Thing 3: Mashups

This tool was very frustrating, and difficult to use for me.  Perhaps the trouble was with my laptop, and using wireless internet.  But either, boy was I annoyed!  I tried to create a mashup about running.  It seemed like a simple enough idea and one where text, pictures and video’s would be easy to find.

The site kept locking all of my elements, so that moving them was impossible.  I tried to refresh my page countless times.  So, for the time being, I’ve given up on this tool. 

Middlespot may be useful in presentations or websites.  A person could also use the site for just text and pictures and form a creative collage to print out for any document.  The advantages of using Middlespot is simple, it’s more enticing to the eye as compared to plaint ext.  The disadvantages are that the tool requires a fast computer, as far as I can tell.  My computer didn’t like Middlespot, anyway. 

Here are my two attempts at using Middlespot and embedding the html into my blog.











They don't look so great, do they?  Psh, not a fan.

BUT when I used the computers in the library, Middlespot seemed to work a bit better.  But I still couldn't place the elements exactly where I wanted them.  I'm callin this one a night...

Thing 13: Reflection

The 13 Things projected provided creative and interesting multimedia outlets that will be of much use in the workplace, and even personal use.  I had no expectations upon starting this “blog,” so therefore there was nothing to live up too. 


I greatly appreciated a few of the creative tools used for assignment purposes.  A few sites that were helpful in particular was the Mind Mapping and Word Clouds.  If nothing else, these tools were just plain fun to mess around with.  I liked the visual appeal that they could provide to otherwise plain text.  Mind Mapping allowed me to organize in a different manner.  Usually, my daily planner is where my scribble my to-do lists.  But Mind Mapping allowed me to color coordinate whatever I wanted and connect ideas and my to-do list.  I can see myself using this tool in the future, and the same can be said for Word Clouds.  By plugging in literally any text I wanted, Word Clouds created an entirely unique artwork with the most prominent and reoccurring words.  Although I’m not sure how effective this would be in the business world, because it’s essentially just a jumble of words.


Social Bookmarking and Google Reader are two other helpful sites I encountered due to the 13 Things project.  Both of these sites are great for personal and professional use because it helps make one’s life easier by saving texts and other websites in an organized manner.  Google Reader allows me to stay connected (to whatever sites I want) with little to no effort.  If I want to stay up to date on Cedar Rapids news, pop culture or sports information it all gets sent straight to my google account.  In the past, I would have had to search for relevant articles and remember to visit the websites on a weekly basis, but no more. 


I didn’t like the Mashups assignment, most likely because my computer was slow.  Whatever the case, this tool didn’t click with me and I don’t think I’ll be using it in the future.  I also don’t think I’ll be using the Visual Thesaurus in the future, mostly because Thesarus.com provides more results and I have no use for the visual aspect. 

Now, just for fun, I'm giong to leave you all with a funny video.  Little kids dancing to music that's too adult for them, and probably too adult for me.  Funny stuff.

Thing 12: Word Clouds

If nothing else, this tool is just fun to look at.  It’s a form of artwork.  Wordle gives greater prominence to words that appear more often than other words in a document or URL that’s submitted as text. 

I copied and pasted my URL of my blog homepage for this assignment.  What appeared after I clicked submit was out of control.  The Wordle website chose the colors, style and layout of the words. 

  

  The next one I uploaded was a essay I wrote for one of Dr. Bob’s classes and the piece was entitled “The Bohemian Way.”  Randomly selected, I was excited to see how this essay would look in image form.  To my surprise, the image that appeared was horizontal, whereas my blog Wordle was vertical.  The colors were also different, a mix of maroon, black and shades of gray.



Now I was excited to see how other pieces turned out.  I’ve been working on a feature story about a senior at Coe, an artist named Mitch Iburg.  This Wordle was randomly created in gothic font, and was also layed horizontal like the Dr. Bob essay. 

I can see this being used online, in brochures and many other public documents.  Although it’s mostly just a jumble of words, it’s also intriguing to the eye.  A company who uses such a piece sends the message that they’re creative and fun.  However, I think this tool can only be used as fun artwork or a neat new image to be used in documents.  Other than its artistic qualities Wordle isn’t able to convey a clear or coherent message.  I still think it’s a cool gadget, though…

Thing 11: Visual Thesaurus

I decided to look up “copyrite” using the Visual Thesaurus, in light of Thing 10 post.  I was surprised to find only three related words, these being secure, procure and rights of first publication.  Wanting to find a more popular word, and one with more results I randomly chose the word “paper,” which provided many more outcomes.  A few words related to paper include: newspaper publisher, article, material, stuff and cover.  “Paper” is the root word, and each word stems of off it alongside a colored circle which connects each related word.  The root word can be related to many, and the words stemming from the root word can be related to other stemming words.  It sounds confusing, but it’s really not. 

Lexipedia is similar to the Visual Thesaurus, but it provided more results.  I searched the word “school” and words like, schooltime, establishment, cultivate and knowledge popped up.  I noticed that I could select certain parts of speech that I wanted to search.  This site gave me the option to only search the nouns,, verbs, adverbs or adjectives, depending on my preferences and needs. 

With all this being said, I really never found any desirable alternatives to my root word.  Having something visual is fun to look at, but for this particular tool the visual aspect was not that helpful.  I’m a huge fan of Thesaurus.com, so much so that the site is my homepage on my laptop.  I use the site constantly.  Comparing Thesarus.com to the Visual Thesaurus, I would say that the latter is more useful to me.  Thesaurus.com provides many more results, and when I’m strapped for time or have writers block, more results means more ideas to get my brain moving again. 

Thing 10: Creative Commons

“Creative Commons is designed to save the world from failed sharing,” notes the video.  Creative Commons can cover anything that copywrite covers.  This concept may be difficult for some to understand.  The tool does not give free reign to anyone and everyone in terms of copy write and copywrite infringement, but rather, it has “Given you the right to exercise your copy write in more ways than was once available.” Copywrite laws were, and still can be, very static and rigid.  Now, Creative Commons gives creative minds a place to share ideas, making them more malleable and perhaps aiding in connection and communication around the world.  “Free expression…that’s the kind of commons we’re trying to create.”

This seems like the next logical step in the internet-crazed social networking world that we’ve become.  It seems that individuals are more willing to share, and are excited to share, their work.  CC allows individuals to communicate with others around the world, share ideas and create new ideas.  To me, it seems only good things can come from such a mind set, allowing others to freely share ideas and becoming a less rigid society.  I enjoy the notion of collaborative work, as opposed to one person hording an idea. 

The CC website says, “Realizing the full potential of the internet — universal access to research, education, full participation in culture, and driving a new era of development, growth, and productivity,” as their vision statement.” As stated before, this is a great idea that is the next logical step in the social media landscape.

However, I can understand where things may get sticky.  If I posted a photo and someone else edited it a bit, and ended up submitting it to a magazine and the new individual made money from the photo, I may get upset.  When money is involved, things always get messy.  However, the point is that I had the choice to post that photo, knowing that someone else may edit it and reinvent it, making it something new.  Because CC is voluntary, it’s up to whoever created a certain piece to post it to the CC website.  A person should be very knowledgeable as to how the piece could be changed, seeing as how collaboration is the motto of CC. 

Thing 9: Google Reader

This tool was really easy to get started since I already had a gmail account; plus I’m sure the entire planet uses Google, so becoming familiar with Google Reader should be fairly easy.  Immediately I signed up for the Cedar Rapids Gazette to be sent to my Google Reader.  After that, I wasn’t sure which sites provided RSS feeds and which didn’t.  I searched to see if Fitness Magazine provided RSS feeds, and I found that they didn’t.  The New York Times provided some interesting topics, so I subscribed to a few health related feeds. 

Now that I know about Google Reader, I’ll be looking for that little orange symbol on all the sites I visit.  As for now, I’m having a difficult time trying to think of which sites I frequently visit or which to subscribe too.  This being said, I’m excited that I know about this new tool. 

Similar to Delicious, this site makes life easier.  Instead of going to multiple sites for information, the information can be sent to one spot, Google Reader.  To those in the public relations professions, this could be a life saver.  I like the idea of staying on top of what’s going on in the world, my hometown, or silly celebrity life.  Anything that I find interesting can be sent to Google Reader. 

Thing 8: Social Bookmarking

My Delicious Page
Username:  Katie Ricklefs

Although Delicious is a site knock-off of yahoo, I was able to create a Delicous account with my gmail username.  This was nice because I didn’t have to create an entire new yahoo email, which I didn’t want to take the time to do. 

Social bookmarking sites ,like delicious, are handy because the sites I save can be found from any computer.  What’s more, the saved sites can be categorized into groups of like bookmarks.  In this way, I don’t have to search through a long list of websites (which was the old way of doing things).  I can save the pop cultures bookmarking sites in one place, the book lover sites in another, and on and on and on… I’m a bit organizer so I especially liked the tag feature.

I added Jane, Jason, and Pranav to my network.  This was simple enough, although you have to know their username in order to add them, which could be tricky.  It was fun to see what other people bookmarked.  After that, I searched around the types of sites I could bookmark and tag.  I looked through various food sites, hoping to find some good recipes and tagged a few of those.  It’s nice because although I don’t have time to look through everything right now, I can simply tag the site and come back to it later to look through whatever interests me when I have more time.