Since this is a technology class, I decided to share a photo of some technology I've been working on lately. This photo is the rather untidy interior of an HP Pavilion XT914 Desktop Tower. Although antiquated today, it's Pentium 3 processor clocked at 800MHz, 256 MB PC100 RAM, 30GB Hard Drive, and 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive were state of the art in 2000. It does still run, and has the original installation of the Windows 98 Second Editon Operating System.
There's an interesting story behind this particular desktop that further connects it to educational technology. In 2002, my first cousin Josh took this tower to college at the University of Tennessee at Martin. When he completed his degree, it was brought home, put in a closet and forgotten until my aunt found it a couple months of ago. Knowing I have a hobby of repairing and refurbishing old computers, she offered it to me just to rid of it.
Flickr is overall a nice photo-sharing site. I've used other photo-sharing sites, particularly Picasa and ImageShack. One thing about Flickr that was slightly annoying was the need for a Yahoo! account. While it does let you sign in with Facebook and Google accounts, it isn't nearly as seamless an experience as with a Yahoo! account. Having used Picasa with its seamless account integration, it was a sticky point for me, but probably would not be for the average user. I also use ImageShack for storing the pictures I use on my project blog and for posting on forums, and I prefer its features for doing that better then Flickr. Flickr definitely nails the social dimension best, though, with its groups, maps and "explore" features. Finding people with similar interests through their photos is supremely easy with Flickr, and the maps feature makes finding people nearby a snap. I might see using Flickr in my classroom as a place to share class photos or for students to do something like a photo essay (though that might be a little difficult for a math classroom.)
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