YouTube

I have posted a video on YouTube. It wasn't my account but I wanted a video my friend took to be uploaded to her account so I did it. It was really easy and if I actually took videos I would probably use YouTube to upload them. The article giving statistics about college students and online videos did not surprise me at all. For one, my generation is a lot more technology smart then older generations and I know a lot of people who use YouTube for searching for anything that could be in video format. I chose this video because it is my ultimate favorite video of all time. My brother wants to be a producer at some point in his life and when I my daughter he made this video and it makes me cry every time. I actually only use YouTube to search for videos. I think YouTube fits with web 2.0 because it is a new way to watch news, TV shows, or keep up with other people with their personal blogs.

Wikis

After looking at both Wikipedia and Scholarpedia I think that Scholarpedia is the new updated more accurate Wikipedia. I would feel more comfortable using this wiki rather than Wikipedia since anyone can write an article on it and you have no idea if its the truth or not. In Scholarpedia someone has to look over the article and approve it before it can be changed. I think that will help it to have more up-to-date and reliable material. I have always used Wikipedia to look up answers to some questions that I have about various things but I never thought of using it with a group instead of email like shown in the Wikis in Plain English. I was always taught to never use Wikipedia or any wiki when doing a research project so because this is so embedded in my mind I don't know if I can ever really trust a wiki to give me accurate information. I got the picture from http://alyssabaker.pbwiki.com/f/wiki.gif.

Docs

I tried the Google Docs and thought it was a quite easy way to share documents. I think the main advantage of using a collaboration tool is simply to send a document to a number a different people all at once where all of the receivers can see the exact document or any changes made to the document. The only way that I know of people using collaboration tools is a manager sending out a document to a number of her employees all at once and letting them make changes to the document while seeing the changes instantly. I have never used a collaboration tool before. I could see myself using this tool for a group project in the future.

I got my picture from http://www.concursive.com/images/community.jpg.

Podcasting

I have now read the article by Bennington and I will evaluate Oertelt according to his advice. I believe that Oertelt's podcast was very well done and was also very believable. I think the audio quality was good and so was the music even though I had wished there was more variety. I would definitly recommend this podcast to someone else. It was very interesting and was really sad to listen to. I liked the use of music to add dramatics but I wish that there were a little more variety in the music selection because it sounded like the same song every time it came on. I would actually like listening to a book rather than reading it and I can definitely see myself using podcasts and then putting them on my Ipod to listen to books. I went on to http://www.podcastalley.com/ and it was too confusing to look at what podcasts they had and also how to listen to them but I do have Itunes and I used that. I listened to a podcast by the Rolling Stones Magazine talking about hot new bands that are becoming more well known. I didn't know how to give a link though since it just went right onto my itunes. None of my professors use podcasts but I probably wouldn't mind if they did. I got my picture from http://www-tc.pbs.org/mediashift/files/Podcast_CTAP_small.jpg

Digg it.

First off I looked at the article about Jennifer Hudson's nephew whose body was recently found. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/27/AR2008102700225.html?hpid=topnews

I shared this article with the the share tools given by the Washington post website. I posted it on my Facebook and it was very easy to do so. It posted a link of the article right onto my profile. I could see myself using this tool more on digg and customising it to maybe a topic I am writing a paper on. I think it is a productivity enhancer especially the way that I look for articles, it seems like I am searching for hours to find an article perfect for what I am looking for but with digg it would be way faster. I have never read an article on one of these websites. I think delicious is more customized because you can choose which blogs and news you like the best and in digg or other sites everyone "diggs" it so if there is an article that is more popular it will end up on the homepage even if you don't like it.

The picture is from http://rcrawford79.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/digg_casemod.jpg.

Flickr

The tags that were used in this photo on flikr I thought were very appropriate for it. We used, basement, west wing, SCSU, MillerLibrary, and studyarea. I could not think of any other tags to add to it to better discribe this picture. I do use Photobucket as a photo hosting service. I only use it to upload pictures and get the url to put the pictures on my Myspace. For this reason I don't really know how it compares to flickr because I don't use it to its full potential. I do like Photobucket better, it is easier to use for me. I do upload pictures to my Facebook account and the way it compares is that instead of tagging related words to the photo you tag people to the photo. I love this because whenever my friends tag a photo of me it goes directly to my photos. I don't have any concerns with having my pictures public, I have had a Myspace for a while and I am used to everybody being able to see them. I choose which photos I want to be seen and which ones I don't so I have control.

Social Bookmarking

The first set of directions for this assignment was really confusing to me and I could not complete it. This was the part where we were supposed to tag stuff in our own blog. The second part of the assignment was to use delicious to bookmark websites more conveniently. This was fairly easy to figure out and I can totally see myself using this in the future. Everyday I visit 6 or 7 sites so this way I can use delicious to visit these sites more efficiently so I will definitely use this in my personal life. Like the Plain English video explained I think it would be very efficient for teachers and other professional people to be able to share various websites. I can not see a purpose for sharing the websites that I visit though. Overall I think that social bookmarking is a very neat tool to use bookmarking efficiently. I also got the picture from school.discoveryeducation.com/.../bookmark.html

RSS

I think it's really cool that there is an option to subscribe to your favorite websites and blogs so that it is easier to see whats new with each site. I honestly don't think I will ever use this tool though. There is no site that I visit that can be subscribed to. Even if there was an option to subscribe, there is nothing that I would need to be updated on. I also never read blogs so it would do no good to be able to get to them more conveniently. The easiest way for me to add subscriptions was on the left side of the blogline website. It gave today's most popular subscriptions and gave the option of subscribing to them. This was way easier for me than going to a website and looking for the little icon to click on. Overall I think it is a convenient tool but I don't think I will ever use it. I also got the picture from www.buyerschoiceinspections.com/

Web 2.0

I think i am well aware of web 2.0 tools. I am on the web everyday using different sites, customizing information, adding pictures and connecting with other people on the web. After reading a couple articles and watching a YouTube video on web 2.0, I think that web 2.0 is just the web as it is today and all of the things that we can do with the web. The definition was a little confusing to me but I believe that web 2.0 is just how much more advanced the web is getting and how we are able to add so much more to it ourselves. I completely think that web 2.0 is changing how we interact with people. I know that instead of calling someone to see what they are doing tomorrow or the next day I go on Myspace or Facebook and I write to them or use Facebook's chat to talk with them. It is definitely changing how we interact with each other. Also posting pictures of a fun night that one of my friends couldn't attend and getting a comment from that friend the next day saying they wished they were there. Web 2.0 is definitely changing the web and making it way more customizable and fun.

My First Blog

I never realized how complex blogging really was. It was fairly easy to set up but there were more options involved than I had expected. I really liked that there was a setting to make a cool background to the blog. I am still a little confused on why some people are so into blogging. I don't really get the point. I guess it does help get feelings and ideas out. I don't know if I will ever pick up blogging; maybe if I learn the most common ways in which people use their blogs. As for my first blog, I think it went well.