Pros and Cons of a web 2 website...

TUMBLR

Personally I use Tumblr on a weekly or monthly basis, what with university coursework and work I barely have time but when I do, I fairly enjoy it. Tumblr isn't anything special really, it's basically just a picture posting blog. I'm not necessarily selling it there but it really is an interesting. there's a lot that you can see and that you can 're-blog' on there which makes it even better. It's a way in which people can view images from all around the world and share them with their friends. Tumblr is a great web 2 site because of the versatility that it brings to the rest of the 'web 2' bunch. It's quite difficult to add people and it isn't the most user friendliest of websites which makes it hard for the user to get to grips with. You have your own profile that you can customise your own profile which gives you freedom to express themselves in any way shape or form. It's a useful way to communicate also, so it's a definite advantage. I feel that it's a good web 2 site, but some other people may not actually think so due to the layout and the privacy issues. Also, it's extremely easy to come across some inappropriate photos, so maybe it isn't an all round good web 2 site. 

Pbworks - A Wiki Experience

So, today in our Visual Communications: Culture and Creativity lecture, we came accross a new cool and innovative idea (that many of you will think I've been living under a rock for not knowing about this sooner, but I shall boast about it anyway...)

We learned how to work a 'pbworks' page, which basically allows you and a group of friends to edit, save and link a page to whatever you want it to be. there's loads of videos on youtube and everywhere, about how helpful this thingy is. I think it's nifty. One cool thing about it is, you can 'steal lock'. Which basically means, you can lock someone out of saving their contribution to the page, whilst you're editing it. Meaning, whatever someone is writing won't be able to save, and resulting in them being annoyed...huzzah! But apparently it's a bad thing, I do not share the same view. 

It's a cool page where you and your friends can arrange things, and all edit at the same time, whilst not being in the same location. It's handy and I shall use it a lot now. :D

 

Blog Review, educational blogs are cool!

The Reviewing begins...

The blog I have chosen to write on is Learning From My Mistakes English.

 I found this blog incredibly amusing, the way that the creator of the blog puts things into a good perspective and in a funny context! The layout of the blog itself is quite cool, everything is there at your finger tips and it's all easy to find. The size of the font however, is a bit small but nevertheless, I like the blog!
She is obviously very popular because of the many page reviews she has, so that's a very good thing and it shows that she is tallented in what she writes. She is also on Education Blogs UK top 10, which is pretty nifty! Anyone on there deserves a clap *claps*.

Impressively, she has a lot of information on different topics (which I shall not bore you with now, take a look for yourself). She has a huge blog list which is useful for anyone wanting to venture out on their own blog list. 
I think that this blog is valuable to be on my blog because of the expressive and helpful content that it brings to an educational approach blog. This blog is popular and obviously thought by many to be a good blog to help venture up ideas for their educational activities. 

Evaluation!

Evaluating an animation website

So, for one of our tasks in class we were told to use thewebsite digitalfilms.com, and create an animation, which can be found here: Our Movie!
It's not the most skillful movie but hey, it's what we could come up with in a short space of time. 
We were asked to consider the age, range and suitability of the website, as well as other factors such as whether it is easy to navigate. Which to be fair, was pretty hard for us because we got sidetracked with all the pretty backgrounds and the characters.

We have come to the conclusion that the target age group of the website would be older primary school as the animations are colourful, however the website can be difficult to navigate and we would therefore suggest that children should be supervised while using it in order to get the most out of the website. The website was also very basic in the range of different scenes you could choose from or the characters you could create and the guidence given is easy to follow, however it can take a while to get used to. In order to create a movie you do need to register onto the website, which is completely free to use. There were some features of multimedia, which were pictures, animation, text and music, but you could only use the features already provided on the website, rather than being able to upload your own images or music.

The members of our group included Shannon Stevens, Rita Callaca and Jo-Beth Vearncombe

Mandy's 7 picture task

Here it is, my picture task that I have made.

Enjoy!

'Delicious'? I think so...

Okay so, today before an agonising timed assessment (it sounds as bad as it is) we started off our day with doing a presentation in front of the class. It also was agonising, I stuttered and mumbled but the good thing is, the people I did it with did a good job, yay! :D 
But yes, so our second lecture consisted of making the most previous blog about 'bubbl.us' - go check it out because its the best mindmap website out there (not that I have seen any others, so don't take my word for it - but it genuinely is pretty jaunty). But we then came about another new techy, weird, cool website which is... 'Delicious'!  
It's a cool website that basically, you can save links on, in a neat little place so that even if you change browsers and lose all of your funny cat video bookmarks and everything you want to look at - you can easily get them back in like a second...well not an actual second, but you see what I mean. 
Basically, log in, start adding links, add people and then you can check what they've saved. I'm going to use mine solely for work and for relevant links but you could also use it for the funny compilation videos that you just cannot stop watching. I know, I'm guilty too.

Bubbl.us! Nifty little thing, I must admit!

This Website is really useful, I will definitely use it in future for revision!

Confused about how to check the credibility of a website? Not anymore..

EasyWhois.com

Okay, so in one of my modules in Uni, I'm supposed to check the credibility and the accurateness of a website.
I am not normally interested in this but meh, I should give it a go, and try to enlighten some of you that don't already have this info. So, what I have done in my class was use 'Easywhois.com'.

I must warn you, this website is confusing after you click the 'whois lookup' thingy, a load of jumbly mumbly words come up and to me it meant absolutely nothing, but apparently it's very usefull.
(I recognise that this is meant to be usefull for you guys but I'm not really all that helpful... oh well :P)