Applications

This week the assignment was to check out some free online applications and review them. I wanted to check them all out so I could see what exactly was available. When I tried to do the Picnikhttp://www.picnik.com/ one it said that it was going to be moving and I didn't know what that meant for availability later so I didn't bother with that one. As for the FotoFlexer http://fotoflexer.com/ it wouldn't let me type any text in the photo frame. I'm not sure if anyone else had that issue. I really liked the other two Image Editing sites though. In Phixr http://www.phixr.com/, I was able to edit my photo, add text, change the color, rotate it, use their photos if I wanted to, and I could place the text any where on the photo I wanted to. It was very easy to use and could be used with any age. As for the Sumo Paint http://www.sumopaint.com , this site was my favorite and I spent the most time on this site. It has many options from drawing, to painting, to using shapes and even erasing them. If a mistake is made it is easy to erase the mistake and start over. Pages can be layered to create a new effect, you can also add pictures and paint on those or do effects to your pictures like the other applications. It is really cool to look at what has been created by others too. Being an artist I would love to play with this tool more but I don't know how comfortable I am drawing on the computer I prefer having the tools at hand. I find it a challenge to actually use the computer to develop a project like that. But I want to explore it more because I found it to be very fun. I did find it a little challenging because there were a lot of options so I think this would have to be for a more advanced class or an older class to accomplish something of higher quality. If you don't mind your students accomplishing something of low grade than I think it would be for 4th grade and up. If you were to use it often they could master the skills too, though.

The office Suites applications my absolute favorite is Google Documents https://docs.google.com/ because I think it is easy to use and I love it. I have used it for many projects already. I was able to link a Google document to my Google site without a problem. I have had a few group projects on campus that I used Google projects for, I just learned how to use Google documents this semester but I loved it so much I showed my groups how to use it. It was easy to do a group paper using the document feature, as long as the others participated. One person starts the document and invites the others in the group to be editors and as long as they have Google accounts they can edit the document. The teacher can view the document or comment if you add her to do so too. Then the document tracks everyone who has participated in contributing to the project. It automatically saves itself as you go, this is great for elementary age, but also great for those who are forgetful at saving. Google document also has other features like charts and a drawing area. Plus Google documents can be accessed from anywhere not just a personal computer.

I also checked out Zoho http://www.zoho.com/, it has things that seem like they could come in handy for office and class. It has a calendar that I thought would be great for using in class. If students and the teacher had an account the teacher could e-mail students reminders on assignments that came up. It also has a chart creator that could come in handy for math projects, and an application for making quizzes. It also has a application for detecting bug's that come up in your site. This site can also link you to others giving you resources and keeping you connected to other educators which can really be a great thing.