Tech Tip Tuesday: Create a Digital Professional Development Portfolio

We have talked before about how a digital camera can be a virtual Swiss Army Knife of usefulness.  Another way that I have recently found my Digital Camera to be useful is as a virtual recorder of my professional development.  I could really go full bore and scan each certificate I get when I attend a conference, presentation or event, but another way I can create a record of my professional development is to simply snap a shot of my name tag.  This creates a date stamped record of professional development I have attended. If I am using a smart Phone or a camera with geo-tagging, I can capture the location information all with a quick snap of my camera.  This also saves me space because instead of keeping a huge box full of name tags for nostalgic reasons, I can load them on to a web based album and still keep the nostalgia without keeping the clutter.



What creative ways can you think of for using your digital camera?  Give us your ideas in the comments.

What does that mean?: A Mobile Reference Library

Mr. Jorgensen, do you have a calculator? Nope, do you have your cell phone? Mr. Jorgensen there aren't enough stopwatches do you have anymore? Nope, do you have your cell phone? Well, add one more to that list. Mr. Jorgensen, do you have a dictionary? Nope, do you have your web enabled cell phone?

When students would ask about a dictionary in my computer lab, I typically directed them to www.m-w.com or www.dictionary.com both great sites to look up words, word origin, and other forms. Before web enabled phones, I downloaded a Microsoft Encarta Dictionary into Microsoft's Reader a good resource on my mobile device but with fairly limited definitions. With web enabled phones you can now visit http://m.reference.com to look up terms, thesaurus entries and other information on the fly. Dictionary.com also provides an Application for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Not to be outdone www.m-w.com has a mobile interface at http://i.word.com When you check the site it states that the site is optimized for the iPhone, but it works well on Windows Mobile phones and other web enabled phones and the iPod Touch.

Another great feature that doesn't require a web enabled phone is Google's SMS tools. You can see a list of these tools at www.google.com/sms Most of the advanced search techniques work for example text: "define:learning" to 466453 (Google) to get the definition of learning.

Learn where you are!

image citation: flickr user: midnightglory