Animoto Video

Thing #5a

I was checking out Langwitches and found a teacher, Webfooted Booklady, who had her students create projects using Animoto, in her class wiki, she has posted their finished results and asks for comments. The ones I looked at were really good for being so short. Animoto looks incredbily easy to use, you feed your photos and music into it, it takes just minutes and it's-free. I plan to try it this afternoon. What a great way to present information, especially book reports or any short topics.

Thing #6 and Twitter Update/My DIIgo Lack of Smartz

Okay. Not feeling smart today. It's been only two days on Twitter and I've decided that I am not ready for it. I don't really need Twitter I guess or Tweets at the moment and it's not because I've signed up on so many sites lately that involve ID's and PW's or that I've forgotten my login reset info that I had sent (why?) to my Barrow email addresss that shoots straight to Barracuda which filters the site and tells me I'm not allowed to access it. DUH! But I like the blogs now and I'm getting addicted to reading those that do not pertain to the 23. I took "a little time off" from the computer and ended up in front of it reading hours of blogs of strangers. But, since then, today, I ventured outdoors with my camera, shot some photos, rearranged my living room...which is good...right?

Back on the subject. DIIGO. I went on my laptop at home last night and when I logged in to my account, there was nothing there like I have at my desktop at school. I guess I didn't realize that the book marks don't follow you or have I just not figured out how to do that? Is anyone out there? Going to watch Kath & Kim now-I hope everyone has a good weekend!!

I Joined Twitter

I joined twitter last night and it is really a very, very abbreviated Myspace and in real-time. Not much to explore. I think you have to know who or what you are looking for. Another thing I noticed is that people can comment from anywhere because you can link your phone to it, so you can be on your way to the airport, etc. If you plan to use it professionally, you definitely do want to watch your comments. I was very excited to see LeVar Burton on there, I just love Reading Rainbow; however, I believe he's moved on.

Twitter and Education Thing #3 Pt 2

I found this RSS very interesting. I've never heard of twitter until my husband told me about it and showed me his account and how it works. I'm not much one for blogging or tweeting(twitter's name for messages). But I am starting to see the value of the service if I can get over my unease with the whole process. You always want to put the correct message up and it will be seen by lots of people. You have to dive in and conquer the fear. I have a couple suggestions if you want to use twitter as a resource. Here goes-Having a professional user name, a short accurate one-line bio, choosing a twitter picture and designing your twitter profile.

Professional Name: You have two choices- professional or personal. You want people to be able to find you easy by your relationship with them.

One-Line Bio: You only get 160 characters in order to describe yourself or a project you maybe working on. Put some thought into this portion of the set-up. Use 2 to 3 word phrases until you use up your 160 characters.

Twitter Picture: You need to post a picture that portrays you as both professional and personable-exactly what your tweets should be doing for you.

Designing a Profile: Since there is little room to be creative in your bio, you can make the profile an extension of you as well. We don't want to use any of the templates supplied by twitter. Instead you can upload a background that can be an extension of your company or career that you couldn't fit in your bio.

Whether you use these or not you should check out twitter. It has lots of professionals and is very different from other social media sites like Facebook and Myspace.

I'm starting to come around with the idea (don' tell my husband) but haven't committed. I do believe that if used as a resource we could really gain a lot of knowledge from around the world. This seems to almost go hand in hand with Web 2.0. Let me know your thoughts.