Day 8: New Search toolz

I like the idea of these, but I'm having trouble making them work for me. The screen shots and variety in the cube was most intersting, but I couldn't get the cube to turn correctly! I tried the arrow keys, etc. like they said, but it would only rotate a bit and kept showing me one side.

Viewzi had the nicest interface. I like that. But it took forever for it to load the screen shots.

Don't know if I'll use these.

Day 7: Mashups

This is what I said on the Coe 13things blog:

The data masher scared me a bit. I kept thinking about Randy Christiansen saying "correlation does not equal causation"! I think that it would be a great way to manipulate statistics and mislead people. Or, maybe you could use it more ethically.

I'll try one of the picture mashups--I think I accidentally started creating it on Lisa's account. . . . oops!

Here's my picture mashup, with one MP3! Or you can view it below. Grab and drag to see different parts of it.

Day 6: Tiny URL

The difference between a kid's Xmas list and a mom's Xmas list:

The kid's Xmas list is what he wants for Xmas.
The mom's Xmas list is what she's going to buy everyone for Xmas!

Here are a couple things on MY Xmas list and tiny URLs with links to the websites:

Nanodots for Robbie
http://tiny.cc/v1bc2

Calligraphy set for Eli
http://tiny.cc/e53yv

Day 5: Wallwisher

Cute idea. I'm not sure I'd use this in class, but I liked posting on Lisa's wall :-)

Here's my wall: post away, anyone who's reading this!

Day 4: Grooveshark

My boys have told me about this. Robbie will say "everyone pick a song so we can make a playlist" and we have an odd Nesmith family playlist with folk or odd rock (Bruce), 70s music (Jane), Green Day (Robbie) and Lady Gaga (Eli).

I don't like to select music, most of the time. I'd rather listen to the radio--in stereo, not MP3 files, which sound thin to me--and get pleasantly surprised. Yet Grooveshark does this, too. When I went there, I just clicked on "Classical" and they started playing a lovely Chopin Mazurka! How did they know I liked Chopin piano music? Vivaldi's up next .

But every once in a while, I NEED to hear a particular piece of music that I don't have. This site might help me there.

For example, Robbie has been working on creating a vo-corder from bits and pieces of junk around the house--found out how to do it on the internet somewhere. He tries to explain the vo-corder to people by explaining the physics behind it. They look puzzled. Then I say "You know, like Peter Frampton." And they understand :-)

So Robbie used Grooveshark to find Peter Frampton music. He was not impressed. But we were glad he got to hear it!

Day 3: Picnik

Lisa introduced me to this online tool when I was working with my journalism students on a website. It is invaluable! We didn't do cute things with it like stickers or sepia tone, but we used it to change the size of photos--especially important when loading on a web page. I think we also used it to put captions/cutlines right with the photo, which made creating the web page much easier.

I love Picnik. I haven't used it at home, but it's a great classroom tool for journalism.

Oh, I like the funny "loading" quips! They make me laugh, which is good. Need to lighten the tension when working on projects.

Here's what I did with a "fun" photo. Yeah, it's true that trumpet players have a bit of an ego. How many trumpet players does it take to change a light bulb? 10. 1 to change the bulb, and 9 to say how much better THEY could do it.

Day 2: Doodle

I've used "when is good" but Doodle is so much more fun to say! I'm pretty sure this is the one Bob Marrs used to schedule our upcoming department meeting.

I like these. Not much more to say!