3rd Emergent Technology

The third emergent technology I wanted to explore is a program called Story Jumper (www.storyjumper.com). When I was scrolling through all the different options, this is the one I was most interested in and could see myself using, -now as a mom, and also in the future as a teacher. The program is an online book creator, where you (or your children!) can connect your creative minds to book making resources to make your own creation.

StoryJumper was very easy to use! I created a free account and could begin my book right away. You can scroll through ideas the website gives, look at other books that have been made to get ideas, start from scratch, or use a pre-made template to make your book. I used a blank template for my story, and it was simple! It started with the cover, and then moved page by page where I chose the colors, font, and pictures I wanted to add. I liked this site over another online book creator I found because this site already had pictures ready to use in your story, and you can even upload personal pictures and add costumes! All of the pictures and scenes are sorted by theme too (alien, magical, character, cars/planes etc.), so it makes searching easy.

Once I ran out of the original number of pages, all I had to do was click to add a new page. I also could duplicate pages, which came in handy for my story. Once I was finished, I saved, and then used the 'Share' feature to email the story to myself, then copy that link and post it here.

One thing I would improve is that more pictures and backgrounds were added. Also, the privacy policy was a little confusing. Obviously, I know not to use other people's works, but I need to go back and re-read to make sure my work is protected too. I would also improve the share feature to where you could get the html link directly from the site.

Finally, my favorite thing is that the books can be either printed at home, or ordered as a hardback so you can keep your creation, or give it as a gift.

I will definitely use this again! It's a great way for teachers to introduce to children a fun new way to use their imagination and writing skills. I also thought a class-collaborative project would be fun, where each child is responsible for creating one page to create a class-book. they would have to use their written communication to make sure their part of the story fit with the rest.

I'm looking forward to using this again! Here is my story, enjoy!

Dana's StoryJumper
All you have to do is click the corner of the pages to turn each page. =)

Mexico 2010 (41 photos), by Dana Farrell

The tool I used to photoshare was the photo department from Walmart.com. I regularly use Walmart.com to upload and order photos, but I have never actually shared them from there. For that, I either post pictures on a different blog I have, or use Kodakgallery.com. However, by me doing that it usually creates extra work for myself because sometimes I am triple up-loading my pictures! (Once to Walmart to order, then to my blog to share with certain friends, and to Kodak to share with people that I know will not check my blog - and also to order from Kodak if their price beats Walmart's at the time!) I think it's funny that I've never really taken the time to explore Walmart's photo site and find out that I can share a slideshow! How much time this is going to save me!! lol

I have a TON of pictures uploaded on Walmart.com! It is FREE, with unlimited photo space, and very easy to understand! From Walmart.com, on the left toolbar, you will click 'Photo' to get to the photo department. From there, creat an account, name your album, and begin uploading pictures. Again, it is very easy to follow the simple directions. After you've uploaded your pictures, there are options to add captions, to edit your photo (red-eye, focus, etc), and also you can add borders to photos!

What's most convenient, is that you can order photos right here from this site and have the photos either delivered to your home, or you can chose a store and pick them up at your convenience. You could also put photos onto shirts, coffee mugs, calendars, mouse pads, or a ton more other things!

After you've uploaded pictures to your album, you can share your album a few ways. One, is you can click 'Share' and type in emails, which the website will create an address book for futures sharings, and then send a link to your album. Or, you can share the link directly to Facebook, MySpace, or Blogger. The bad things with this sharing method is that when you click on this link, while it takes you directly to the photos, if you want to view a slideshow you have to click a different link to begin this. The good thing is that it allows your friends the option of quickly scanning the pictures if they're pressed for time, or if they want, they can click the link to the view the slideshow. They also can order any pictures they want! The following link provided is what it looks like when you share directly to Blogger.

I'd like to share my Walmart Digital Photo Center photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.


The other way to share your photos is after you've uploaded into the album, you click 'view slideshare'. This will open a new window and automatically scroll through the photos. I love this option because not only can you can adjust the speed, size of photos, and even the background color behind the pictures, you can also see all the mini-pictures at the bottom that are coming up, and can order from this page as well. To share this slideshow, when it opens, you copy the web address at the top of the page. Then, post it where ever you want it! I created a hyperlink to post it here. This is it:

Click here to view the slideshare

In the end, I was happy that I took a little extra time to explore Walmart's online photo department. It was very easy for me to originally learn how to use, and contains very many beneficial features! Hope you enjoyed my tips and pics!!

RSS Feeds

I am glad to have learned about RSS Feeds! I've seen that orange symbol before, but never was quite sure what it meant. Now that I know about it, I know I am going to take advantage of it!

Before, I had a few sites I would go to in order to check if there were any new events or blogs. One in particular was IUPUI's homepage to check for upcoming events. This is basically a calender of featured events at IUPUI. Another one was my church's blog, which contains blog posts from any of the pastors at my church, about any topic. I always have good intentions to check the blog for updates, but end up forgetting since it is not updated every day. However, now that I have posted those RSS feeds to this blog, one I am on more frequently, I will be sure not to miss anything new!

I had to give it some thought on the other sites I wanted to subscribe to. I ended up choosing the following:

The first was IUPUI's newsfeed. This site contains all sorts of important news and happenings from the IUPUI campus.

The second feed regards education. It is the Education site from The New York Times. I was impressed with the scope of information this site offered. Having never visitied this site before, I was happy to see such a range of headlines!

Finally, I used Yahoo's Technology News. I really like this site as well because of the scope of topics. The technology does not center only around computers, or televisions, etc. But, it also contains articles on gaming systems and current news about hackers, for example.

In addition to finding these sites, I also had previously posted a feed on my blog of a scripture of the day. I like this feed because sometimes I do not start my day quite like I should. When I see this feed, for me it is like God saying, "Hello Dana! Don't forget about me today!".

I like that when something from these sites is updated, I will immediately know about it by only checking one site. In addition to posting these RSS feeds to my blog, I have also added them to MyYahoo. Since I am not on blogger every day, but I check my email through MyYahoo multiple times a day, I figured it would be most beneficial having those feeds there as well. On MyYahoo, I also added an RSS feed of a local mom's group I check every once in a while. I hadn't had time lately to get on there and browse the newest topics. However, now that I subscribed to the RSS feed, I am able to quickly browse if there are any conversations I want to join!

Finally, I am happy to have a combined place where I can check for updates I am interested in. The feeds I'll be most keep up with is the scripture of the day, my church's blog, and the IUPUI Featured Events page. Overall though, I know I will continue to use most of these feeds - especially when an article catches my attention.

Delicious

I am so glad I've learned about this resource! I am doing tons of research for another class I am in and I've been emailing myself this webpages so I don't forget about them. Delicious makes it MUCH easier to keep track of the pages I want to visit again. I have the 'Save to Delicious' button on my toolbar so it's super easy to add a website to my page. I even learned how to create 'Tag Bundles' so I could group together all my resources from similar topics based on tag words.

Here is my page:

delicious.com/danafarrell

Hey everyone! So, here is my podcast. It's about my opinions of some of the commercials from the Super Bowl.




I used Audacity as my recording device. The directions posted in the module made downloading this very easy, as did the tutorial. Even though I had fun playing around with all the options to speed up or slow down the recording, as well as add sounds I decided to keep my podcast simple and did not use any background music or sound effects this time.

Audacity was simple to use, but I do have to say I was a little disappointed when I realized I could not post from it directly to blogger. But, that is okay because I figured out how to do it a different way by uploading the saved MP3 player to a program and then copying it to blogger. It took me a while to find a program I liked, but I finally did when I found this video on YouTube



Or, here's the link if you'd prefer that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7pAoXdkSck

In it he goes step-by-step on the program to use (Divshare) and how to do it. It is very simple! I wish I had found this program first because all of the other ones I found, while they were simple, they would not provide an embedded audio player, but rather just a link that took the clicker to that homepage in order to play the file. So, I am very happy with Divshare since it did exactly what I wanted!

Again, the video link above will give excellent directions on how to get your podcast to your blogpage.

I hope you enjoy my first-ever podcast!

Animals Of The Indy Zoo

Check out my SlideShare Presentation:

Animals Of The Indy Zoo

View more presentations from guestbc297fa.

Hello!!

Hey everyone! I'm Dana. To tell you a little about myself, I am a happily married stay-at-home mom to three 'mostly' wonderful children! I took a break from school after I got married and then had children, but now I am back and pursuing my degree in English Education. I'd like to eventually teach creative writing, hopefully to middle school students.



I've actually taken this class before, but since it was over 10 years ago, I have to take it again. I'm happy for that though, because there have been tons of advances to the internet and Microsoft programs since then.
I actually already have a family blog through blogger, so feel free to check it out if you'd like: click here

For those of you new to blogging, my advice would be to explore and not be afraid to try different things. Never forget to use the spell check before you publish your blog, and don't count on the autosave feature! Also, it's fun to add pictures to your blog posts.


To do this, click the little scenery picture located next to the spellcheck button. A box will pop up where you can browse your files to find the picture you want to upload. You can add additional photos so you can upload more than one at a time. You can also chose if you want your picture size small, medium, or large, and if it is aligned on the left, center, or right side of the page. I have found difficulty when I put pictures on the left and right sides, just because the text doesn't always align correctly and sometimes the words are cut off in the middle and taken down to the next line. I always just upload my pictures positioned in the center of the post.

Also, sometimes depending on your computer's speed and picture size, uploading pictures can take quite some time. While they are uploading in the pop-up box, you can come back to your post and continue typing. Once they are uploaded, they will be added to the top of the page where you are typing and then you can highlight and move them where you would like them in the post.

One last tip about uploading pictures is that it is nice if you have an extra line between your previous text, the picture, and your following text. It is okay if you do not have this extra space, but the text will be positioned directly on top of the photo possibly making it a little more difficult to read, like so: In my opinion, it just makes it easier to read with a space in between the text and photo. =) Also, this space makes it much easier to edit your post if need be because it is more organized while editing.

Finally, you can preview your post before you publish it to make sure you are happy with how it looks. This is helpful in making sure you have the correct pictures right where you want them too!

Since I have set up a blog using this site before, the experience was not difficult. However, I have never used slideshare before, so I'm sure that will take a little time to get used to since it is a new experience! I look forward to checking out the blogs of my classmates in hopes that maybe there is someone that can give me a tip on how to upload pictures aligned to the right or left side without affecting the text!

Thank you for reading and I hope you found some helpful tips!