Sunday, June 24, 2012

Week 4 - Technology Tools

Week Four:

Twitter Feeds (creating lists on Twitter) this will be the second semester that I use Twitter. Sadly, before this assignment I must admit that I never really looked at the other features that it offered until now. My prior experience was minimal and after the readings I was surprised that it had different options and that you could separate your followers into lists. After completion of the readings and the creation of my lists I thought that it was really easy to do. Now I have the options to only look at certain tweets. Once my classes are over I will probably not use Twitter personally. Professionally I may now because of the list options. This would give me the ability to separate my students into different classes. Again the most aggravating feature is the space available. http://twitterfeed.com/

Screenr is basically an easy way to record screen captures. I did not have any prior experience with this tool. After the readings I was excited to try it out. I really enjoyed using this tool. It was very simple and easy to use. I can see myself using this for personal use and definitely for professional use. My best case use for this is to create video tutorials. The most engaging feature is that’s its easy. As far as an aggravating feature I saw was the inability to publish private videos. I am not familiar with a comparable tool maybe Camtasia but without all the other features. I really enjoyed this one and will continue to use it in the future. http://www.screenr.com/

Diigo is a site where individuals can join groups and post websites that they feel are useful or would just simply like to share. Individuals can comment on these websites and collaborate on projects. (Diigolet/Social Bookmarking) is a great tool for research. The Diigolet feature allows you to bookmark, highlight and tag webpages. I had used Diigo in a prior class however just uploaded links and did not use the features associated with Diigolet. Initially after I read about it I thought that it was going to be fairly easy to use. I did have to download Google Chrome as it would not work in my current browser. Personally I will not use it but I can see its benefits to those that do a lot of research. This tool actually saves all your highlights and bookmarking’s so once you log in whether it is on the computer you did all the highlighting or an I Pad it saves all your information. That I think is the most engaging feature. I did not see an aggravating feature. It did take me a while to figure out how the bookmarking worked but I think now it was more of a browser issue because once I switched over it was really easy to use. I have not seen any tool that would be comparable. http://www.diigo.com

SlideRocket is like slideshare but with so many more options and features. It allows you to import PowerPoint’s or create ones. I did not have any prior experience to this tool and after the readings was excited to try it out. After completion of my project I felt that it was easy to use and to import images and YouTube videos. I did have issues with putting in the music but glad to say eventually figured it out (re-read the directions). Personally I may not use it but these sites are great to share with my students. Each semester they put together class presentations using PowerPoint’s. Now maybe we can try something new. The most engaging feature is that it is easy to use. The most aggravating feature for me was trying to figure out the music. I can compare this to slideshare. Within this assignment we were also able to use Incompetech. Incompetech is a site where you can download free music for your presentations. We also incorporated some of the tools we used in the prior weeks such as YouTube and Flickr. http://www.sliderocket.com/

Yodio is a tool that allows people to add voice via telephone or computer microphone to photos. I have not had any prior experience with this tool. My pre-impression is that like many of these tools as long as you follow the examples it should be pretty easy to create. As far as a post assessment I am still not sure. I don’t see me using this for personal use and I am not sure I would use it professionally either. Maybe at the college level there could be a use but I see issues with the lower grade levels and cell phones. Its most engaging feature is that you can use your phone to record the messages. As far as its most aggravating feature I haven’t seen one but I have hear people talk about difficulties in converting the files to be viewed on other platforms. I do not know a comparable tool. http://www.yodio.com/

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