Using the website GO2WEB20 I tested 3 different "online applications" in three different areas that I could see as being useful in some way or another. I chose one website for reading/writing, another for music creation, and a third for video creation. Here's my brief review on each:
BookRix - The reading/writing site that I tested out. It is a site made for independent writers and readers to reach out to one another to have their stories read. You are able to read almost all of the books for free, with some exceptions, and if you sign up you can download the stories, comment on them, favorite them, etc. While reading a story, you could also read people's comments about the story, which would mostly include reader feedback. This seems like an incredibly useful site for younger adults who wish to start dabbling in the arts of literature creation.
At first I was unsure about the site, compared to my expectations. The stories seemed over-simplified and incredibly short. Yet after thinking on it I realized that was the good thing about the website. If the writers were putting their heart and soul into a work, then why would they put it up on the internet for free, rather than attempt to get it published? And if every story was a long read, then it'd be difficult for every person to have their story read as there simply wouldn't be enough "reader" time to go around. The site was made so that people could post a story they made, out of pure leisure, onto the internet to be enjoyed and/or critiqued. The stories are either just for fun, such as a hobby, or as a means of gaining experience for bigger -and better- things down the road. This means that the website could be for young writers/readers, still in elementary school even, to the most experienced of literature enthusiasts, who wish to become critics themselves.
The largest complaint that I have with the site is the flash book-reader thing, as it simply complicates reading the materiel and adds in an unnecessary complication that makes it difficult to read at times.
I could use this website (after looking through it more to verify that it would be age-appropriate) in what I hope to be my fifth-grade class.* Each students would sign up for the website and submit a story of their own to be read by the world. This would be a great way to reach the creative side of the students (with them working harder due to the image of having a world-wide audience), as well as possibly jump-start any students who have a natural talent for writing literature.
*My views on this website would work for not just younger grades (such as fifth grade), but I believe could be expressed for all grades in K-12 schools, even high school kids,
JamStudio - The music website that I investigated. The website allows users to create their own songs from scratch my using easy-to-use instrument sounds that can be matched up with any chord or key as they desire. The instruments to choose from are acoustic guitar, bass, drums, electric guitar(x3), piano, and electric piano. The tool for making the music is very simplified, yet there's still plenty to it in order to allow a person the ability to make a good, original song.
The site delivered very well in what I expecting, although I was a little disappointed that you were unable to actually create the rhythms/sounds for the instruments themselves, yet I know this is in order to keep the program simple and to allow any person to be able to make what sounds like good music no matter their musical background. And either way there's still plenty of sounds to choose from that a person will be able to stay occupied on the website for a long time before exhausting all of the "resources" given to them.
I think this wold be a very fun thing to do in a classroom (mostly just for younger kids, however), and could introduce two things that most would never even have the ability to combine into one activity in their entire lives; music and creativity. It would be fun for students to be taken down to the computer lab, have a set of headphones, and be given time to make their own songs. And due to the ease of making music, I doubt many kids would find themselves in over their heads immediately, as a student could just fool around with a single instrument for maybe even 30 minutes without getting bored. This would be an fun and exciting new way for students to interact with music, and after a day or two in the lab, if a student desired, he or she could go home and start using the program there to make what they want. It could be a great new experience.
ANIMOTO - The video website that I looked into. Reluctant to sign up for things right now if I don't know that I'm going to try and use them (if I start signing up for everything right now I'd lose track of my accounts everywhere immediately and would probably get bombarded with emails from every website) it was difficult for me to truly see everything in this site. Yet I took a small tour and was able to find out enough to make a decent assumption about the site, I believe. The website is made as a new method of giving presentations, it combines the feel of a video with the pictures/movies of a slideshow or power-point presentation, while adding a song to go over everything. It has the quality of a full-blown marketing video to attract buying customers but is made for a family sending out a video to friends and other relatives about a trip they had recently gone on. Yet it does all of this without the need for a trained visual effects person (can't remember what they're officially called at the moment), by setting up what seems to be something similar to the JamStudio (see above) website, where everything is made for you and you just move the pieces in places where you want them.
Originally I thought that the website was going to be something similar to Prezi (which is another site that is made to show presentations in a new light), but it is much more a video, rather than a visual show to go with an actual oral presentation.
This tool (if it could be accessed by students without having to make them all pay) would be a great way for students to have a fun way to summarize something that happened to them up. Perhaps groups give presentations after a group science project, or friends have fun at the end of the year (if this is done it couldn't be assigned to the whole class, as certain individuals may be singled out), or maybe their dreams for the future. In any case it would be a fun way to introduce kids to different types of presentations they could give, as well as the preparation that would be required of them.
I can't be certain of what the best ways to use this website would be (as I haven't been able to do much inside of it myself yet), but after further probing I'm sure that I could find a way for students, of all ages, to be able to use this site for themselves.
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