What's the Difference: Website, Blog, Social Media

There are many different ways to create an online presence. The top three are: a website, a blog, or a social media page. What determines your choice is what you want to accomplish. Once you have that, very abstract idea locked into your brain, you need to know which of the three is the best fit. Fortunately, that will ultimately be up to your preferences; what I can tell you is what each of the three - website, blog, and social media - are geared towards.

Website

Websites are typically structured to contain/present content that ought to be presented in a hierarchical format. For example, think online shopping - those websites are divided into categories; now, think about a book - most books progress from beginning to end of some particular event or topic. (Keep this in mind...it will come back.)

Blog

Weblogs are typically structured to contain/present content that ought to be presented according to time. For example, remember that dairy you got when you were little...that's a weblog. HUH? I have to post something everyday? No. The typically blogger might post weekly, some everyday or even several times a day, one must remember that those prolific bloggers are earning money from their blog, while others, like me, post when they remember to post or because they decided on the way home that this would be a great post for their blog.

Social Media Page

Social Media Page is typically structured as a stream of consciousnesses or as a personal conversation with a group of friends at a bar/restaurant. For example, one minute you could be talking about politics and the next you could be talking about the surgery your cousin had last week or possibly your sex-life. What's important to remember is that these conversations are occurring in a bar/restaurant. When you're there, don't you hear the neighboring conversations? Another point to consider about a social media page is that is behaves much like a RSS feed - that's really simple syndication; think AP news, they write most of our news but we get that news from other places than AP news.

Overlap

Ok, so that's the basic overall differences, however, there's overlap.

Let's say you are a quilter or a gardener. You want to share your knowledge with the world. Obviously, what you know is structured content. There is a beginning and end. So, one might think a website would be the best possible choice, and it could be. What ultimately decides is your preference - Do you think like a book? In a progression of stages? If you do, then, yes, the website structure would be best for you. But if you think in chunks or want a little more 'freedom' then maybe a blog would be your best choice. But then again, you could decide that a social media page might be the best solution, since you want to have a more personal, stream of consciousness, conversations with others just like you.

Interactions

Each one of these three - websites, blogs, and social media pages - have different levels of interaction with viewers. The social media page - obvious, social - has the most intimate interactions; typically you are expected your 'followers/friends' to either like or comment on what you share, while the website typically has the least (a little to none - your choice) interaction. Meanwhile, the blog is in the middle. Each blog post has the possibility of having or not having comments and how much you, the blogger, interact with those comments is completely up to you. 

Summarize

So, which one do you pick? .... Answer the following questions:

How do you think? 

What do you want to present?

Do you want to interact with your viewers? 

Those three questions will help you decide which will be the best fit for you.

iDevices & Kindle: Want all your ebooks in one place?

Updated 12.14.2011 @ 3:03pm: This also works for converting most iBooks (ePub) to Kindle ... =D 

There are lots of different apps available for reading, but this blog post is not going to discuss them, rather it is a how-to for getting all of one's books regardless of format in one place, Kindle.

One may ask why not iBooks, well, I don't like the iBooks interface, that's why. Ok, I'll give: It's the lack of theme customization. Yet, some may be thinking about Stanza which is a very sweet program, but it's not working in iOS 5 plus I buy most of my leisure books from Amazon so.....Kindle, it is.

The program that makes all this possible just happens to be Stanza Desktop (which seems to be not available at the moment). Stanza desktop not only does it allows one to read books on their desktops, but - and this is its magic - also allows one to open and convert most ebook formats to most ebook formats. In other words, it can open most ebook formats and convert that format to any of the others. Wicked slick!!

Here's a snapshot of the export menu:

Notice the second format - Amazon Kindle?!

Here's the process:

Step 0: Open desired ebook in Stanza Desktop.

Step 1: File | Export file as... Choose Amazon Kindle.

Step 2: Save exported file in Dropbox, SugarSync or box.net.

Step 3: Launch the program (Dropbox, SugarSync or box.net) on your iDevice.

Step 4: Download exported file.

Step 5: In top right hand corner tap the "open in" icon.

Step 6: Select Kindle.

Technical notes: Once the converted file is in Kindle one cannot change its name, description or any additional details. So before one exports the file from Stanza Desktop, one can make all those changes here:

Which pops up this dialog box:

Now, if only Kindle allowed for categories or collections...other than author, title or recent....

iPad Discovery: Presentation Magic Geekery

Since getting my iPad 2 in July, I have spent every moment possible playing and downloading this app or that app attempting to figure out if the iPad can, in fact, replace the teacher laptop. Well, I think it can for the majority of teachers. 

The last major hurdle is presentations which is rather complex, so here's some background information first: 

In 2008 I discovered the then called Air Mouse app (Mobile Mouse, today) from RPA for my iPhone. This allows one to control their computer as they move around the room, basically a cheap yet feature rich presentation mouse. Fantastic, so instead of being locked to my computer, I can be next to the rascals just in case. Moreover, just recently RPA added Presentation Mode for the iPhone. Presentation Mode doesn't work on the iPad, well, not as of today, but I'm sure it's in the works. The glitch with Presentation Mode on the iPhone is the slides and speaker notes are very small due to screen size limitations.

Then in January 2010 my projector bulb started its slow agonizing death with no available money for a new bulb, so my mission was to find an alternative or make do without. HUH?! Well, as serendipity would have it, LogMeIn's released Join.me just as this crisis hit. (If you have not tried this, I highly recommend you give it a whirl; it is the #1 teacher tool. Join.me is very simple; it privately shares whatever is on your computer screen via the Internet. Go check it out.) [Side Note: I have a lab of 20 computers and the district has 1:1 netbooks.]

Now, with Join.me and Mobile Mouse in my toolbox, I didn't need my projector, nor have I used it since. Plus, the process of an impromptu presentation for a two minute demonstration is now possible; it actually, takes less than 30 seconds to setup. No time for those rascals to get momentum, and it's a game... I read the numbers wicked fast. Who's going to get there first?

There is one major drawback by not using the projector - impromptu whiteboard teachable moments. When I used the projector, I would project directly onto my 8 foot whiteboard which I could then write on to further explain the concept as needed. (Then using my iPhone camera take a snapshot of the whiteboard and later add it to the presentation with speaker notes). Using Join.me, I cannot do this. (Well, at the time I didn't think it possible....read on.)

Another glitch, over the summer I started moving everything to Google Apps, DropBox, SugarSync and box.net; I am really tried of making backups. The glitch? Mobile Mouse's Presentation Mode does not work with Google Presentation. So back to using it to simply control the computer which keeps me free to mingle with the rascals.

The HURTLE: But there's got to be a way, where I can have it all, right?

I want to be able to move around my room while seeing and controlling the presentation in my hand AND write on the presentation as if it was projected on the whiteboard regardless of the presentation software I used to original create it.

YES, Waston, there is.

Step 0: Make presentation.
Step 1: Save/export presentation as a PDF.
Step 2: Upload PDF into cloud (Dropbox, SugarSync, box.net, etc.).
Step 3: On your iPad download PDF.
Step 4: Open PDF in AirSketch (AirSketch broadcasts a whiteboard AND reads PDFs).
Step 5: Launch browser on laptop.
Step 6: Direct laptop's browser to IP address from AirSketch.
Step 7: Launch Join.me on laptop.
Step 8: Give Join.me numbers to students.

Now, I can have my presentation in my hand. I can control it, write on it, and with those edits/additions, save the presentation as a new PDF and email it to whomever.

Technical Side Notes: No AppleTVs or HDTVs for those who were thinking of AirPlay. Back to my technique: The trick is to have the laptop physically plugged (Ethernet) into the network. I have tried broadcasting just from my iPad 2, but it bogs down. It is better to piggy back it off the laptop. Now, to wait patiently until AirSketch adds a recording feature. 

What a difference an iPad makes...

This past July I finally made the leap and bought myself an iPad 2 for my birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me! And still to this day it amazes me the psychological impact my iPad has made on my motivation to "get things done".

Being a Geek (yes, that's a capital Geek) teacher, I am constantly teaching, battling, and playing with technology all day, so when I get home, I'm brain-drained. Yet most nights I have piles of homework (grading or planning), so I sit there in my home office with my laptop trying to get things done, trudging along feeling pressured to "just get it done" - not being relaxed, not being creative, not being very positive.

Again, being the Geek teacher, I am knowledgeable of all the tricks of getting things done quickly, this program for that, that technique for this, and this website for that - this is not the problem. The problem is the stress of the day following me home and instead of relaxing while being imaginatively clever, I race just to get those things done, no extra thought, no extra tweaking, just get it done.

Now, with my iPad, YEAH!, I'm still doing basically the same thing as above (working all day with piles of homework). The difference? I'm not sitting at a desk, I'm home reading, surfing, discovering and when something about work pops into my head I spend time doing that then go right back to reading, surfing, discovering until the next work-something jumps to the front and demands attention.

It's all about location. My iPad has freed me from the psychological desk trap and all it means - racing against the bells, quick, before the next interruption, and the dreaded at least it's done. I find my finished products are a little more snazzier which entices the need to share the joy. 

The joy? 

I highly recommend any tool that frees one from the desk trap.