Welcome back to another weekly blog coming at you straight from Tallahassee! It's been a humid one here. So much so that my fingers started sticking to the fingerboard of my cello! Today I'm going to share with you some of my experiences with the technology we've used in the first two months of this course.
Initially, I was a little bit salty that we had yet another account to create on Diigo, but truth be told it's not that bad! We used it a lot recently and I'm getting the feel for it. What I like about it is that you can save websites and categorize them. I like being able to highlight and annotate the things I read online, so all my notes for it stay on one place, saved under my account. I can access these on any computer, so it's very practical. In the class, the comment boards in our group get super messy with the annotation spam, but I imagine it's only that way because there are 20 people doing it in a very short span!
Blogging has been mostly positive as well. It is easy enough to use. I enjoy the way that I can type blogs in a text window and it will automatically format once you publish. Additionally, I can input code in HTML to embed videos, pictures, and other media. It has simple options which is great for ease of use. Simple options, though, mean not a lot of variety. There aren't very many site layouts available, and figuring out which buttons changed which modules (text color, size, etc) was kind of a nightmare at first. I prefer sites like Wix that let you drag and drop text boxes and media. They tend to be more user-friendly. In the future, I can see myself using the knowledge gained here to start a genuine cello blog of my travels, performances, practice routines, and more.
One Web 2.0 tool that I use often is Doodle. You can use it to create scheduling polls, which is great when scheduling music rehearsals for lots of musicians with busy schedules! Rather than asking everyone when they are and aren't available, you just insert times and each individual checks the box of every time that can work for them. There's also an option to select "maybe" instead of yes or no. It's a must in scheduling apps!
Lol yes I felt the same about creating all of these accounts! My sister plays cello too! I like your idea of creating a blog for your travels!
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ReplyDeleteDoodle has made my life so much easier when it comes to scheduling. Like you mentioned, I feel as though it is much more efficient especially with a large group of people.
Definitely agree with the lack of variability for blogging! Sure, it's user friendly, but everyone will have similar blogs because of the lack of creativity available to us.
ReplyDeleteI agree, blogging is mostly a positive experience and i look forward to reading your future blogs! I am glad that you have been able to get a hang of Diigo, i still find it a bit confusing.
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