Cooliris

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was...Wow. That's expresses my feelings towards this exactly.
Cooliris is something to buff up search engines everywhere. I thought Google was great when they implemented the nearly-unlimited scroll thing on their image-search, but this takes that to a whole new level. This program allows you to search indefinitely on a sort of plane until you get the picture you want. It has a customizable background and works on nearly every famous browser. What's not to like? I'll try this on Firefox later since we can't actually download it in school, but it seems to be an awesome program.
I actually made a Cooliris wall, which you can see at the bottom of this page. This is a set by stuntbear on Flickr, which was actually featured in its own Yahoo! Article. It's called MicroWorld..Enjoy!

Web 2.0 Tools Write-Up

Stock.Xchng

This website is one of many free stock photography sites on the Internet. Using a search function, people can find and use free-stock photos for projects with citations.  Many companies and schools use stock photography sites for projects so they can add photos and make their projects better. Creating an account is optional but useful, because it lets you download photos at different sizes and allows you to post your own photos.

Tutorials

Multiple other resources are available at Stock.XCHNG that other free stock photography sites don't offer. Stock.XCHNG has other resources,such as blogs, tutorials, and other ways to help utilize the photos you find on the site. The site also offers multiple other options that makes it exceptional. You can search random photos by popularity and most commented stock photos for easy access to photos that you know will be good, for example. Stock.XCHNG has a large variety of photos, which come in decent sizes and with decent quality.

However, the site does have its limitations. The best-quality photos are watermarked and must be purchased with the site's "Credits", which may cost between $.24 to $.99 depending on the quantity you buy at once. Also, some of the photos you're looking for may not be on the site, or you may not be able to find it due to the search function going wrong. Stock.XCHNG can be fairly limiting in this aspect- if you are doing a project similar to other people, you may find one of the pictures you used repeated in another person's project. 

As stated before, this website could easily be used in school to find photos to use on a project that will be posted online with citations. Students can also learn how to use the photos with the site's many blogs and tutorials. This helps you develop your skills in programs such as Photoshop, iPhoto, etc. 

Stock.XCHNG

Stock.xchng - the Leading Free Stock Photography Site. HAAP Media Ltd., 14 Jan.
     2011. Web. 14 Jan. 2011. <http://www.sxc.hu/>.

Today's Post

Okay, I was out last time to go to the summit. So, I can't make any posts about the presentations of other students. :/ And I was hoping to see them, darn.

To sum up what I missed last class and need to know for this class:
Input devices are things that put information into a computer, such as a keyboard or mouse.
Output devices are things that display the information, such as a monitor.

So for this illustration...
1) Monitor; Output
2) Keyboard; Input
3) Mouse; Input
4) CD/DVD Drive; Input/Output? If I had to pick, it would be Input, but the actual CDs are input/output.
5) Headphones; Output
6) USB Flash-Drive/ Jump Drive; Input/Output (Stores information that is transferred to a computer)
7) Projector; Output
8) Printer; Output
9) Wireless Internet & Hub; Input & Output
10) ActiVote; Input
11) ActivBoard Pen; Input

*ActivBoard; Output

3DS Max

So I decided to share a part of my animation work here.

Quicktime

Well, I converted my Keynote about Stock.XCHNG into a Quicktime. The video is below. Enjoy!

I won't be here next class; going to a summit!

Rehearsal Presentation

Today, I presented my Keynote project to a friend. On my first presentation, my friend said it was rather dull. Based on his feedback, I've added slide transition and cleaned up my animation a bit to make it more smooth. I've also added another slide or two to add the extra minute I need to fulfill my time requirement. There were no errors in grammar (At least in what I wrote- The blog posts might have some grammar errors.) I've followed all of the feedback given and have nearly perfected this project; on Tuesday, I might present to a few more people to get feedback. I probably have to work on my speech a little more as well.

Survey for Presentation (Ignore unless you've seen it!)

Keynote Project Progress

I'm almost done with this Keynote presentation. I'm just adding some final touches and notes. Next class, I'll be presenting to a friend and figuring out how to make one slide come right after another one without having to click to transition between slides.

Article- PowerPoint is NOT the Problem with Presentations Today

Today, my partner and I read an article about a few conference hosts banning the use of PowerPoint during presentations. The article mentioned the ineptness of the presenters and their lack of ability to present successfully- "If their presenters can't design an effective PowerPoint presentation, how are they going to use flipcharts and whiteboards effectively?" I must say, I like the guy who wrote this. He phrases it nearly perfectly- It's not the inability of PowerPoint to aid us in our presentations; rather, it's the ineptitude of the clumsy (For the inability to use a stronger word) presenter that is the fault here.

Hello- From Bob

So I decided to mess around with Keynote today. This is what I found while I was working, and he (it?) asked to be shown to the world.

Yeah...Bob.

Keynote

Keynote is Powerpoint's younger and cooler brother. Right? Anyway, this is one Apple application that I could get used to. After watching the tutorials on Keynote, I think the animations and transition options are a lot more diverse than the lousy animations that my Powerpoint '03 at home has. I could get used to this application pretty quickly, and the animations seem to allow for a wide variety of presentations.  I've actually started a little story; I'll post it later. Bai!

Death by Powerpoint

Okay...Today, we watched a slideshow called "Death by Powerpoint". Quite a famous topic, but one I disagree with immensely. The "Death by Powerpoint" slideshow also gave tips on how to make a good Powerpoint presentation. I could relate to a few of these tips, especially the one to keep the text short and simple. However, the overall "Death by Powerpoint" thing is something I disagree about. First off, I've never seen someone be bored to death (Though that would immensely interesting). Second, Powerpoints can be a great way to present as long as the presenter is prepared. Finally, some detailed Powerpoints I.E. ones with a lot of text can actually be useful depending on your audience- for example, a board of trustees would rather listen to you speak and read the more interesting points on your Powerpoint, but a classroom of kids would rather be amazed by transition animations and hear you speak the important points in quick sections.
I must agree that some Powerpoints can be utterly horrifying, though. Some Powerpoint presentations I've seen have had way too much text, or text you couldn't even read due to the scintillating or overly colorful backgrounds. Others have had too much text, too little information, or no visuals to back up the data when needed. One Powerpoint I've seen had rock music that drowned out the speaker and had absolutely nothing to help the presentation.
But, I like Powerpoint. I don't think it'll be the death of me at all. Keynote, on the other hand...

I'm Back!

What's up, folks! PaulyD is back from his (extended) vacation and has a whole new project to work on.
Our assignment is to pick a Web 2.0 tool (More on that in a moment) and to experiment with it, then assess its pros, cons, and usability for students and present that information. Web 2.0 tools are tools such as blogs, wikis, and social networks such as Facebook that allows people to share data. It is also referred to as the second generation of the World Wide Web, which some may consider as an "upgraded" version (I.E. mp3.com ---> Napster, Ofoto ----> Flickr, etc.). Most Web 2.0 sites allow users to post their own content next to the site's content - As a matter of fact, Blogger is a Web 2.0 tool!

My project will either be on Wikipedia or Stock.XCHNG as two famous Web 2.0 sites. I was considering using Youtube, but one of my friends grabbed that as his presentation. I chose Wikipedia and Stock XCHNG because I know a little about them already (I didn't really want to do a presentation on a website I knew absolutely nothing about =( ) Plus, they're both famous websites. I like that.