Final Learning Unit

I found the WIZIQ and Flashmeeting sites both to be useful.  I think that the Flashmeeting was better though because it was more organized.  No more than 1 person was talking at the same time and it said up a queue for the next person to talk.  I also liked that you can see everyone’s video feed at the same time.  I wish we could have logged in so that we could have tried all of the features.

I have added my comments to the Seesmic video, the voice thread, the comic strip, and the survey.  As I have said in those, I really enjoyed the class.  I was either learning something new or something new about something I already had experience with each and every week.  I thought that the collaboration tools such as google docs were very well.  It makes collaborating and sharing documents very easy.  I really enjoyed the video and animation sections near the end.  They are very useful and easy to use.  The social bookmarking sites were also very useful and will prove to be useful in the future.  I was never aware of these sites before.  I have had experience with social networking sites in the past with facebook and myspace.  I didn’t realize there were so many out there that are being used.  I would like to end by reitterating that I enjoyed the class and got a lot out of it.

Learning Unit 13

Activity #1

I used animoto to create a web content that focused on some pictures I took at a Cavs’ game.  There aren’t many options available for the user with this program besides picking the pictures and music to use.  I used the song I picked from the website because it was fast paced.  I liked using this program and may use it in the future for full length videos.

Toufee gives the user more options in creating your web content.  I felt as though it was difficult to use though.  The buttons weren’t easy to use and the site seemed to work extremely slow.  Even though it had many more options than animoto I didn’t enjoy using it and felt as if it was a hassle.

I enjoyed using sprout builder.  I felt as if I had many options and it was easy to use.  I used this program to make a content about my field of engineering which is electrical engineering.  I added video and pictures to my sprout builder.

 I embedded all three of  my contents on my freeweb page at the following address:

http://www.freewebs.com/bdgall/

 

Activity #2

I created a screencast using Jing to give an introduction of what I do at my job.  The web address is as follows:

http://www.screencast.com/users/bdgall/folders/Jing/media/1b629b9e-cf75-487e-8964-62a247b63635

Activity #3

I have created my personal profile at Seesmic.  I listed it on my last assignment, but my username is bdgall.  I have responded to the video to support LU12.

Activity #4

I signed up for voice thread.  I created a main thread for our group 2.  It can be found at the following address:

http://voicethread.com/#b124794

I also made a video comment on the voice thread created for learning unit 12.  Once I read that it wasn’t working correctly I added a comment to the new voice thread for learning unit 12 redone.

Learning Unit 12

I viewed several videos from the Microsoft website.  Two of my favorites are Coral Reef Adventure and Terminator 2: Judgement Day trailer.  I chose the coral reef video as one of my favorites because the images are just so amazing and the high def video makes them even that much more amazing.  It looks like paradise.  I chose the Terminator video as one of my favorites because it was one of my favorite movies growing up.  Seeing the trailer in high def makes me want to watch the entire movie in high def just to see how much more amazing everything looks.  The link for the Coral Reef Adventure in 720p is:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/9/3/a9327df4-aeb5-46de-b438-d0f60da6fb54/Coral_Reef_Adventure_720.exe

The link for the Terminator 2 video in 1080p is:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/0/15092c6c-5af1-4208-b5e2-54af6f1009a4/T2_1080.exe

I viewed a few of the videos from the Apple website, but my favorite was the David Gilmour video.  David was part of one of my favorite bands Pink Floyd which is why I decided on this video.  The picture and sound quality were amazing.  I felt like I was as close to being there as possible without actually being there.  Here is the web address to the site which allows viewing in 480p, 720p, and 1080p.  I personally chose 1080p:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/gilmour.html

 

My video I uploaded for youtube can be found at the following URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZGM9jV8GPE

For this video I used my digital camera to record the video and audio of my friend and co-worker Tanner at work.  I connected my camera to my laptop through USB and copied the file to my desktop.  I then logged on to my youtube account, username bdgall, and uploaded it to the site.  I have been a member on youtube for awhile now but have never uploaded a video of my own.  Seeing how simple it is, I may now put up more videos on the site in the future.  If anyone wants to find me on youtube or see any videos I upload in the future, my username is bdgall.

To create my live video feed online, I used livevideo.  A first I was going to use ustream but I couldn’t see any video feed using my new webcam on it.  My username for both of these sites is bdgall  When I couldn’t figure out why I decided to try livevideo and like the way it was set up.  The site was very easy to use.  After getting my new webcam set up on my computer I created a live video on this site.  This was the first time I ever used a webcam so I just made a short and simple video.  I don’t know whether I will need to use a webcam again, but if a situation comes up, I have one.  The URL to the video is as follows:

 http://www.livevideo.com/video/8A4ED679FFB1414CA77E115F351C135C/me-learning-how-to-use-a-webca.aspx

 My username for the website wiziq is bdgall.  I have looked around a little on this site, but haven’t been able to get too much out of it yet.  This is probably because we haven’t had our group session.  Once we have done that I think I will be able to evaluate it better.

My username for seesmic is also bdgall.  Seesmic is really different in that it is like other sites we have visited, but everything is done using video.  I have made my video profile as well as checked out other videos on the site.  It is really a blog site where you record video blogs as opposed to posting them in written word.

 

Social Bookmarking Slideshow

The link to my slideshow on social bookmarking on slideshare is as follows:

http://www.slideshare.net/bdgall/social-bookmarking-358951

Since editing wasn’t working on slideshare, I used Articulate with PowerPoint to make my slidecast.  I downloaded the trial version of Articulate.  I now was able to use the options from Articulate right in my PowerPoint presentation.  I used PowerPoint 2007.  The introduction provided by Articulate was excellent and made it very easy for me to record my audio along with my slides.  Once I was done recording, I used Articulate to publish by slideshow into html format.  I decided to add my presentation to my freewebs website.  I had to load each file as a single upload which took a rather long time.  Once I had all of the files uploaded I added the link to my freewebs homepage.  The link to my slidecast on social bookmarking can be found at:

http://www.freewebs.com/bdgall/Social_Bookmarking/player.html

Panoramic View

Here is the link to the panoramic view that I have chosen.  I have chosen this picture of Times Sqare on New Year’s Eve because it is one of my favorite times of the year and because it is such a huge tradition.

http://www.panoramas.dk//new-year-2007/times-square.html

Social Bookmarking software

Here are some of the links I found using stumble upon and del.icio.us for software that can be used in audio processing, podcasting, and video/animation:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

http://script.aculo.us/

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/17-audacity-tutorial.htm

http://nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html

http://www.virtualdub.org/

http://scyuen.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/media-convert/

These are just a few.  You can find more at my stumble upon and del.icio.us websites at:

http://del.icio.us/bdgall

http://bdgall.stumbleupon.com/

Google Docs Social Networking

Here is the link to my scribd.com class document on social networking software.  It is just before 11 PM and I noticed that there were still some people editing the document so this is not quite the finished version.  Tomorrow morning I will replace this almost finished version with the new version.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2533123/Group-Social-Networking-Software

 

The final one is:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2535028/Group-Social-Networking-Google-Docs

Project Management

I liked using Google calendar.  It is very similar to the calendar used in Microsoft Outlook.  We use that at work to know what everyone around the office has scheduled just as we as a class can now use the Google calendar to know what each other is doing.  Myoffice in Facebook is a nice application.  It allows people to have different projects on their own personal version with different groups of people.  With this you can write notes and put events on a calendar.  Like I said, I think this a very useful application.  Just looking around at the different things available on ZOHO, I like what I see.  There is a calendar to list events, you can set up meetings, upload documents, and write posts in a forum just to name a few.  This program will be very useful for future group projects.  I signed up for Yugma but wasn’t able to use it too much to get a feel for how useful it can be.  From what I did see, you can have sessions with other users and share files with each other among other things.  All of these programs seem very useful to me and I will continue to use them all.

Images

Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/25259780@N02/

This is the link to my Flickr page.  It has a couple of albums.  One has pictures of me and the other has pictures I took at a Cavs game I sat courtside at.  I have always wanted to make my own page on flickr to put my images on but I never got around to it.  Now that I have made my page I will continue to add more pictures to it.

Picasa – http://picasaweb.google.com/bdgall117

This is the link to my Picasa page.  It has a picture of me as well as an album with pictures of another Cavs game I went to.

I have added my picture I edited and logo on my freeweb website.  I used snipshot.com to edit my picture.  I enhanced it, and changed the exposure, contrast, saturation, sharpness, and hue.  My logo is my initals and birthday.  I use this combination of letters and numbers for my id on a lot of things.  I added a star to each side as well.  I made it in my favorite color Carolina Blue and my favorite font which is titled elephant.

freeweb – http://www.freewebs.com/bdgall/

 

 

 

 

Social Networking Programs

With the various social networking programs we have used in the class the only one that I have used before is Facebook.  Facebook has many applications to use within it.  It also has a large amount of users.  I like that Linkedln gives more of a professional look.  I think I would use it out of all of the programs for that purpose.  Friendfeed is nice in that you can see all of the sites that you friends have visited from different applications such as Digg.  Ning is nice in that we are all part of a small group for our class.  This can be used for other similar things in the future.  In the future I will continue to use facebook.  I have been using this for a long time and know my way around it.  I have friends from high school, college, and people I have met more recently.  One of the reasons I will use it is the fact that more people use it and more people I know use it.  Also, I like the fact that there are applications that do just about everything I can think of.  This is not to say I won’t use any of the other programs in the future.  Like I stated previously, I think the Linkedln site would be good for professional use.

Pownce link – http://pownce.com/bdgall/

Linkedln – http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=22898861&trk=tab_pro

Friend Feed – http://friendfeed.com/bdgall

Stumble Upon – http://bdgall.stumbleupon.com/

Digg – http://digg.com/users/bdgall

del.icio.us – http://del.icio.us/bdgall