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If you’re an educator who is interested in using Skype in the Classroom, here’s an interesting post by Kathy Ishizuka on theDigital Shift.com:

Skype Announces Free Group Video Calling for Teachers | SXSWEdu.

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Quick Tips for Increasing the Text Size in Your Web Browser

Have you ever squinted to read text on a webpage? There are several ways to increase the font size (and image size) in a browser, but the fastest way is to use a keyboard shortcut.

In Internet Explorer (9), Mozilla Firefox (3), and Google Chrome:

Hold the “Ctrl” key and press the “+” key to zoom in. To zoom out, hold the “Ctrl” key and press the “-” key.

If your mouse has a wheel, you can hold the “Ctrl” key on the keyboard and then scroll the wheel up to zoom in or scroll down to zoom out.

To restore the zoom to 100%, press the “Ctrl” key and press the “0″ key.

No-more-squinting!

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Google Alerts notify you when a search query you select appears as a Google result.

Although I thought of numerous topics to monitor, I decided to limit myself to two queries:

First, I thought it would be interesting to monitor when my name appears as a Google result. I’ve received a few matches over the past several months. Although only one match was actually about ME, some of the other results were amusing!

The second query relates to research I’m doing about the use of instructional technology in deaf education.

I’ve set up my alert preferences for weekly notifications, but there are options for “as-it-happens” and “once a day.”

http://www.google.com/alerts

You could use Google Alerts to monitor the news, a particular industry, a sports team, or your favorite celebrity. It’s a nice way to have information delivered to you!

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In my quest to go paperless, I decided I would scan and archive old documents that I can’t seem to part with. I also swore I’d limit my printing to “critical documents.” I haven’t quite gotten the hang of limiting my printing. But… I’ve been having a great time scanning my files with the NeatDesk scanner. It has an automatic document feeder that quickly scans documents, receipts, and business cards. What’s really neat is it recognizes the text from receipts and business cards, creates an image of each object, and saves the data to a database! The data can then be exported to common programs like Excel and Quicken. NeatDesk also has reporting features. So, the receipt data can be used to generate expense reports, tax reports, and spending reports. This is a great, user-friendly system for anyone who wants to set up a digital filing system; I use NeatDesk on an almost-daily basis!

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Yahoo! Axis (axis.yahoo.com/) is a new browser that redefines web searching and browsing.  Axis provides visual search results, shows you what’s trending, and displays answers as you type.

Axis is available for the desktop (as an add-on to your existing web browsers), iPad, and iPhone.  In the desktop version, the toolbar appears at the bottom of your browser window:

Logging in connects your experiences so that your searches are synced across your devices.

A customized home page shows your bookmarks, recent searches, and items you’ve marked to read later.

To learn more, watch the demo at axis.yahoo.com and check out the Laptop Mag’s review at:

www.laptopmag.com/review/software/yahoo-axis-for-ios.aspx

Another Intel gem is What About Me.

I just had my life flash before my eyes! Fortunately, it was not a result of trauma but of Intel’s Museum of Me. The Museum of Me (http://www.intel.com/museumofme) creates a “visual archive of your social life” by gathering photos and data from your Facebook account.

So, how did I miss the release of this app LAST June?!?

Anyway, watching my virtual museum was an emotional and captivating experience. I admit that I re-generated the video about 10 times to see how the images would change. The Museum of Me is a very creative way to sell Intel’s Core i5 processors.

What About Me (http://whataboutme.intel.com) generates an infographic based on your social media usage. It analyzes your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts to create visual stats.

According to my infographic (excerpted above), I spend the majority of my time talking about TV/Film, I post more during the day than the evening, and the majority of my posts are Likes of other people’s posts. It even shows that my overall mood (tone of words) is fairly neutral. This is a fairly accurate assessment of my social networking behavior, except that the words and categories I talk about online do not match up with the things I care about in real life…Interesting!

So, what do you think?

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Since the release of iOS 5.1 last week, Apple has published an updated iPad User Guide. This comprehensive, 378-page manual is available as a free download from iBooks.  Although you may not want to curl up with the iPad and read the entire user guide, it’s worth perusing its contents. To get the User Guide:

1. Open iBooks.
2. Tap Store.
3. In the search box, type iPad User Guide, then tap Search.
4. Then Download the iPad User Guide for iOS 5.1 (make sure it’s the guide for 5.1 and not  iOS 5)

To see what’s new in iOS 5.1, check out this article from Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/ios-51-update-released-apple_n_1324945.html

I can’t believe how many people are disappointed with the mild winter weather we’ve been having. Personally, I can do without the snow, but that just shows I’m not a skier and I don’t make a living off of bad weather. When we got our first snow storm a couple of weeks ago, I had one question for my friends and colleagues: “Are you glad we finally got a snow storm?” I conducted the poll the old-fashioned way by asking the question as I encountered people in passing. But, I could have used QuiPol instead! Read More…

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I know I should go green and limit the amount of printing I do. However, I find it easier to read printed instructions; plus, I like to make hand-written annotations while reading or copyediting text.

At the NYSCATE conference, I heard about a tool called Print What You Like. Print What You Like allows you to print portions of a website without including unnecessary images, backgrounds, or white space. If you add the booklmarklet to your browser’s toolbar, the button will be available whenever you’re surfing.

Another neat feature is the Page Zipper. Page Zipper automatically merges pages of websites so you don’t have to keep clicking the Next button to see the rest of the page. As you scroll through the site, the next page appears automatically. This makes navigation much easier!

You can also use the Website Button to create a printer-friendly version of your website/blog post.

For more time-and-click-saving features, check out the website at www.printwhatyoulike.com.

I love tools that make life easier!

If you haven’t had the chance to update your iPad’s operating system, it’s worth taking the time to do so. I would recommend allowing a few (4) hours for this process, based on my experience and what others have told me. Again, it’s worth the time. Why? The update contains over 200 new features. Here are some of the best:

Notification Center

• Swipe from the top of any screen to view all the notifications in one place! Thank you, Apple!

iCloud Support

• Access/backup iTunes and documents in the Cloud. It’s no longer necessary to connect the iPad to a desktop computer to backup/sync with iTunes.
• Apps and books automatically download; can view your purchase history

Mail Improvements

• Tap and hold to see these options: Format text using bold, italic, or underlined fonts; Indentation control
• Drag to rearrange names in address fields
• Flag messages
• Mass mark messages as flagged, read or unread
• Customize mail alert sounds

Reminders

• Manage to do lists. Reminders sync with iCloud, iCal and Outlook