Monday, October 27, 2008
Voice Thread
For the first part of the assignment, commenting on the school photograph, I was going to take the easy way out and just type a comment, but we do have a computer with a microphone, so I decided to figure it out. This was quite easy to do, but my microphone is pretty lousy.
My own voice thread was quite fun to do. I enjoyed digging out our photographs and doing some web research to get period pictures. Adding comments, both written and vocal was pretty simple. Again, my microphone is not very good, so while it sounded ok when I recorded it, it did not sound very good on playback. There were a few other glitches too. I thought I had lost my 90% completed voicethread because I could not figure out how to retrieve it, so I started over. Then I figured out how to find it when I had finished the new one. Also, one of my pictures had a voicethread in addition to text, but it never showed up on my other computer when I emailed it to myself – only the text was visible. I never did figure that out.
Overall, I see a number of applications for this in the classroom. I envision students doing slideshows which could then be viewed in class. I see a lot of personal applications for this as well.
There was an option to embed the Voice Thread into the blogger so I tried it and it worked!
Overall a fun, easy to use tool.
My own voice thread was quite fun to do. I enjoyed digging out our photographs and doing some web research to get period pictures. Adding comments, both written and vocal was pretty simple. Again, my microphone is not very good, so while it sounded ok when I recorded it, it did not sound very good on playback. There were a few other glitches too. I thought I had lost my 90% completed voicethread because I could not figure out how to retrieve it, so I started over. Then I figured out how to find it when I had finished the new one. Also, one of my pictures had a voicethread in addition to text, but it never showed up on my other computer when I emailed it to myself – only the text was visible. I never did figure that out.
Overall, I see a number of applications for this in the classroom. I envision students doing slideshows which could then be viewed in class. I see a lot of personal applications for this as well.
There was an option to embed the Voice Thread into the blogger so I tried it and it worked!
Overall a fun, easy to use tool.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Animoto
Animoto was an easy to use tool, but I doubt I will use again. I cannot see an application in the classroom for it. And, most of our track team videos (which is what my short is about) include a lot of video as well as still pictures and have traditionally been authored in something more complex like Adobe Premiere. I do intend to tell my college aged daughter about it though as I expect she would like to use it quite a bit.
I choose pictures from our track team (all have been posted on the web before with permission from the kids’ so no issues there). I had many to choose from as my wife was the team photographer for years and showed me where the files were stored on her computer. I choose pictures that displayed numerous track activities. It was easy to upload and reorder the photos. Uploading the song track was equally simple. I was impressed with the ability to pick a starting point in the music for the Animoto short. For my short video, the beginning of the song would not have worked.
I then posted the Animoto to my blog following the simple instructions and it worked!
I choose pictures from our track team (all have been posted on the web before with permission from the kids’ so no issues there). I had many to choose from as my wife was the team photographer for years and showed me where the files were stored on her computer. I choose pictures that displayed numerous track activities. It was easy to upload and reorder the photos. Uploading the song track was equally simple. I was impressed with the ability to pick a starting point in the music for the Animoto short. For my short video, the beginning of the song would not have worked.
I then posted the Animoto to my blog following the simple instructions and it worked!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
RSS Feeds
Wow! I must admit that I had no clue this functionality even existed. I viewed the second movie, because I screwed something up when trying to view the first. The instructions in that video were very easy to follow.
I decided to subscribe to environmental news from a number of sources. The New York Times option was simple (mainly because that was the example shown in the movie). The SF Chronicle was not as easy as I could not find any RSS icon on the home page. A search for ‘RSS feed’ though, took me right to it. The Chronicle did not have a specific enough section to add, so instead I added one of my favorite pod casts – Mick LaSalle and his movie discussions.
Then I headed back into looking for environmental news feeds. The Wall Street Journal had a ‘most read articles’ feed and a regular RSS feed option. When signing up, I discovered that I had to be a paid subscriber to get that feed….so on to another choice! Rather than trying out different newspapers or magazines, I searched for free RSS feeds and found a zillion. I choose ‘Science Daily’ – it set the whole feed up for me with a series of options (no cut and paste needed). However, I was not given an option to refine the search option to just environmental news. But the ‘Baldness Gene’ article was pretty interesting (for obvious reasons). Then I headed to NPR and looked at their options and subscribed to Environmental feeds.
Next I followed the instructions to use Google news to find articles on Global Warming. That was a wonderful option and also very easy to employ. I then got even more specific and subscribed to Google News covering “greening your home” only.
The search for ‘Green’ blogs was even more fascinating. I subscribed to “GreenMe: Sustainable Living Blog.”
I then tried to add my classmates’ blogs. Ran into some problems there – errors, etc. but most of them added ok.
The final step, or sharing one of my feeds, was a bit harder. By following the directions exactly, I think I was able to share the GreenMe Blog. I have not read much of that blog yet, so I hope it is worth looking at. My apologies if it is not. Considering it is authored in Ireland, it might give all of us a fresh perspective.
My list of feeds started to look a bit overwhelming, but I found an option to manage subscriptions at the bottom. I then created some new folders by topic and put the different feeds into the appropriate folders. Looks much better now.
Overall, I am amazed at this functionality and can, with certainty, say I am so glad I signed up for this course!
I decided to subscribe to environmental news from a number of sources. The New York Times option was simple (mainly because that was the example shown in the movie). The SF Chronicle was not as easy as I could not find any RSS icon on the home page. A search for ‘RSS feed’ though, took me right to it. The Chronicle did not have a specific enough section to add, so instead I added one of my favorite pod casts – Mick LaSalle and his movie discussions.
Then I headed back into looking for environmental news feeds. The Wall Street Journal had a ‘most read articles’ feed and a regular RSS feed option. When signing up, I discovered that I had to be a paid subscriber to get that feed….so on to another choice! Rather than trying out different newspapers or magazines, I searched for free RSS feeds and found a zillion. I choose ‘Science Daily’ – it set the whole feed up for me with a series of options (no cut and paste needed). However, I was not given an option to refine the search option to just environmental news. But the ‘Baldness Gene’ article was pretty interesting (for obvious reasons). Then I headed to NPR and looked at their options and subscribed to Environmental feeds.
Next I followed the instructions to use Google news to find articles on Global Warming. That was a wonderful option and also very easy to employ. I then got even more specific and subscribed to Google News covering “greening your home” only.
The search for ‘Green’ blogs was even more fascinating. I subscribed to “GreenMe: Sustainable Living Blog.”
I then tried to add my classmates’ blogs. Ran into some problems there – errors, etc. but most of them added ok.
The final step, or sharing one of my feeds, was a bit harder. By following the directions exactly, I think I was able to share the GreenMe Blog. I have not read much of that blog yet, so I hope it is worth looking at. My apologies if it is not. Considering it is authored in Ireland, it might give all of us a fresh perspective.
My list of feeds started to look a bit overwhelming, but I found an option to manage subscriptions at the bottom. I then created some new folders by topic and put the different feeds into the appropriate folders. Looks much better now.
Overall, I am amazed at this functionality and can, with certainty, say I am so glad I signed up for this course!
My Blog Thoughts
I think this is a fun, easy to use tool. I have not figured out a practical application for use in my classroom yet....but I will keep thinking about that. Lots of personal applications though. I am going to try to talk my brother into blogging about his marathon training sessions. It would be a nice option for the kids to have when they have journalling assignments, but the access/security options would need to be worked out.
Now on to Week Two!
Now on to Week Two!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
More Blog Exploring
Found some fun items called 'gadgets' which I incorporated into my blog. Swiped a video of my daughter singing at her summer job from my wife's YouTube account. Probably will not keep the Sports Illustrated gadget, but was interested to see what it would look like.
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