Leading Hands Through Technology

Do you had a savvy teen that is online more than 8 hours a day? Experts suggest setting limits.

Ways To Parent A Connected Teen
1. Establish clear ground rules
2. Use phones, desktops and tablets in a common area
3. Make a screen free day – one day a week where you don’t use phones, tablets and desktops
4. No electronics at the dinner table
5. Turn kids phone in at bedtime
6. Play with kids during game time
7. Checkup with kids online activity
8. Set consequences like canceling texting rules are not followed

Do you follow any of these? Do you have any to suggest?

Is your child easily distracted? Are you concerned about their diet? Does your child experience sleep or depression challenges? If you have concerns about your child’s mental health then check out Connecting For Kids. The site features information, reports and programs to assist you.

http://connectingforkids.org

If you need to know something about social media, advertising and PR, TV & video, publishing, design, tech or even need a job in one of those fields – check out Mediabistro. I stumbled upon the site and I was lost in the content for hours.

http://www.mediabistro.com/

Who you gonna call? You may remember that old slogan from the 1980s hit comedy Ghostbusters, but the reality is today you can get help on anything from one tap on your phone. I discovered a site called Presto Experts which gives you live expert advice on any topic. If you are stuck in a bind and need an answer to something why call all over when you can get it in one place. The site has more than 30,000 registered experts in over 600 categories to find you the right expert to supply them with professional advice and assistance. You follow three steps.

First you find your topic. The categories of help are technology, counseling, education, health, design, business, social media, shopping, coaching, legal and home improvement. Then you narrow down to the experts you like by reviewing their ratings and then pick one to get it done. I discovered rates vary between individuals and so does the expertise. Thus, you need to do some quick research on the individual you choose.

http://www.prestoexperts.com/

Why sort through thousands of photos and videos each day on Flickr when Fluidr can do it for you? Fluidr delivers the most interesting photos and videos uploaded to Flickr in an easy interface. You can simply browse through the images or filter down what you would like to see. If you’ve used Flickr, you’ll discover Fluidr makes exploring photos a pleasant experience.

http://www.fluidr.com

Brace yourself for the year of online learning! Ambient Research conducted a recent study that states less students will be enrolled in traditional classes. In 2010 there were 14.4 million students enrolled in traditional classrooms and it will decline to 4.1 million in 2015. Babson Survey Research Group states online classes are on the rise and 74% of colleges offer them. Are you an online student? Are you thinking of going back school? Here are some tips to thrive as an online student.

Are you making a resolution to improve your health in the new year? There always seems to be some report highlighted by health professionals that states curbing back your dependence on technology will improve it. However what if technology had nothing to do with it? I recently saw an article in the Akron Children’s Hospital newsletter that lists 5 simple steps of improving health and I thought they provided a good basis for a healthy new year.

5 steps to improve health:
1) 150 minutes of exercise a week
2) Use the right fuel – use choosemyplate.com
3) Sleep well by getting 6-10 hours a day
4) Screen yourself for cancer regularly
5) Manage stress – take moment to take deep breathe and celebrate success

I hope these five steps inspire you as much as they have for me. Happy new year!

Moreofit is a website that is a similarity search engine. As the site states, “Give Moreofit a website you’re interested in, and it’ll suggest to you alternative highly related and popular websites to explore.” For example, type in “Google” and you will get results like Ask, Bing and Yahoo. This site is a pretty good tool if you are looking to generate a variety of search results outside the norm.

http://moreofit.com

Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It’s free and open source. I downloaded it and have it a try. If you are looking for Photoshop then this is not your tool. However if you are looking for a good tool similar to Illustrator then this is closer.

http://inkscape.org/

If you are in a conversation and you don’t know the answer, where do you go? Have you considered looking up the origin? Find the key term mentioned and look up it’s Etymology. Etymologies are not definitions; they’re explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago. If you want to have a good conversation, start with the etymology.

Here is something I looked up on Etymoline. The word “Volcano” originated in the 1610s, from Italian vulcano “burning mountain,” from Latin Vulcanus “Vulcan,” Roman god of fire, also “fire, flames, volcano” (see Vulcan). The name was first applied to Mt. Etna by the Romans, who believed it was the forge of Vulcan. Earlier form in English was volcan (1570s), from French.

Next time you are in a conversation and you want to contribute – think about looking up the etymology of a keyword in the conversation.

Etymonline.com