Screen Test: Enhance or Detract

For a while now I have been concerned about screens. I have two main concerns:

1. the amount of time I spend in front of a screen
2. life being filtered through a screen

Now I am clearly not anti technology by any means, I write a technology blog, I work in the social media industry, I am getting my masters degree in instructional technology, and I will be teaching a class this fall on using technology in the classroom. In fact I am starkly opposed to those who talk about technology as thought in cannot produce anything more than superficial stimulus with no meaningful experiences.

But I am concerned because the area is still new and we don't know much about its effects.

I admit that I don't want to live in a Wall-e like world where all interactions take place through a screen. 

I think in the early 2000's we teetered near this fate as more work became computer centric and tied people to desktops and laptops. I believe we were pulled back from this by the mobile revolution that began to take place after the iPhone and then the iPad were released. People are coming to realize that while most jobs now have a computer or internet component to them (for many communication), many do not require you to constantly be in front of a traditional computer because they can be done from anywhere on a mobile device.

I consider this a good thing, because I believe that the less obtrusive technology can be while still bringing enhancements to our lives, the better.

What concerns me now is that this new ecosystem of mobile computing has brought with it its own challenges. The accessibility of the screens when we are out of the house has made us subject to constant drive for more.

More what?

New Year's Resolutions: Living Better with an iPad

Hello everyone, I am back from the holiday break. I had a great time with family the past couple weeks celebrating the birth of Christ and the New Year. I hope you did as well.

Well, as you might expect given the fact that I write this blog, I took some time on New Year's Eve with my wife to solidify our goals and resolutions for 2014. I think I have told you in the past how much I use to hate making New Year's resolutions. It is one of those things my mom made me do that I dreaded that I am now extremely grateful was instilled in me. Goals are a painful, but a cleansing process.

Naturally many of the goals I have set for this year have iPad or iPhone components to them, I thought I would share some of these with you and I hope you will share yours in the comments below. I set goals in the four major areas of life: Mental, Physical, Spiritual, Social. I use the Evernote app to write down all my goals for the year and the Lumen Trails app to track them.

Mental:

• Typing using Dvorak keyboard layout: for about two years I have been experimenting with using the more efficient keyboard layout known as Dvorak instead of the traditional Qwerty. This year I have finally decided to use it in all of my personal typing. On iOS you cannot with the touch keyboard to Dvorak so this has held me back, for Christmas I got a bluetooth keyboard and case(which I will blog about soon) from my brother. External keyboards can be set to Dvorak so now I am good to go on the iPad mini.
• Reading 52 books: I sometimes read books on my iPad using several different apps. I also use the Goodreads app to track what I am reading and what I want to read.

Physical:

• Losing some weight: like many people this time of year I am involved in a biggest loser competition with my family. For this I will continue using the Gorilla Workout app, the app My Fitness Pal to track myself, and the podcast app while running.

Spiritual:

• Scripture Memorization: I will be using the app LDS Memory: Scripture Mastery to memorize scriptures.
• Reading the New Testament: I will be using the Bible Gateway app to read side by side translations of the New Testament.
• Journal: I finally completed an entire year of journaling without missing a day in 2013 and now I hope to make my journal writing more meaningful using the GridDiary app.

Social:

• I hope to use twitter more this year and I will be using the official Twitter app to do so for now. But I am open to other app suggestions if you have them.

That is not all of my goals this year, but it is most of the ones that involve iOS. Please share your goals and apps for 2014 with me in the comments or on twitter (@halduauthor). I think it is going to be a great year so long as we remember to live better.

Preparing for New Year's Resolutions

We are now quickly approaching that time of the year where we will need to set our New Year's resolutions.

Make an idea list now
As soon as you read to post you should begin to make an idea list of the goals you may want to accomplish next year. If you wait until New Year's Eve or Day when you have sat down to actually commit to those goals then you are going to have a heap of trouble coming up with them. Great ideas seldom come to us when we force them. So have some way of keeping track of ideas as they come to you so that when you do sit down to set goals you will have a list of options in front of you to choose from.
In my series on goals and iPads I have a post dedicated to writing goals down: click here to read it.