Tag: technology

You’re not “addicted” to tech and why it’s dangerous to say you are

As a teacher from 2001-2006 and then from 2008-2012, I had the chance to work with dozens of young people and their parents at a time when so much we knew and thought about education and transmitting information was changing. There was a rapid cultural shift in that decade that was primarily driven by “technology” and the internet.

One theme that remained constant going back to the first time we set up a class blog in 2003 was the notion of “tech addiction”. It remained a constant question and concern of parents and education colleagues (particularly my administrators) over the years.

Since 2012 as a marketing and tech consultant primarily working with religious orgs, nonprofits, and community groups, I’ve encountered the same concerns about tech addiction and young people. From MySpace to Instant Messaging to World of Warcraft to Instagram to Facebook to Fortnite, the boogeyman of evil tech hellbent on ruining our children’s minds and attention and willingness to go outside and play stickball keeps a constant current over time.

However, tech addiction (in the mainstream cultural sense) is just that… a boogeyman. It’s much better to focus on our responsibilities and usage patterns… as adults and parents and community members… rather than blaming Zuckerberg for our lack of accepting personal agency and being responsible people with our choices.

Good piece here that says all this in a much nicer and more approachable way:

Nir says the idea that technology is “hijacking your brain” or that the general population is “addicted” to their phones is rubbish.“Yes, there’s a very small percentage of people that very much are addicted—which is a completely different conversation—but this ‘addiction to technology’ is not the generalized disorder the media and others would have you think it is.”

Source: You’re not “addicted” to tech (and why it’s dangerous to say so) – RescueTime

“Still discovering new things”

golden_record_cover

On board each Voyager is a golden record — and record player — that is built to last one billion years or more and contains key information about humanity and life on planet Earth, in case of an alien encounter.

The sounds include the calls of humpback whales, the Chuck Berry song “Johnny B. Goode,” Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, a Japanese shakuhachi (a type of flute), a Pygmy girls’ initiation song, and greetings in 55 languages.

via Forty years on, Voyager still hurtles through space

Dogfooding

After two happy years as a WordPress self-hosted install, I’m moving our 8th grade science class site/home/hub, GriffinScience, to Blogger:

GriffinScience: “Because we’ll be using Blogger as a main platform of interaction with the 8th graders next year due to our school Google accounts making that a no-brainer, I’ve gone ahead and moved GriffinScience from a self-hosted WordPress install to Blogger.”

I don’t think the students will mind or notice much, and it does make a good deal of sense to eat my own dog food if I’m going to encourage students to make use of our school’s Google Apps accounts and use Blogger (or Google Sites) as their digital portfolio’s home (of course I don’t mind if they want to venture out into WordPress or Tumblr or Posterous land as well).

For some reason, this makes me sad in a “but I’m a real geek!” way. It’s not that Blogger isn’t a proper blogging engine or geeky enough site… but I’ve always encouraged folks to dive into code and make their own templates or sidebars. Those are possible in Blogger, but it’s a little too graphical and “easy” in my mind. I need to get over myself, clearly.

Nevertheless, here’s to another few good years of GriffinScience.

Engineering Creativity

So how do we as teachers cultivate and encourage creativity in a human existence that doesn’t require as many gigs of organic memory?

LRB · Jim Holt · Smarter, Happier, More Productive: “It’s not that the web is making us less intelligent; if anything, the evidence suggests it sharpens more cognitive skills than it dulls. It’s not that the web is making us less happy, although there are certainly those who, like Carr, feel enslaved by its rhythms and cheated by the quality of its pleasures. It’s that the web may be an enemy of creativity. Which is why Woody Allen might be wise in avoiding it altogether.”

Fascinating read.

Headed to Apple Seminar at 1 to 1 iPad School

Four of us from Spartanburg Day School are headed to Savannah on Thursday/Friday to see how St. Andrew’s School is running their 1 to 1 iPad program…

Apple – Education Seminars & Events – Digital Learning Environments in Action!: “St. Andrew’s School is one of the only K through 12 independent schools that is currently implementing a 1 to 1 iPad program for all students, preK through 12, as part of their new digital learning environment. During your visit, you will see how iDiscover 21c has engaged students and allowed them to take more responsibility for their own learning. You will meet with faculty, students, and administrators who will discuss the planning stages, infrastructure changes, rollout, and the overall impact on student learning.”

I’m sure I’ll be sharing more reflections before and after the event as we process our next steps in (hopeful) iPad implementation (at least for Middle School or 8th graders).

Exciting times.

I’m Sure @Jangro Would Appreciate notes.pinboard.in

On my iPhone home-screen I now have a link to a “2 Do” file that is a Pinboard Note…

Pinboard Notes

Pinboard is the bookmarking service that fills the hole Delicious left in our hearts years ago by selling out and becoming too bloated.

However, Pinboard now has a notes function that allows for quick note jotting and has Markdown support.

Win.

I had kept my years-old “2Do.txt” file in Dropbox up to this point but for some reason this seems easier. We’ll see how it goes!

Why I’m Sticking with AT&T (and Glad to See BUMPzee Back)

My pal Scott Jangro had an amazing site in late ’06 and early ’07 called BUMPzee that I loved.

Basically, BUMPzee was an early hybrid of Delicious, Digg, and what would become the Facebook newsfeed. Scott and his team were a little ahead of the curve and the platform should have gone mainstream.

So, I’m glad to see BUMPzee back up and running as it allows for great conversations along the lines of this (my response to Scott’s question about staying on AT&T or jumping ship for Verizon for his new iPhone)…

Iphone 4: At&t Or Verizon? – Bumpzee: “I had the exact same thing happen with my 3GS and the mute button. It’s pretty annoying to be a teacher and not be able to mute your phone, btw.

However, beyond the concrete Faraday cage that is my school, I don’t have a problem with ATT. They actually have been improving things quite a bit here in the Western North Carolina region to the point that I get few interruptions in service. We don’t have 3G everywhere, but we chose to live in a pretty remote and non-metropolitan region of southern appalachia, so I can’t complain.

My contract was up on the 12th as well (how’s that for timing!). So, I went to the ATT store thinking I’d be treated like royalty for staying with them. Interestingly enough, the ATT stores here were all out of stock and playing catch up after the holidays. My 4 came in yesterday and it’s everything I imagined it would be.

So yeah… stay with ATT. The ability to browse the web while on a call has been a great feature (one I thought I would never use) and the wifi at airports or places like Starbucks is a great feature-add.

I think this has been a big learning opportunity for ATT as they continue to grow and scale their network, so hopefully the benefits will continue as some customers offload to Verizon. Truthfully, I think Verizon has behaved with too much hubris from their ‘Droid Does’ days to acting as if the iPhone is finally worthy of their great network.

The biggest plus out of all this is that iOS on Verizon will put a big dent in the Android market!”

Reality Shifts Aren’t Novelties

Fantastic post that answers many of the “iPad is a fad and has no place in our schools” critics…

TeachPaperless: Novelty, Huh?: “As for the specific case of the iPad, it’s hardly an ideal device if you are looking for a catch-all. I’m especially concerned about the closed nature of the system and the emphasis on sales at the app store and on iBooks. But it is a device that speaks to several of the important features of our time, most importantly: mobile and accessible instant Internet connectivity. And I would argue that to see the iPad as a fad is to miss the bigger picture: the iPad only exists within the context of a mobile-connected world. That mobile-connected world is not a novelty; that’s a paradigm and a reality.”

Go read the whole thing.

iPads and Classroom Essentials

This is a wonderful walkthrough by Fraser Speirs on how his school (Cedars School of Excellence in the UK)implemented an “iPad for Every Student” initiative and some of the resulting reflections the school has made.

I’m prodding my beloved Spartanburg Day School to do the same (at an annoyingly daily rate, I’m sure).

However, I was arrested for a moment when I came to this passage in the post…

An iPad for every child | Tablets | Macworld: “We are now at the stage where the iPad is embedded in the way we do business at the school. When we first started, we thought we could guard against misuse by threatening to take away the child’s iPad for a day or so. It turns out that doing so would now completely break the school day for that child. We might as well make them sit in the hallway and face the wall for the entire day. I did not expect that we would reach that point so soon.”

I hadn’t really considered how integrated a tool like an iPad could become to a classroom or a school. I have a “class” iPad that we use but we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of its possibilities and being that there’s only one to go around, it’s more difficult for students to dig deeper than note taking or quick reference searches with the device (although more and more students are getting iPads and bringing them to school).

However, I’ve purposely gone half the year now without renting the “laptop carts” which carry 18 white Macbooks for class. I have a very liberal policy when it comes to technology in my classroom (allow iPods, earbuds, iPads, mobiles… and even Androids to be used at a student’s discretion), but I don’t want the students to feel as if the laptops are a crutch to fall back on when we need to find material, make a connection or prove a point.

I guess that’s the same reason I keep a “mimimalist” look to my classroom with as few things on the wall etc as possible. It’s a science lab, but we’re just meeting in that room temporarily. I don’t want my students (or myself) to get fooled by the notion that the room itself is where science happens. Instead, I want them to look out the window at the beautiful dogwood just outside my classroom and realize that is their true classroom where all the lab supplies lie.

Everything in my classroom is very modular and utilitarian. The laptops could certainly serve as part of that utilitarian design, but I’d rather let student discretion and need drive the decision to use the web or an IM or a text message rather than saying, “Today, we will use the internet!” for a lesson.

I’m moving to a larger room next year with proper lab tables, gas lines, a chemical closet (and even an office). It will be interesting to see if my thinking changes then.

Regardless, I wonder if/when my dream of having iPads deployed across our school happens if we’ll have the same sudden realization about their essential nature to our character as a school. I also wonder about the ramifications if that does happen?

Search is the Card Catalogue of the Web

I wrote this piece on April 25, 2007. I’m fishing through some old posts and had to revisit/repot this as I think we’re on the verge of a major shift in attention literacy and finding information on the web.

Enjoy…

—

Search is king.

We have conferences and we have an entire industry built around the idea that “search marketing” is the end all / be all of online marketing.

If you want to reach people and influence their buying habits, you include a large AdWords and keyword budget for search. If you want people to find your website in the vast chaos that are search results, you spend a great deal of time and money on optimizing your site (in some cases at the expense of user interface and aesthetics).

But what about discovery?

Why has “searching” for information outpaced “discovering” information online?

It’s simple… companies and platforms who monetize a user’s ability to find the information they want have found it easier to provide “search engines” rather than “discovery engines.”

This is not just semantics.

Instead, look ahead to the future and how the average web user’s experience has progressed so far. Finding information relevant to your query has forever been a struggle. We’ve made positive steps forward with the search engines, but users still complain about the amount of junk, garbage and irrelevant results they receive in a Google or Yahoo search on a particular topic.

However, as the price of user generated data continues to rise and the price of producing user generated data continues to fall, we see a market shift away from “search” and towards “discovery.”

Soon, we’ll all be paid by Amazon or Google to host our data with them as we do our daily web browsing on our computers, on our cell phones, in our cars and on our digital cameras. Instead of searching for information, you’ll be discovering information based on your user generated output.

Our children will laugh at us for how we sought out information online, just as we raise eyebrows at the thought of using a card catalogue to find a book in a library.

Flickr Says Thanks for All the Fish

It’s really not that big of a deal, but I’ve been a Pro member for the last three years… words like this lead me to think that maybe Yahoo isn’t putting that much long term investment in the Flickr service.

Thanks, Flickr…

Why only until June 1?
We promised you access to your all time data, and we’re disappointed we’ve not been able to deliver on that. We’ve been trying for over a year to get the data ready for you and in the process we have found that it’s just not sustainable for us to offer this access over the long term. What’s available is what we have managed to generate so far, it’s offered as is with no guarantees. We know it’s missing some data but fixing the holes or offering the data for longer would require us to divert too much attention from making the rest of the site better which, as always, is our main goal.

Yikes.

Picasa maybe?


Great Review of @Posterous

Years of building and maintaining my WordPress blog have resulted in my learning a lot about WordPress and getting a lot of grease under my fingernails. Weeks of using Posterous has resulted in a media-rich blog with several posts per week. Tell me which service is more powerful.

via suntimes.com

I started using Posterous primarily as a photo-blog back in September of ’08.

However, it’s transitioned into my full time personal blog as I’ve changed up the samharrelson.com domain into a static landing (pointer) page.

Posterous solves so many problems for me.

Thanks to Andy Ihnatko for the great review affirming my love and thanks to the Posterous team for a fantastic product that has renewed my love of posting.

From Evernote Back to Backpack

I’ve been a longtime Evernote member going back to March ’08 (and then a paying Premium member since June ’08 shortly after they opened that functionality), but I just can’t figure out the best way to integrate the service into my workflow.  I’ve certainly tried because I do see so much potential in the product.

However, since I’ve been trying to do most everything using only web apps and my iPhone, I’ve had a tougher time using Evernote. The Mac desktop client is beautiful and easy to use. The Windows desktop client less so. But it’s the web interface that just isn’t working for me (and that is the most important one at this point since I can’t install the desktop client on my locked-down school Macbook).

So, I’m going back to Backpack (in the old days, I would have used my affiliate link for the program there with a little disclosure) for workflow management. The web interface is fantastic (and familiar), I can easily email in material, create seperate pages, feel secure, integrate easily with GMail, Google Calendar and be completely web-based. 

However, the killer app Backpack has going for it is the Journal feature:

http://www.viddler.com/player/a45407f8/

I’m using it for product management, status updates to myself and as a “private twitter” etc. It’s like the anti-social bookmarketing site Pinboard for micro-messaging.

The problem that has plagued Backpack (and the whole suite of 37Signals products such as Basecamp and Highrise) is the lack of iPhone apps or integration.  That’s been solved by a nifty app called Satchel.  Yes, it costs $10, but it’s well worth the price. Satchel is speedy, works “offline” (whatever that means anymore), and intuitive. I can also easily update my Journal through Satchel. Plus, there are hacks and apps for getting Backpack to work well as a web app (like GMail) on the iPhone if preferred.

So, between Backpack’s web apps and Satchel, I’m very happy (and productive).

I’ll explain more on today’s Thinking.FM podcast episode. 

FriendFeed Catchup in GMail

I absolutely love FriendFeed's GMail IM integration. It's how I consume most of my FriendFeed content as well as lots from my favorite folks on Twitter that I have piped into FF via the Imaginary Friends (now Rooms) feature.

So, if I miss a few hours and want to catch up on what is going on in the Valley or from the folks I follow (and left GMail open on my Macbook), I can just open up the "Chat with FF" message waiting on me in my GMail FriendFeed label and scan. Plus, I can go back and search topics or people I'm interested in after a few days.

Not completely practical for everyone, but I love the feature (and greatly miss the good old days when Twitter had the same IM integration with Track).

My Laptop’s Operating System

I have a school issued (white) MacBook 13′ that I’ve been using the last few weeks when I need a computer (besides my iPhone). It’s great that we have MacBooks for teachers and students. However, since we are also transitioning to Google Apps (thankfully) and everything I do is mostly cloud-based, I don’t see much of the shiny Mac OSX operating system.

Instead, this is what I see and use as my main operating system (Firefox).

Using MindMeister for Mind Mapping in the Classroom

MindMeister Academic Edition

The Academic Edition of MindMeister is a complete collaborative mind mapping solution for educational institutions such as schools, universities and learning centers. It helps teachers and instructors to apply essential thought mapping elements in the classroom and ensure that learning is an effective and memorable experience.

via mindmeister.com

After doing some researching and testing, I’m going to be using MindMeister for our “mind mapping” classroom (and out-of-classroom) sessions in my 8th grade science and 6th grade robotics classes this year.

I’m hopeful this will be a great augment to our classroom learning.

Powerpoint in the Classroom Must Die

His philosophy is that the information delivery common in today’s classroom lectures should be recorded and delivered to students as podcasts or online videos before class sessions. To make sure students tune in, he gives them short online multiple-choice tests.

So what’s left to do during class once you’ve delivered your lecture? Introduce issues of debate within the discipline and get the students to weigh in based on the knowledge they have from those lecture podcasts, Mr. Bowen says. “If you say to a student, We have this problem in Mayan archaeology: We don’t know if the answer is A or B. We used to all think it was A, now we think it’s B. If the lecture is ‘Here’s the answer, it’s B,’ that’s not very interesting. But if the student believes they can contribute, they’re a whole lot more motivated to enter the discourse, and to enter the discipline.”

In short, don’t be boring.

via chronicle.com

The part in bold is exactly my approach for student engagement. I admit that I do rely on Keynote too often, but I’m going to do my best to shift towards more engaging conversations pre-and-post lab work this year.

Looking back on my own education, I couldn’t agree more that PowerPoint is a classroom hindrance and security blanket for both teachers and students when used solely in the classroom.

Stunning Lack of 2.0 Teacher Tools on Web or iPhone


via mygradebook.com

When I taught 8th grade science from 2004-2006, I made heavy use of MyGradebook and it eventually became (much to the delight of my students and their parents…and eventually administrators) my complete gradebook and student documentation platform.

What wasn’t to like? In 2004, the social web was just getting cranked up and folks were still becoming familiar with the idea of blogs…especially in the education space. What the students, parents, administrators and I realized is that everyone enjoyed being able to access grades, progress notes, lesson schedules and lab details via the web at anytime. Transparency and education do go hand-in-hand.

Fast forward five years to 2009. Not much has changed. MyGradeBook still seems like the most advanced platform for online grade/progress access. I even use objective-based grading and MyGradeBook supports that kind of customization, which is a great feature.

However (more like BUT), there is no iPhone app for MyGradeBook. There is actually only one iPhone app for teachers keeping grades. That’s a huge market not being served. Where are the developers? Charge me $20 or $30 and give me an app (even from MyGradeBook) that offers offline sync’ing, mobile grade/note inputs, etc… I’ll sing your praises all day long. It just doesn’t exist yet for some reason but there are a great deal of teachers, students and parents using iPhones, so that’s just unbelievable.

There are some solutions such as using FileMaker Pro’s Bento database on the Mac and porting a database over through Bento’s iPhone app. However, it still befuddles me that there’s not a better way to have that sort of access other than using an offline product and creating a database by hand a la 2001.

So, if there are any iPhone devs out there who’d like to make a few bucks… figure out a great way to make a web/iPhone app that brings the 2.0 goodness to teacher gradebooks. We’ll love you forever and make you rich.

Until then, I’m off to pay $60 a month for MyGradeBook…

Hey, You! Get Off of My Cloud! (Or The Rise of Anti-Social Media)

I’ve fallen in love with Pinboard (for bookmarking) and Simplenote (search for it on the iPhone app store) this week. I’ve been testing out both services for a little while but decided to take the plunge this week and use them more heavily.

And they rock.

Pinboard is Delicious from 2004 with more goodness baked in. It’s fast, easy and private.  That’s right… in an age of rival-bookmarker Diigo’s communities, Evernote offering sharing of notebooks as a Premium feature and RememberTheMilk touting their social features, I’m finding myself leaning back towards sites like Pinboard that take advantage of the web2.0 goodness with a nod towards those of us who want to bookmark without worrying about what the neighbors might think (not that I’m bookmarking anything scandalous, but I don’t have to worry about crossing the education/tech/marketing/science/music streams with Pinboard). 

Simplenote does exactly what I want a note taking app to do… it takes notes quickly, easily and syncs automagically. I love Evernote, but I’ve found myself overwhlemed there as of late since there are so many features (and since I do have so much data there).  Simplenote is… well, simple. And that’s refreshing.  The same with Pinboard vs Diigo. I love Diigo, but I honestly don’t make use of all their community and bookmarking features enough to pledge allegiance. 

So, will we see a rise of anti-social media apps that take us back to a “much more civilized time” of elegant and simple lightsabers rather than social blasters? I’m not sure. But the evolution of media is definitely fascinating to participate in and ponder.

Anti-Social Bookmarking


I joined Delicious back around the Holiday Season of 2004 and soon started bookmarking with regularity.  Aside from GMail, Delicious was one of the first web2.0 sites I really got excited about. And for good reason. Delicious changed the way we all thought about bookmarking. 

"A long long time ago, I remember how that music used to make me smile…"

However, Delicious eventually caught on, found a solid userbase and got itself acquired by Yahoo. Despite a site-wide user interface revamp, things have been stagnant on Delicious for the last couple of years. The original founders left Yahoo, the rabid community seemed to dissipate and folks like myself went off searching for other places to bookmark our web finds. One of those places was Ma.gnolia.com. We all know how that went (#FAIL)  I've been trying Diigo since I'm teaching and there's a heavy concentration of educators there (and great tools for us), but I still wanted a place where I could post my bookmarks in a quick, easy and thoughtless manner.

I might have found that in Pinboard.

Not only is it what Delicious was in '04, it includes a nifty "Read Later" function (hello Instapaper!). Best of all, Pinboard is "antisocial bookmarking" that gives me exactly what I want – bookmarking without having to worry about who is following, subscribed, in my network, etc. Clean, simple, fast and antisocial are sometimes good qualities.

This mentality even shows itself in the sign-up process. Rather than having an "open beta" program, you have to pay an increasing fee to join Pinboard. In other words, as the service becomes more popular, you have to pay more to join.  I had to pay $2.91 via Amazon Payments to join. I love that thinking. Revolutionary. Look for more copycats very soon.

So will Pinboard replace Delicious for me? Already has. Will it replace Diigo? Time will tell. Will Pinboard replace Instapaper? Not sure. I'd need an iPhone app or some way to save things on mobile Safari (iPhone browser) to make that happen.

But for the time being, I'm excited 2004-style. Fingers are crossed that roadmap goal at the top of this post doesn't happen

What’s On My iPhone? Or How My iPhone Has Become My Computer

My iPhone has become my primary “computer” over the last few weeks, replacing my Macbook, a Windows 7 laptop and an older Ubuntu box that I keep around for fun.  They are all great computers but I love the reality of having my computer in my pocket or bag at all times (with most of my data always present and/or accessible) no matter where I am.  That accessibility is worth the trade-off of eye-strain and learning to type again on such a small (and virtual) keyboard.

As wonderful as the iPhone is, I have to thank the third party application developers for allowing me to use the device as an actual computer. 

So, here are the apps that I currently have on my iPhone…

Page 1: The Essential Stuff

We’ll start with the “dock” at the bottom since that never changes. I keep access to the phone, mail app and iPod down there as well as OmniFocus, which is my default organizer (more on that later).  I use these four apps almost constantly, so having them in the dock on every page is a must.

Above them are the other communication and most-used apps on my device. Most of these apps will be familiar.  However, this is where I keep the apps that I need quick access to or use the most often when I’m on the run. So, my Google Tasks (which I’m still not sure how useful this will be long term, but I keep trying to fit it into my work flow with OmniFocus), BeeJive (fantastic IM application complete with Push notifications), Evernote (my 2nd brain) and Voice Memos are all there.  I use Voice Memos to do audio podcasts on here every now and then since I can simply email a recorded mp3 to Posterous. Love that functionality.  I also keep Pandora, WunderRadio, Facebook and a link to GReader there for quick entertainment/info access. 

You might also notice I have three Twitter apps on the first page.  Yes, it’s a waste of space but I really can’t decide which Twitter app I like the most.  Tweetie and Birdfeed are fast and elegant whereas Twittelator is the pic/GPS workhorse app.  I actually use all three of them on any given day and am finding that I use Tweetie when I just have a few secs to check Twitter and Twittelator when I want to spend more time in the stream.  I actually have TweetDeck on my iPhone as well, but it’s been relegated to the last page since it constantly crashes on me.  Fingers are crossed for a fix soon.

From Safari, I can get to all of my docs on Google Docs or anything saved in DropBox just to name a few.  The web really is my primary OS so Safari is in a prime place on the first page.

Page 2: Processing and Games

I can’t say enough about InstaPaper. It’s a fantastic app that allows you to save material for reading later as long as you have access to a browser. I wasn’t sure how I’d use this app, but after a few days I realized I needed to go “Pro” and get the paid version.  It’s becomign one of my most used apps. 

QuickOffice is a life-saver.  Basically, it is a word processor and spreadsheet app that integrates with any format file I might need to edit, view or create.  It’s expensive, but well worth it. 

GV Mobile integrates with Google Voice and provides me with all I could ever ask of that service. I don’t use it everyday, but I like to know it’s there when I need it. The other apps there are for trips, quick posting on the GriffinScience blog and making audio posts to Twitter.  Not essential, but handy.

The bottom two rows are the current games I have on the iPhone. RS09 Soccer and TapDefense are downright addicting.

Page 3: Books, Music and Science

Entertainment apps (Stitcher is fantastic for random podcast discovery) on the first three rows and science apps I use on the last row.  The Kindle app has actually replaced my physical Kindle device to the point that I’m considering eBay.  We’ll see.  The bottom science apps are all useful to me but probably not for most folks. I do teach 8th Grade Physical Science, though.  If you’re interested, I’d highly recommend EleMints as a great Periodic Table app.  Formul8 is also a must-have for me since it provides a great database of science formulas I might not know off the top of my head. Very handy when you’re in my line of work. 

Page 4: The Kitchen Sink and Triathlon Training

The first two rows are for apps that I’m really not sure how to integrate or just want to keep around. However, when I’m traveling I do use WiFiFoFum a great deal since it allows you to find wifi networks in a pinch.  The bottom row of apps are for my triathlon training and are fantastic. I keep them on the bottom row there because the last page includes the “Settings” app that I use to turn off wifi while exercising to save power.  I can’t stress how useful and handy Run Keeper Pro is if you’re into cycling, jogging, etc.  It’s changed the way I look at staying fit. sendGPS is great for just bookmarking a particular geographic location since I can quickly send an email to myself with specific coordinates and elevation that I can see on a Google Map and archive in GMail (such as a particular hill where I fell while biking this past Sunday).

Page 5: Settings

These are the apps that come standard with the iPhone that you can’t delete.  So, I banish them to the last page of my device so I don’t have to deal with them.  I use the Settings and App Store apps the most since I update apps from the device itself rather than through syncing to one computer. 

So there you have it.  Those are the apps that are on my iPhone and allow me to use the device as my primary computer.  Of course there times when I need to use a laptop and I still do that at least once a day.  However, I’m increasingly relying on my iPhone for everything (including word processing thanks to Google Docs and QuickOffice).  The web is my OS and the iPhone is my node. 

Any other apps I need that you love or use?