Monday, April 4, 2011

Blog Post #9: RSS & Blogs.....

Hello,

So again, I visited the youtube video ‘RSS in plain English’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU and discovered the following.

So in today’s world there are many sites that people have accounts with. When users want to check the status of their accounts then they need to check several different sites by logging in and searching for new information. I would describe this process as ‘searching’ for news, where the user is doing the work to search for updates.

Searching for news takes too much time and become quite cumbersome. The popular remedy to this situation is to sign up for a ‘reader’ which organizes all one’s personal accounts and delivers the updates from these sites to one location. The user can then quit searching for news and simply log into their reader account and check all of their sites simultaneously. I would describe this process as ‘receiving’ changes or updates, where the reader site is transmitting news and the user is just reading the messages.

To create a single page full of one’s updates, a user must sign up for a ‘reader’ page. There are many sites that offer accounts for this service, but I just set up a reader account at google. Setting up the account is the first step, and then as users surf through their favorite sites, they can add these sites to their own reader by subscribing to the site. Subscribing to a site means that you are interested in receiving updates from those sites. Any updates from a site are then sent to your ‘home base’ or reader account. To begin directing site updates to your reader account you must click the ‘subscribe’ button on a given website. The subscribe button either states ‘subscribe’ or has the ‘+’ sign next to something stating ‘to subscribe to this website, click here’.
I comprehend the need for a reader account because, yes, checking millions of sites for updates could get annoying. I actually have subscribed to a couple of my favorite bands websites. Instead of setting up a reader account, I just linked my email account to receive new updates. This type of service is great when you want to receive offers for rare band material, such as limited edition vinyl records, cd’s, etc. Instead of having to continually search band websites for tour dates or brand-new news, automatic emails are sent out to those fans who are subscribers to the site.

I have also had a bit of experience using this sort of email update system from the social website facebook. I don’t think the service works as well for facebook because it is a bit redundant. Since the facebook main page is a page of most recent updates anyways, why do users then need emails updating the updates. There have been many times when I’ve commented on a friends’ facebook picture or status, only to be emailed later about other people who have also commented on that same friends’ facebook page. I realize that facebook is a social website but I find email notifications regarding more wall posts to be somewhat annoying.
As for educational purposes, using an RSS reader would be great for website updates of an educational variety. If one was researching a certain topic, one could subscribe to websites which keep track of informational break-throughs in a particular subject matter. Then if a website were to update their ‘news’ pages, these updates would be sent to anyone subscribed to the site. From a student perspective, if teachers authored websites containing course material then any updates that a teacher made would directly be distributed to all students that are subscribed.

Overall the RSS approach saves time in searching and brings any new information to the user. I guess the one drawback would be for users to then set aside time to follow all updates on their personal reader site. Even though one doesn’t have to go searching for new information, one now has to keep up with updates or else it would kind of defeat the purpose of email notifications. I never really knew this kind of service existed with most sites before. It reminds me of a notification ‘housekeeping’ service.

Thanks, take care.
-Regen

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Blog #8: Twitter.....

Hello,

I just finished watching ‘twitter in plain English’ on youtube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o). My first impression of twitter from the youtube video is that it seemed a lot like the ‘status updates’ portion of facebook accounts. The twitter page also reminded me of an ‘msn’ messenger sort of page where instead of posting to someone specifically, user postings are made public to all ones twitter friends.

Twitter is a free website designed for user’s to socially interact on a more ‘small-talk’ level of friendship. It allows users to post short messages about themselves and what they are currently doing. From these posts I feel that whoever is interested may post back and forth with the original poster. Once you sign up for a twitter account then you can search twitter for friends who also have established twitter accounts.

This website seems very beneficial to those who live ‘on-the-go’ and want to keep track of everyday details about the ones they know and care about. I see this website being more for users who have cell phones, ipods, etc, who can post short messages while walking or resting. I am not sure if I would use this twitter from a home computer. I guess I’m not that outgoing and/or social and would therefore feel kind of strange posting something like ‘I just ate dinner’ or ‘I’m now going to bed.’ On the other hand if I was out doing something away from my home I may be more inclined to twitter something like ‘I just saw a really great concert.’
I’m not sure of a possible educational use for twitter with students but it could definitely be fun with other staff members. Since the program requires people to be ‘friends’ I don’t think it would be appropriate with students. With staff members twitter could definitely be used to break the ice with new staff or to get reacquainted with old staff at the beginning of the school year in September. At the first staff pro-d day we could spend 20-30 minutes adding each other as friends on twitter and posting short messages about current feelings or things other teachers participated in over the summer break. I think this would bridge a lot of similarities between staff in a more relaxed environment.

So I visited twitter.com and signed up for a free account. My user account can be found at the following website link: http://twitter.com/#!/waylonsmithand I posted a few ‘tweets’ just to check if it worked. I also added a picture of my vintage bike to my profile space. It seems like a pretty neat site. During the registration process I was prompted to add some bands to ‘follow’ on twitter. I found a few bands that I enjoy and chose to follow them. In twitter language, the command to ‘follow’ means to add that person/band/thing/ etc to your account so that when there are updates for these items, then you are made aware of the changes. I have yet to find any friends on the twitter site. The twitter site only allowed me to search limited sites for friends. Since most of my friends are located facebook, I couldn’t find any of them directly on twitter. Therefore my new goal is to find some of my friends/relatives/etc who are on twitter and add them to my fiends list.
Twitter seems very hip and I look forward to using it more in the future. Thanks and good night.
-Regen

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Blog Post #7: Social Networking Sites....

Hello,


Shortly before I started using facebook, I was hooked on the social website myspace. I’m still unsure as to why facebook trumped myspace somewhat because they do offer similar services but myspace even has a great music and band component that facebook doesn’t have. Anyways, facebook grants users free accounts in which they invite friends to be friends with them on the website. Each user has their account profile in which they add information about themselves such as pictures, quotes, favorite movies, favorite music, etc. Facebook also allows users to post comments on their profiles, friend’s profiles, and on pictures. These comments are always attached to profiles or pictures and all comments are date and time stamped to the nearest second, allowing other users to see exactly when comments are made. I believe that ‘comments’ are the biggest aspect of facebook and make up most of the new activity on the networking site.
When a user makes an account they must be aware that other users will see their profiles and see all their pictures and comments. If you are truly friends with someone then having these people see your profile, pictures, and comments isn’t a big deal. Though if you add friends to your facebook account that are more like acquaintances, co-workers, or bosses, then this greatly changes the level of privacy that your facebook account possesses. You must then be aware of all the people who could potentially see everything you have added to your profile. You must also think if these people would judge you by your comments, or in other words how seriously these acquaintances or co-workers will take your comments, pictures, etc.
If I was to list the most useful aspect of facebook, I would say that it would be the ‘event’ creation service that allows users to create an event and send e-invites to friends of facebook. Yes, numerous e-invites can get annoying but I find that this aspect of facebook is very efficient in finding out who will be attending and who will not. The electronic event creation ability of facebook eliminates the need for actual paper invitations and it makes it easier and cheaper to distribute the invites to your friends.
I also enjoy using facebook’s group creator which allows users to create groups of common interest. Once the group is created the moderator or creator of the group can then select which friends they want to send invitations to in order to join the group. If the group is a public group then users I send invites to, can then invite others who they feel may be interested in joining the group.
I am a co-moderator (officer) of a group called ‘Taylor Box Hockey’ at the following link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=2486591360 A friend and I created this group in order to better organize outdoor street hockey games. We play street hockey on rollerblades during the summer in a lacrosse box. We use the facebook group site as a way to better organize drop-in games. It’s great because we can post a game day and start time and then have people show up to play that wouldn’t have otherwise known about the game without the site. One bad aspect of these groups is that if it’s not updated frequently then users and members just quit checking the group site and it eventually becomes obsolete.
I feel the one main drawback or negative aspect of facebook is its privacy settings for user accounts. At one time my wife had a facebook account but deleted her account because she was upset by the fact that user comments could open up one’s profile to exponential numbers of other users who aren’t necessarily friends with you on the site. Meaning if I were to make a comment on a friends picture, then all of my friends could view that comment and further view my friends entire account including all past pictures, comments, etc. On the other hand if one of my friends makes a comment on one of my pictures then all of their friends can then view my entire profile and all of my past pictures and comments.
A possibility of using facebook within a school would be to organize events. Sporting events could be better organized using the event creator on the facebook site. A facebook group site could also be created for the school staff to discuss topics pertaining to social gatherings or specific student’s academic achievement. Creating a group site for a schools staff could make it easier to message everyone at the same time instead of using individual messages or the schools email list.

And yes, I did see the movie 'the social network'. I thought it was pretty good but wasn't sure if it was that accurate or not. I don't know the real story of how facebook was created but the movie did a good job. Especially liked the aspect of the creator not wanting to add advertising to the margins of the facebook page to give it a cheesy look.

Thanks. -Regen

Monday, March 14, 2011

Blog Post #6: Presentation Sites....

Hello,

I researched Prezi using the following youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpLsF5lh98k

In general ‘Prezi’ is a whiteboard space designed for users to make single-page presentations. The users can input text and pictures and a prezi site allows users to zoom-in and zoom-out. Text size is important to display importance. Users can also make frames around similar topics. I created a quick Prezi regarding fractions, percents, and decimals to possibly use within the junior secondary math curriculum. The whole process was pretty straight forward, though it did take me a while to figure out how to change the size of the font. I have never created an electronic page where font size made such as huge difference. Using the endless zoom-in and zoom-out features made inserting an illegible text size possible. If you can’t read something that’s too small, just zoom-in. Please view the Prezi I created that is embedded in the previous blog thread.

I researched voicethread using the following youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U1wlRrKyyk
At first glance it reminded me of an online mind map. Posting a picture and then adding a comment for students and all to observe. I didn’t create anything using voicethread but enjoyed learning about it.

I researched glogster using the following youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80NISdsoouE
Overall it’s an online poster creator with hyperlinks, text, pictures, etc. I didn’t create anything using glogster but enjoyed learning about it.

I researched animoto on youtube and viewed the following promomotional video from the company on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdTn0yRH_-w&feature=fvst
It didn’t say much about how to make a presentation, but displayed great examples of what the animoto site can create. I also watched another cool example on youtube where a user posted an animoto creation using their pictures from a Maui holiday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTrm0s09FQA
Please see my blog posts below for my embedded animoto creation. I gathered a bunch of past Christmas photos together and used them. Animoto grants users free basic accounts for presentations 30 seconds or shorter (‘lite’ account, free). Animoto also allows basic access to a bunch of templates for user to choose from. Animoto also has thousdands of songs to choose from and use within your presentation. If users want more length and more features there is a ‘plus’ account , $30 per year. Presentations created using the ‘lite’ and ‘plus’ accounts have embedded logos and branding within them and require an animoto player to run the presentations. For a ‘pro’ account, $249 per year, the website allows users to create presentations that don’t have any branding and no required animoto player to run presentations.

The presentations created from this website would be great in school for the beginning of a new chapter or unit in order to ‘hook’ the students. Whenever music is combined with video footage or pictures it becomes hard not to be interested. Combining music and video is magical and should be used in class whenever possible as a way to get through the less interesting topic material.

I liked this wesbsite and the features offered but I feel it is not that different from imovie (Mac) or moviemaker (Windows PC). I feel this site provides novice pc users an easier and more convenient presentation product, but if you know just a bit around moviemaker or imovie that one could develop the same thing with more control over song choices and overall appearance of a presentation.

Researched xtranomal on youtube…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtjQlztrA2A
I created an account for the website www.xtranormal.com but I later discovered that users must buy points in order to purchase actors, sets, and music. I also read that educators can get free use of the site but you had to email the site and request to be verified. Although the sample xtranormal videos on youtube were quite entertaining, I didn’t know how much the total cost would be. Each new account gets 300 points to start but the costs of actors was 300-400 points, and more points to buy the set etc. The site sells 1200 points for $10USD, and I was going to buy them, but then didn’t know how far 1200 points would go.

This website is really denying themselves users and potential revenue by not allowing visitors to make their own small presentation that they could take away or embed elsewhere for that matter. This aspect seems very greedy and not user-friendly. Yes, the user can enter in some dialogue and hear some characters speak, but I don’t feel that is enough to get visitors returning to purchase points.

Thanks.
-Regen