This is Samantha on the last day of Social Media. This class has been so much fun! We went on a wild tour of web tools, and it has been enjoyable yet I have learned a lot. I didn't really know what to expect because this was a brand new class. However, I learned things that I never would have stumbled across by myself, like imagechef or glogster. Keeping tabs on what we learned is so much easier thanks to Social Bookmarking. I plan on using most of the sites we learned about in school and in the rest of my life, especially with programs like google (and all it's wonderful products) and symbaloo (my favorite bookmarking site). Although the class was enjoyable, I think it could be improved by not allowing as much time to explore, because people got off topic and no one was doing what they were supposed to. Thanks for teaching me Mrs. James. I loved Social Media and will continue to apply the knowledge that I have learned throughout the rest of my life, remembering always the fun times we've had.
<3 Samantha
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Toodledo
JibJab
Today I explored JibJab. On JibJab, you can upload pictures to animated videos. In this video, you upload pictures to "Elf Yourself" and your friends.
Kerpoof
Today we explored Kerpoof. Kerpoof is a website for children or young adults to play on without the threat of something bad happening. I find Kerpoof very enjoyable though. On the website, you can make movies, spell pictures, make cards, draw, or tell a story.
With "Spell a Picture", you choose a background and then spell words to go in that background.
With "Make a Movie", you can choose a theme and then literally animate the scene. It is sort of like using a flash player.
Using "Make a Card", you can design a card from the templates that they have on there.
"Make a Drawing" and "Make a Picture" are basically the same thing, except on Make a Picture, you drag and drop objects whereas on Make a Drawing, you can draw whatever you want.
"Tell a Story" was one of my favorite things on this website. I wrote a pirate themed story.
Kerpoof is like a gaming website, because you earn coins for using the site and then can buy things at the store. You can also make avatars if you create an account. Here is my avatar...
Monday, December 6, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Comix
Today we explored Comix. Comix is an interactive website that allows you to make a comic strip online. It is easy to navigate and use. Because I'm not very funny, I just made a guy do a cartwheel in my comic strip that I designed.
If you look really closely, you can see that I also hid a little penguin in every slide. In the first one he's in the tree, in the second one, he's below the tree, and in the third one, he is on the hill.
If you look really closely, you can see that I also hid a little penguin in every slide. In the first one he's in the tree, in the second one, he's below the tree, and in the third one, he is on the hill.
Imagination Cubed
Today we explored Imagination Cubed. Imagination Cubed is a doodle website designed by GE. It is a neat tool, but it is really slow on our computers. Especially when you're doodling with a friend. Despite that fact, Sarah and I drew a pretty cool picture of the night sky.
If you look closely, you can see Sarah's marker at the bottom of the page.
If you look closely, you can see Sarah's marker at the bottom of the page.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Firefox AddOns
Today we explored Firefox Add-ons. Firefox add-ons allow you to further personalize your Firefox browser beyond personas. Add-ons can be anything from the weather...
...to a game that lets you destroy the website you are on...
...to colorful tabs that make using them easier!
Friday, November 12, 2010
Favicons
Today we explored Favicons. Favicons (short for favorite icons) are the little icons that appear next to the URL on some websites. For example, Blogger always has the orange box with the white B. But now, whenever someone visits my blog, they will see a cute little penguin as my favicon! This is cool because it allows you to personalize your blog even further from just backgrounds.
This is what my favicon looks like in its original state. As a favicon though, it looks like this...
To change your favicon, try these neat links...
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
BeFunky
Today I explored BeFunky. BeFunky is a picture editing website that is amazingly awesome. I love tinkering with pictures, so I really liked this site. However, there aren't very many options to do to your pictures unless you upgrade to plus. I enjoyed looking around though. It is fairly user friendly though. This is a picture I made. I chose Jacob Black because I have a cardboard cutout of him.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Blog Backgrounds
Today we changed our blog's background. Mrs. James told us of a way to change the background on our blogs to something other than what blogger offers. To do this, you just visit a site like cutest blog on the block. Once you find a background that suits your style, all you have to do is copy the html code and put it on blogger as a gadget to get the background that you want! Right now, my background is a girly daisy background called Happy Daisy.
...Simply Blog It Backgrounds
There are many different sites that allow you to change your background. These sites include...
...HOT bliggity
...Shabby Blogs...Simply Blog It Backgrounds
Domains
Today we learned about domains. A domain is an internet address that you've purchased. On blogger, you can purchase a domain name for just $10 a year. I searched for a few domain names, and there were some that were available and some that weren't.
Monday, October 25, 2010
BlogThis!
Today we learned how to use BlogThis! BlogThis! is an add-on that allows you to blog from any website on the internet. To do this, all you have to do is click on the BlogThis link and then start blogging! To learn more about BlogThis!, visit google's website on it, at http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41469. This is an example of someone using BlogThis!...
BibMe
Today we explored BibMe. BibMe is a website that basically cites your sources for you, like for a research paper. BibMe is easy to use and user friendly. It is hard to remember how to cite each different source, but BibMe makes it easy. You just enter the name of a book, magazine, journal, film, website or newspaper and hit the cite button. If BibMe recognizes the source, then it will automatically cite it for you! However, my Comp Teacher just told us today that these website aren't always completely accurate. If you use an online formatting cite, make sure you check over the information to ensure that it is in the correct format (MLA, APA).
- EasyBib
- Citation Machine
- WriteCite (for APA Formatting)
Blogging from A Cell Phone
Today we posted a blog from our cell phone. In today's society, not everyone has time to sit down at a computer and blog. Blogger is making it easier for busy people to keep up with their blog by allowing them to text Blogger (256447) a blog post. To do this, follow these simple instructions to blog from your cell phone!
- First send an SMS with the word 'REGISTER' to BLOGGR (256447).
- We'll reply with the address of your new mobile blog, plus a claim code.
- Post to your new mobile blog, or use the claim code to link your phone to a different blog.
- To opt out of receiving SMS messages to your phone, text STOP to BLOGGR (256447)
- To get help from your mobile device, text HELP to BLOGGR (256447)
- To unlink your device from Blogger, text UNREGISTER to BLOGGR (256447).
- Sending text messages to BLOGGR (256447) is currently available for US phone numbers only.
Firefox Personas
Today we explored and added a Firefox Persona to our Firefox. Firefox Personas is just another way to customize your internet. On Firefox Personas, they have over 4,980 pages of different ways to customize the "toolbar" part of your Firefox browser (the part with the address bar). However, despite the pretty look, some personas make the tabs and buttons hard to read, like the one I had with flowers.
However, I recently switched my Firefox Persona to one that is autumn themed due to the seas on that we are in now. This one is easier to read.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Google Translate
Today we explored Google Translate. Google Translate is a very useful tool when needing to look up a word or phrase in a different language. However, all of my Spanish teachers have cautioned that most of the online translators do not pay attention to verb tenses, so they suggest not translating entire passages with things like Google Translate. But for just a few words or a phrase, it is awesome! Plus, it is cool to see how things are translated in different languages.
On my screenshot, I translated a phrase from Spanish to English.
On my screenshot, I translated a phrase from Spanish to English.
Google Web Search Features
Today we explored how to use Google's Web Search Features. Google's Web Search Features are extremely cool. They allow you to search for specific things in your area, like weather, stocks, time, sunsets/sunrises, sports scores, and music. Google also has reference tools that you can use, like a calculator, book searches, profile searches, unit converters, and public data which includes data like population and unemployment rates in a certain state. In addition, they have movie showtimes, synonym and antonym finders, spell checker, the numbers to poison control and suicide prevention, medication searches, flu vaccine searches, money converters, package tracking and patent searches. Basically, Google is just making searches easier to navigate through by making them specific to one subject.
Google Shopping
Today we explored Google Shopping. On Google Shopping, you can search for a product and it will bring up the most popular sites to buy that item on. The nice thing about Google Shopping is that you don't have to wade through all of the websites praising or hating the product that you searched for. Basically, you just search for the product you are looking for and shop away!
In my screenshot, I searched for princess Halloween costumes.
In my screenshot, I searched for princess Halloween costumes.
Google News
Today we explored Google News. Google news is a good idea, because instead of just doing a general Google search on a news story, you could just go to Google News and type it in there. On Google News, only the news stories show up, so there isn't random blogs or advertisements that mention the story. One of the popular stories in the news right now is the story about the Chilean miners, so that is what I searched for in my screenshot. I wasn't really aware of what was going on with them, so Google News did an awesome job providing up-to-date stories and back stories to help readers understand.
Google Maps
Today we explored Google Maps. Google maps is just another one of the many features that Google has. On Google maps, you enter a starting address and a destination into the search and then hit enter. Google maps will give you a picture with the most convenient route and directions to (or from) the destination. One of the neat features about Google maps are the different types of maps that they offer. For example, on the "traffic" feature, Google will show the speed of traffic in populated areas. The regular "map" feature just shows highways, and the "satellite" feature shows basically a picture of the surrounding area. If you drag the little orange person to a spot on the map, it will zoom so that you can literally navigate up and down the streets to see landmarks and the town's streets. Freshman year if you dropped the person on Buckeye you could see me driving past the Seelye Mansion in my car!
Google Books
Today we explored Google Books. Google books allows you to search the internet for just books. On google books, you can preview books and read excerpts or you can read entire books online! In addition, there are direct links to websites where you can buy the books you search, like barnesandnoble.com or amazon.com. Right now in English Comp we are reading The Canterbury Tales, so that is what I searched for in my screenshot.
iGoogle
Today we explored iGoogle. iGoogle is a personalized Google homepage. Right now, my iGoogle theme is Finding Nemo! They have tons and tons of different themes to choose from, ranging from nature to travel, anime to trendy, and they even have a theme of the day that selects a random theme everyday. Apart from customizing your homepage with themes, you can also add different gadgets, which are similar to the gadgets on blogger. On my iGoogle, I have gadgets like Spanish Word of the Day, Garfield comics, Penguins, Bejeweled, Weather, Recipes (that include some pretty exotic dishes), and a shortcut to my gmail account. I tried to add a countdown to graduation, but it wouldn't load the data. iGoogle still has has a google search bar, but it just makes google better looking and allows you to check multiple things at a time! *to get your own iGoogle page, just type in google.com and in the upper right corner there is a link that says "iGoogle" ---may need to have a gmail account to get one---*
Friday, October 8, 2010
Gadgets
Today we explored the gadgets on Blogger. Gadgets are "extras" that you can add to your blog that make it more exciting and more enjoyable to visit. In example, I have a pet hampster named Harry, and a random Harry Potter fact. In addition to virtual pets and quotes, there are also games. I have a helicopter game on my blog. There are thousands of possibilities for gadgets, like music, inspirational quotes of the day, the stock market prices, fashion tips, and many other different things. The possibilities are endless!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
HiStats.Com
Today we explored histats.com. Histats.com, a website that allows you to post a counter to your blog, has the potential to be very helpful. A counter is a device that counts every time someone visits your blog or website. We posted these counters on the bottom of our blog on the 4th of October. A counter can keep track of anything you want: page visits in general, page visits today, people that have looked at the sight, and people that are online at that moment. This tool could be very useful if you were running a website for a business, because you could see how many people were interested in that business. Here are some examples of counters:
Monday, October 4, 2010
Word Clouds: Tagxedo
This is a word cloud I made on Tagxedo. It is in the shape of a treble clef and filled with musical terms!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Word Clouds
Today we further explored word clouds. There are so many different websites devoted just to word clouds! I think my favorite sites are wordle, tagxedo, and imagechef. Those are just the website I had the most fun on. On my wiki page, I posted some of the word clouds I made. Feel free to check them out by clicking on "wiki page"! Word Clouds are a random assortment of words that are arrange attractively on the page. You can change the layout, color, and font of most word clouds. Not only can word clouds be used for fun, but they can also be educational! For instance, in AP Government, we could enter a some of the constitution into a word cloud website and see what words were used the most or what words were the most dominate throughout the document. We could do the same with Shakespeare in Comp. Plus, all the bright colors would do wonders to the drab walls of schools. Here are some of the word cloud websites...
Here is a word cloud I made from this post!
Here is a word cloud I made from this post!
Social Media Wordle
Here is my Social Media Wordle. It was made on wordle. On Wordle, you just enter as many words as you want. The more times you repeat a word, the bigger it will be in the final product. It is very fun!
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Word Clouds: ImageChef
Today we explored ImageChef. For the record, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE word clouds. ImageChef was by far one of the most entertaining of all of the word cloud websites I have been to. There are tons of options that you can do. You can make a word mosaic, which is like most of the other word cloud websites like wordle or tagxedo (Check my Glee word mosaic out on the side of my page!). However, you can also do tons of other things, like make banners (like the one at the top of my blog), send e-cards, or other cool activities like that. I plan to explore ImageChef more on my own at home. Click the picture to go to ImageChef!
Social Bookmarking: Diigo
Social Bookmarking: Symbaloo
Symbaloo is one form of Social Bookmarking. With Symbaloo, your bookmarks are in the form of little blocks. Once you click on a block, you are transported to the website that you bookmarked. I like Symbaloo, but there are some downsides to it. For one, you have to go in and make a block personally, not just by bookmarking a page. I also don't really like that Symbaloo makes their own webmixes. I don't like webmixes because they bring up a different page that has a whole bunch of different news, shopping, or weather blocks. From there, you can click on the block to see more about it.
However, I have all the possible scholarships that I can earn saved on a different page of my symbaloo account for easy access. To get to symbaloo, click on the picture.
Social Bookmarking: Delicious
Delicious is one website used for social bookmarking. On Delicious, you can use the "add-on" buttons (as shown on the left) to bookmark any page with just one click of a button! Once a page is bookmarked, you can tag it with different keywords to be able to find it later. One neat thing about Delicious is that instead of using a search engine like google, you could use Delicious to do your searching. However, instead of anything coming up, just other users bookmarks would show up. This would be beneficial because you wouldn't have to sort through all the "bad" things; only the websites worth looking up would show up! That is probably the thing I like the most about Delicious. Click on the picture to take you to delicious.com!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Other Virtual Worlds: Small Worlds
Today I explored Small Worlds. Small Worlds is another virtual world, similar to Meez. However, on Small World, the actual world is a lot more complex. On Small Worlds, everything you want to purchase costs "money", unlike Meez. However, you can earn coins by playing games. There are also a lot of places to hang out and interact. And of course, you can chat.
My avatar is the one in the orange shirt and jeans.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Social Bookmarking
Today we learned about Social Bookmarking. Social Bookmarking is the act of saving a webpage (just like regular bookmarking) but you can access your bookmarks from anywhere because they are on the internet! For instance, if you were researching a topic for English at home, you could save your bookmarks to a social bookmarking site and continue working on your project at school during your free time. Plus, social bookmarking would also come in handy if your computer crashed -- if you saved your bookmarks to a website instead of your computer, you would still have all of them! The really cool thing about Social Bookmarking is tagging. Once you add a bookmark, you can tag key words that will help you remember what the bookmark was about later on.
Some popular social bookmarking sites are:
Some popular social bookmarking sites are:
I have started my own social bookmarking page to keep track of the many different scholarships that I can apply for as a senior. It is so much easier to just have them all in one place then having to worry about only working on my home computer.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
MeezRoomz
Today on Meez we made rooms and chatted. In the rooms, you can chat, dance, and sit down and move around. It is really cool because you could invite people over to your "room" and hang out. I made my room to look like a living room. Check out my room! This is a screen shot of my room. Tommy and Ryan were visiting and being silly.
The only thing that could potentially be bad is that you could meet some strangers on Meez. But to make sure that you don't, you shouldn't go into one of the public rooms.
The only thing that could potentially be bad is that you could meet some strangers on Meez. But to make sure that you don't, you shouldn't go into one of the public rooms.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Avatars Again...
Avatars Again
Today we made avatars again.
This time I went to Meez instead of Voki. On Meez, your avatar is animated! That means that you can make them do whatever you want, as long as it's appropriate of course. And then you can choose it's clothes and whatnot just like any other site. The only thing that sort of stinks about Meez is that not everything is free. You have to play their game to get points to earn cooler stuff. It is really cool how it is animated though. Plus, it has a lot of choices of clothing, animations, shoes, and accessories.
Here is my Meez:
Friday, August 27, 2010
Avatars
Today we made Avatars.
An avatar is a digital cartoon-like representation of a real person. Thanks to many free web services, you don’t have to pay an artist for your cartoon illustrations. All you have to do is upload your photo, or perform some mix and match. There are many websites that allow you to create avatars, like voki, which is what we used today.
Making avatars is entertaining and addicting. You can customize them anyway you want. You can change the clothes, backgrounds, and you have many different body and face types to choose from. It was a lot of fun deciding just what you wanted your avatar to look like. Plus, on voki, you can make your avatar talk!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
How I Currently Use Social Media
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