IT 5130: Week 13 Tools

Thsrs
http://www.ironicsans.com/thsrs/

Thsrs seems like a pretty good idea. You input a long word and Thsrs spits out a shorter synonym…sometimes. It is, after all, a beta version with some bugs.

Thsrs is supposed to be aimed at those who use a microblogging service like Twitter, which limits the amount of text you can input.

I suppose this will be helpful for some. I’m of the old school…I like to actually spell out what I’m saying, long words and all.


Wordle
http://www.wordle.net/

Okay…this is a tool to generate word clouds or tag clouds. Well, I’ve never understood them. I’ve looked them up on Wikipedia and I *still* don’t understand them. I won’t be using this tool.


ToonDoo
http://www.toondoo.com/

If you don’t have the talent to draw, ToonDoo allows you to create comics as a way to express your message. It seems simple enough. ToonDoo lets you drag-and-drop or click to create comic strips.

I was able to create a little cartoon relatively easily. However, I’m not sure how difficult it might be to create a cartoon for educational purposes. I couldn’t tell if you could have more than a three panel “toon”.

Anyway, here's my cartoon: http://www.toondoo.com/View.toon?param=448469

IT 5650: Trend Analysis Web 2.0

Greg, Jessica, Phil and Dena did a great job on the Web 2.0 Trend Analysis. Their thorough work helped me to understand a bit more about the Web 2.0 world in which I'm trying to work.

This social networking information, that fits in well with their analysis, just came across my radar. Three articles that you may find interesting are from the same blog site:

http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/10/network-citizens-power-and.html

http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/10/harnessing-power-and-potential-of.html

http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/11/ami-partners-study-small-businesses.html

Good stuff...but I feel pretty certain that no one but myself will ever see it. Who really reads these blogs, anyway? ;-)

IT 5130: Week 12 Tools

Jott
www.jott.com

You make a phone call. Jott converts your voice into text and sends it along to your destination of choice. Me? I miss the simple, handwritten “To Do” list. (See my longer rant under Week 2 Tools).


Gliffy
www.gliffy.com

Gliffy is a free web-based diagramming tool that uses the Flash application in the browser window. It lets you create and share diagrams online to enhance collaboration.


Gimp
www.gimp.org

Gimp is an open source graphics editing program. You can use it as a paint program, to retouch photos, image format converter, etc. It can also be augmented with plug-ins and extensions.

IT 5130: Week 11 Tools

USTREAM.TV
http://www.ustream.tv

Looking for your 15 minutes of fame? Now’s your chance! Ustream.TV lets you create an interactive video broadcast that goes out live to your audience. The interactive part comes in by letting the viewers personally interact with the broadcaster, or with other viewers. All you need is a camera, a microphone and an internet connection and you can broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size.

I can see where this might be a good tool to use for education. It might have actually been helpful for the Trend Analysis project in IT 5650, if you didn’t have an aversion to appearing on-screen and could get the students to participate all at the same time. That, of course, is like herding cats...

I like the original idea for this tool…a way to let service members overseas connect with many family members at the same time. Of course, now entertainers, musicians and even politicians have jumped on the bandwagon.


Bubbl.us
http://bubbl.us

Bubbl.us ia a free mind mapping software program that lets you collaborate with others online. You can also embed your mind map into your blog or website, email or print your mind map or save the mind map as an image.

When using the mind map, each bubble of information connects to its preceding parent bubble and is appropriately color coordinated for hierarchy sake.

Bubbl.us also has a cool delete confirmation gimmick. Once you press the “X” in the corner of a bubble you want to delete, a countdown starts from three as the line connecting the bubble to its parent bubble acts as a lit fuse. When it reaches zero the bubble blows up in a cloud of fire. Cool!


esnips
http://www.esnips.com/

eSnips is a social content-sharing site. You can upload pictures, videos, music, documents and your favorite links. It also comes with five gigabytes of storage for free.

You can create a variety of different folders to put your stuff in, and then based on the privacy settings you control, you decide who gets to see what.

eSnips also has communities where like-minded people can share their common interests. Those interests are expressed by tags used to describe content in the community.