Media-new for me

Ok-it's spring break and I've been up since 6 a. m. Not because I couldn't sleep, just because I like to get up early. I've spent the last 3 hours messing around with web tools I haven't had time to play with when school's in session. Yes, I think I am a nerd. But that's ok. I've been called worse.
The first type of media I started on this morning was Glogster. It's going to take a little bit more for me to get used to it. I set up an account for each of my 100 students. So now I'm automatically friends with them. (It's not as tedious as it sounds-all I did was tell it how many accounts I wanted-Glogster did the rest).

Things I didn't like about it:
I don't like the account names and passwords it created for my students. First order of business when I use it with them is change the account names and passwords so they make sense. I'm a bit anal retentive and think it's easier for students to keep themselves in check if they have the same username and password for everything.
I couldn't get the web link to work in it. I linked one of the text boxes to a website, but couldn't get it to actually go to the website. ??
I haven't messed with this much, but I would have liked to have some control over the audio that I uploaded. As it is, I'm breaking copyright laws. (Shh... Don't tell!) I would like to be able to select which portion of the song plays and for how long. That being said, credits should be given to The Counting Crows for their song Big Yellow Taxi.

Things I did like about it:
I could be as creative as I wanted to be. This would be the best ever for visual students.

I embedded a YouTube video right in to the poster. I loved that!

It's very interactive. Quite a step above creating a poster. If I had some friends that weren't students, I could receive comments on it just like people do on YouTube.

Here's the poster I created:


The second tool I played around with was Mixbook. I'm one of those people who really likes to look at scrapbooks and picture albums, but didn't inherit Mom's creative gene. Mixbook creates a digital picture album that can be embedded, shared, etc. The thing I still need to figure out with it is how I can change the format to a QuickTime video. That would work better for my students.

What I liked:
Lots of backgrounds, layouts, and stickers to help with my not-so-creative abilities.
Easy picture editing.
Drag and drop all the way.

What I didn't like:
This took FOREVER! Uploading more than one picture at a time encouraged me to multi-task and do something else while I waited. Also, if the pictures weren't right together to select, you had to either upload one at a time or upload all of them and delete the ones you don't want.
The sharing thing-embed or send a link to share only. If you send a link, people have to have an account in order to view the mixbook. There is no sharing to Facebook, but it will work with MySpace. Do people still use MySpace?

Here's the scrapbook I created (no curricular tie whatsoever, just messing around):