many of the items in the article already. My most current purchase, due to ship this week, is the Fujitsu P1510D convertible tablet PC with the Tablet PC 2005 OS (which showed up as available last week and should show up again soon; it is back up today, 11/22/05).
As technology mentors to others, it is important we keep up with both technology tools that can impact teaching and learning, and those which our teachers and staff may be interested in for themselves. I am conducting an afterschool workshop early in December, called Kathy's Konsumer Korner, and we are spending an hour deciphering the cryptic (to some!) tech terminology found in advertisers' ads. I will also be giving a few hints on what to look for when purchasing various products. The participants are encouraged to come with questions as well as to bring their credit cards if they want some help with their first online purchase. That presentation will be available online on this page as of 11/22/05, in the Techno-Monday Workshop Handouts section.
I also have an entire presentation dealing with gadgets that I have been presenting and refining for the past year or so. The most current version in PDF format may be found here if you are interested. However, without my pithy comments, it is a bit hard to follow!
Kathy
