Mike McEnaney spent nearly 10 years working as both an editor and a publisher of B2B photography and digital photography magazines for North American Publishing Company (NAPCO), the same organization that owns and operates both TeleRead and the Technology Tell network of websites. Very recently, though, McEnaney struck out on his own. And somehow, along with fellow journalist Greg Scoblete, he has already managed to launch Your Digital Life, a website about the digital photography revolution. McEnaney and Scoblete's latest project, however, is an e-book, also about the world of digi-photography. From Fleeting to Forever: Enjoying & Preserving Your Digital Photos and Videos, as...

Blogger Hollee Actman Becker is making headlines for her blog post on a disturbing Instagram trend: the 'beauty pageant', wherein tweenaged girls post collages of their friends and ask readers to vote on which is the prettiest. The girl with the least votes gets Xed out of the picture, and the game repeats until only one girl is left. Her reaction to the discovery that her own daughters were playing these games was swift and surprisingly heart-felt: she posted an image about beauty being only skin deep (which has since gone viral), and used her daughter's account to publicly ask girls...

I'm always skeptical of articles and posts I read on April 1, for obvious reasons. Sometimes they look plausible enough to pull you in, and this year I decided to share some of the April Fool's posts I've particularly enjoyed this morning. Google, of course, had to have some fun with us by introducing Google Nose. Really, "Photo, auditory, olfactory sensory convergence?" Try saying that three times fast! Ron Charles, from The Washington Post, gives us "Apple Letters," Apple's latest patent. After patenting the page turn, there wasn't much left. Joe Konrath is tired of making too much money and is pulling all...

I wrote last year about a theory I had, namely that digitization was enabling a more minimalist lifestyle for people who wouldn't otherwise be minimalist. I could still have my books, music and movies, but they wouldn't take up space anymore. Well, I'm doing my annual March break spring cleaning this week, and I've found that a recent addition to my tech arsenal has enabled me to take it one step further. The tool? An iPhone 5 with a scanner-quality built-in camera, and the free Evernote app Evernote is my brilliant new discovery, and to my delight, I just found a 'doc scanner'...

I wrote a few weeks ago about the health unit I'm doing with my Grade 2 class, exploring technology and how we can use it safely in our lives. Well, our second lesson was delayed by a snow day, so I've only now gotten around to lesson two, and it was a doozy! In our previous class, we did some brainstorming about what sorts of technology the kids use at home. For homework, I had them keep a log for two days—a school day and a weekend day. In this week's lesson, the first thing we did was tabulate the results. The students averaged...

The fourth annual National Day of Unplugging is upon us, running March 1-2 from sundown to sundown. Go outside! Spend time with the fam! Bake some cookies! Whatever you choose to do, don’t spend the NDU staring at any screens. How will you spend your National Day of Unplugging?  I'll probably be right where I always am, attached to my word processor in the leaky basements of GadgeTell, as otherwise they don’t refill my water dish. But I heartily endorse unplugging for everyone who can manage it. If you’re looking for an even more ambitious tech-detox, sister campaign Tech Timeout is challenging everyone to set aside...

The modern phenomenon known as the Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session is perhaps a perfect example of the sort of knowledge acquisition that is only possible because of the Internet. But you know that already. Here's something you probably don't know: A gentleman by the name of Gary Shapiro will be hosting a Reddit AMA tomorrow (that's Tuesday, February 26) from 2-3 pm EST. If you have any interest in the future of consumer electronics and consumer technology industry in general, this is one you probably shouldn't miss. That's because Gary Shapiro is both the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics...

According to a February 6 article that appeared on CIO.com, a website for "chief information officers and other IT leaders," researchers at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor "have found a way to make colors more vivid on an e-reader screen, which could lead to the creation of advanced displays and spawn the development of color e-books." The scientific explanation behind the discovery is certainly complicated, but it has to do with something called structural color, "which is the foundation that makes things like a peacock's tail feathers appear iridescent," according to a separate article about the Michigan research team that...

As my school's technology coordinator, part of my job is to explore the different ways our students use technology, and how that's working for us. Are there tools we are under-utilizing? Tools we are over-utilizing? Are there concerns parents have over how their kids are interacting with technology on a daily basis? I learned recently, not to my surprise, that the answer to the latter question was a resounding yes. Children are exposed to so much technology these days, and it is so compelling for them. How can we make sure they're using it responsibly? Most of my students have parents who...

I posted an article earlier this week about the difficulty of finding ready-to-go technology stuff for kids, and I figured out why: The publishers aren't the only monolithic entity who is slow to innovate! It seems the Ministry of Education—in my Canadian province, anyway—is slow to innovate, too. Just for fun, I looked up Ontario's Science and Technology curriculum {PDF} (last updated back in the stone ages of 2007) and, to my surprise, found absolutely no reference in it to computer technology whatsoever. This wouldn't be such an issue if teachers were even remotely prepared to fill in the gaps themselves. But...

Fresh off the heels of CES and the Polaroid Kids Tablet and the iThis and the iThat, I have a confession to make about technology in education. And here it is: We actually don't need any more technology. We don't, really! That might be a strange thing to say in this age of tech abundance, but the truth is, what we need right now is better content, not better gizmos to run them on. Let's do a roundup of the gadgets currently on hand in my school: Computer Lab This gets used—a lot—by teachers doing their prep. The older grades do have allotted...