23 Mobile Things #1

Found the password for the 2009 23 Things blog and, yay, it still works. I'm looking forward to learning some new cool stuff to do on the iPad.

Thing #26

Join the Ning

I joined the Ning and the RCL group in Round 1. It's a place to post commments and stuff so that you can say you completed a Thing -- but it doesn't seem to be a place where people are staying. If I see one more cute widget, I'll scream!

Thing #25

The Blogger's Toolkit

Here are the four gadgets I tried:

1) Typealizer
This is supposed to determine your Myers-Briggs type based on your blog. You don't get any information about how it works (magic?), and there are disclaimers about how you might have one type on one blog and another type on another blog, depending on what you're blogging about. So they've pretty much covered all their bases. On my blog they got two out of four letters right -- so pretty much the same odds as flipping a coin.
2) Blog readability test
I couldn't get this to work with my blog's url. I just wanted to find out if I was smarter than a fifth grader.
3) Spoken Text
This converts a passage of text into a spoken word recording. You get a choice of voices -- American, British, French, Spanish. All male voices, though. It took a looong time to translate a short passage, and the recording only lasts for one day unless you upgrade your account. Looks like you can pay to get more voices and to hang onto your recording.
4) Google Gadgets
The only think I actually added to my blog was a gadget for the top box office hits of the week. It comes with ads (Do You Like Beyonce?), so I'm not sure I want to keep it.

A lot of the gadgets/widgets were for helping readers link to other places and interact with you, which is great, if the purpose of your blog is to get some important information off your chest. Since my blog is more of a personal, keeping-track-of-homework blog, I decided not to try out the interactive stuff. I did enjoy the videos, though.

Thing #24

Refresh Your Blog

My blog is looking very refreshed with a new text color and a sparkly Yahoo! avatar. Took a while to get the avatar on there, as the instructions from "23 Things" are already out of date.

The refreshed blog has been duly registered. I find myself hoping that no one will look at it, as it is truly dull -- even with the undersea ballerina. Onward and upward...

Thing #23

Evaluation

The online survey is closed, so I'm not able to complete it. In general, I enjoyed learning most of the 23 things. Doing some of the things with pictures and adding things to my blog definitely boosted my confidence in my ability to handle technology. Still, I find myself overwhelmed by the number of things I need to keep track of to keep my head above water. I'm glad that there will be more "things" to work on next year. That will at least keep me from falling behind.
I've subscribed to Common Craft's blog, so I can keep watching their excellent little videos. And maybe, just maybe, I'll find the time in 2009 to start that T.S. wiki...

Thing #22

Keeping Up

This one is easy. I attended the "More Things on a Stick" presentation at the inservice. I will sign up in '09 and keep doing "things" as long as Metronet keeps putting them on sticks.

Thing #21

Visit 23 Things on a Stick


I joined the 23 Things Ning and posted a comment. Not much happening there these days.
I checked out Gather.com, which was not as high-minded and literary as MPR would have me believe. I did find some smashing photos of a rich 16-year-old's trashy wedding there, though.
I'm still enjoying Facebook -- but wondering if I should be wasting my time sending digital plants and snowmen to my friends. Perhaps I should be watering my non-digital plants or making a real snowman with my daughter.
I still depend on my good old-fashioned Yahoo! groups to stay in touch and plan social outings. Anything that makes it to my e-mail gets read, but I don't spend a lot of time searching around for new groups to join.
I'm on the home stretch here...