Symbaloo

     Two days ago, I watched a video that featured an online application called "Symbaloo". Symbaloo is an interactive website that allows you to store all of you favorite sites on a dashboard-esque page, called a webmix. The webmix is a wall of tiles that you can fill with your bookmarks. If a bookmark is not already available, you can create your own tile to put into your webmix.

     This is a picture of my Symbaloo webmix. You can see all of my bookmarks. I have arranged them into categories, such as: Entertainment, News, Blogs, etc. I have even created two of my own tiles to take me to the channels of two of my favorite YouTube vloggers(Located below the YouTube tile).

     Symbaloo is very helpful for organizing your bookmarks in an easy-to-use fashion. With Symbaloo, you can actually see what you are looking for, rather than searching aimlessly through a list of sites.

     jmers593

Social Media in Schools

     Today I saw a video about a principal at a middle school who sent an e-mail to the parents of students saying "There is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site". To me, there are two sides of this argument to look at -- the educational and the psychological.

     Social networks can have a very positive impact on education. Some networking sites have even been created by teachers for the purpose of teaching to their students. In this respect, I feel that any student should be able to become a part of such networking sites.

     However, I do not feel that middle students should be getting on Facebook or MySpace. People on these sites can often see the presence of bullying and abuse. If young children were to become the targets of these people, they could be hurt emotionally, and in some instances, physically. I would hate to see anyone become the target of bullies online or otherwise, and I just do not feel that these social networks, and many others, should not be open to younger children.

     jmers593

Busting More Than Myths

     Jamie Hyneman, from the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters is working with the U.S. Military to create a new type of armor. The armor in development will be used on vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hyneman is tasked with creating an ultra-lightweight armor that can still shield against the blast and shrapnel from IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). If you would like to read more, check out this link.

      http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20053298-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave

Who Are You Following?

     Today I reinvigorated my Twitter account. I am actually surprised that I remembered my username and password. I made an account a couple of years ago when Twitter on Xbox 360 came out and I was testing it for Microsoft.

     I think Twitter is an interesting concept; stay up-to-date on what your favorite celebrities or your friends are doing. Anyone can say what they are up to, or what is on their mind. I follow some of my favorite YouTube stars, @RayWJ and @SeaNanners. I am even following the one-and-only, Jesus Christ (@jesus).

     jmers593

ujam Video Tutorial

     This is my video tutorial on how to use ujam. This is my first time making a tutorial video. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.

ujam Tutorial in Progress

     I will be making a video tutorial on how to use ujam, which is an application that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. To make this tutorial, I will be using Screencast-O-Matic.

     Screencast-O-Matic is an easy-to-use application that records your computer screen. It shows you an area that will be captured on the screen, and you can re-size this area to fit all or part of your screen. All you have to do after that is hit "record". You can use an internal or external microphone to add a voice-over to your video as well. After recording your screencast, you can share it to Facebook, YouTube, or just save it to your computer.

     As I said before, I will be using this program to make my tutorial for ujam. After I finish my tutorial, I will post it here for you to view.

     jmers593