My personal laptop is an Eee PC 900. It's part of the new class of laptops commonly referred to as "netbooks." Netbooks have been given that name because their use is centered around the internet. They're great for travel as netbooks as a group don't have screen bigger than 10.2". Mine happens to have a 9" screen. I know what you're thinking and yes, that is small. (Full disclosure: I'm typing this post of my wife's 13.3" Macbook.) The screen is small and so is the keyboard. I don't have any buyer's remorse with it, as it's perfect for surfing on the net and firing off emails. However, when I know I'm going to be doing some serious typing, I appreciate a normal keyboard. Besides, my wife is getting Wii Fit at the moment, so her laptop is all mine.
What does this have to do with the confusingly catchy title? Well, on my Eee PC, I use Firefox to get around on the net. I love Firefox because of its extensibility. My favorite extension is Greasemonkey (GM). GM allows the user to create scripts that run on a website which alter the way a website looks. For example, if you don't care how many Spam messages you have in Gmail and would rather not have the count displayed in your sidebar, install the GM extension then install the "Gmail Spam-count Hide" script from Userscripts.org.
Before:
After:
This particular script may not intrigue everyone. I'm merely using it as an example to show what GM can do.
To bring this post to its natural conclusion, I'll explain how I use GM to make life on my small screen easier. I use the site Remember The Milk (RTM) to keep my To Do lists in the cloud. They have a handy website to keep my lists organized, but I found that the site was not optimal on my 9" screen. By using a GM script called "A Bit Better RTM" and altering it a bit for my screen, I have a much more usable RTM on my netbook.
Application
So how can this be applied to the classroom? Writing GM scripts seems like a natural enrichment activity for the computer-oriented secondary student. I know some sites I frequent have what I consider to be "design flaws" and this gives a way to "fix" those "flaws." Students can do the same thing. Something about Facebook's appearance annoy them? Do you wish the citations on Wikipedia were highlighted? (Actually, that one sounds like a decent idea).
That's what I've got. What say you, commenters?
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