How-To Videos for the
technology classroom

Monday, October 4, 2010

If you can't get enough of Twitter and all that its third-party apps have to offer to enhance your Twitter experience, you will love Paper.li, the new application that turns your Twitter stream into an online daily newspaper.

Visionary App Series

The beauty of this remarkable app is its simplicity, considering the power of what it creates. Paper.li gives users the opportunity to create an online newspaper, while getting started with just a Twitter username. From there, Paper.li gives you the option of building your newspaper by selecting from one of three different Twitter feeds -- your followers, your favorite hashtag or your favorite list.

Once you decide on the feed for your daily paper, Paper.li automatically populates a nifty-looking online newspaper with stories and links, produced by the tweets from the people in the selected feed.

Your Paper.li newspaper is filled with pictures, graphics and even selected videos that are linked by people in your feed.

Here's an example of a Paper.li newspaper that I created in about two minutes, using one of my Twitter lists.

Your Paper.li newspaper is updated every 24 hours, collecting information from the latest tweets from your selected feed. Once it's created, you never have to do a think, accept sit back and read the stories Paper.li generates in your newspaper.

Paper.li is making Twitter better than ever. 

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Twitter has ruled the microblogging world for years, and many social media platforms have incorporated Twitter-like features. Someone may have finally figured out a way to extract the best of Twitter, while maintaining a fresh approach to microblogging. The new social media application, My Chatbox, is a microblog that allows users to type 60 more characters than Twitter's 140.

Visionary App Series

At first glance, My Chatbox looks like a combination of Twitter and Facebook. On the All Members page, your avatar shows up at the top left side of the page alongside a box similar to Twitter's tweet box or a Facebook wall. Other My Chatbox members may post messages on this home page. What separates My Chatbox from Twitter and Facebook is the ability for members to create chatboxes of their own and share them publicly or privately. This is similar to hashtagging with Twitter, but with a chatbox, only those in your box can see what's being said. A member's chatbox is separate from the All Members page, where all posts are seen. So, if you want to set up numerous private or public rooms, you just go to the Create Chatbox tab, under My Profile on the right side of the page. From there, creating a room is just three quick steps.

Our take

It's far too early to see if My Chatbox is the next Twitter or Facebook or if it burns out as rapidly as Google Wave. At first glance, My Chatbox appears to be a clean microblogging application with a few nifty twists -- 200 characters for posts and the ability for members to create separate chatboxes. If My Chatbox could make its way past school district firewalls, it could be a powerful backchannel for teachers, as it would be very easy to set up a chatbox for each class, where students could discuss activities with a teacher or with each other. Like many similar social media applications, the registration process, although quite simple, will create problems for teachers, as members must confirm via e-mail; this is usually a problem for teachers, as many schools don't have student e-mail accounts. Hopefully, in the future, the folks at My Chatbox will make applying for a private room and registering for the site a one-time, easy process. If managed well, My Chatbox has an excellent future in the social media world.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Today, Digital Classroom Strategies: the Learn it in 5 Blog, launched a new series entitled, Visionary App Series.

Artist recognition 

As we hope this series will become very popular, it was important to select an image that is representative of the key word in the title, Visionary. After an exhaustive search, the graphic to the right was selected.

This picture is by German digital artist, Joshus Hund; the image is called, The Light. We felt the image and its title were perfect for this series, as visionaries cast light on something unknown or a new creation.

About the series

The Visionary App Series will include videos, company content, our own take on the application and, hopefully, plenty of comments from you. To qualify for the series, the application must be less than one year old and potentially benefit a large audience.

If you have what you believe is a relatively unknown, new application that we might consider to be visionary, please post a comment here and a link to information about the application.

Meanwhile, check in regularly to the Visionary App Series, linked in our categories section, and/or subscribe to Learn it in 5 to receive e-mail updates via e-mail.

Tweet 

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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Visionary App Series 

Roughly three years ago, surface technology was in its infancy and it was so amazing people could hardly envision it. Now, with the advent of the Smart Phone, iPod, iPad and other touch screen computers, few even remember their shock at surface tech.

Background

Believe it or not, this crazy stuff is still evolving. The original surface technology videos showed people at restaurants swiping their credit cards on a table to pay their tabs. Although we may not see a lot of this yet, a new company called, Tabbed Out, has put a different twist on this idea of paying your bill with its cool new Smart Phone application -- featured in this week's Visionary App Series, here at the Digital Classroom Strategies blog.

Our take

As soon as more restaurants catch on to this, Tabbed Out promises to get Smart Phone users racing to their app market. Until then, it's got a long way to go.

The video below tells the story of Tabbed Out, which helps restaurant patrons keep credit cards in their wallets.

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