Gaming cont'd

I have always enjoyed 'wasting' time on the computer with Scrabble, Bridge, and Trivial Pursuit and I have just added to the list of activities that could whittle away the hours by trying my hand at 'The Cradle of Rome' where I managed to build a saw mill. It was a minor achievement at best.
I believe there is a place and a use for Gaming and Virtual Worlds in Education and some of the benefits are obvious; sparking interest, increasing reading, sharpening reaction time, stimulating brain activity, providing a jumping off point, etc. As with any tool, it largely depends on the craftsman and how he chooses to use it.

Gaming and Virtual Environments

Sadly I was unable to attend any of the 'drop in' sessions related to gaming. From my readings, it sounds like they were a lot of fun and a big success. I did attempt to join Second Life. I had first heard about Second Life while listening to CBC radio about six months ago and although the interview caught my interest and I was curious, I hadn't pursued it at that time. I decided that week ten's assignment was the perfect opportunity for me to check it out. I submitted all of the information, selected a name for myself(couldn't resist the surname MILLS) and chose an avatar. Unfortunately, I could not run the program on my computer(2 years old)??? I did read a few of the related articles posted on the Second Life homepage and I will make a Second Attempt at Second Life soon.

Supermarket - video 'spoof' of Web2.0

This video was brought to my attention and I think members of this course will appreciate the references.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/supermarket

Facebook

What did I know about 'facebook' before joining?? Well, what with having 3 twenty-something offspring, I knew it was a site that occupied a lot of their time. I knew that it was originally a university student site, designed for keeping in touch and reconnecting with friends and classmates. My preconceived notion was that it was an elaborate message sending site for young people.
What do I know about 'facebook' now that I have joined? Well, in many ways it is exactly what I had expected. It is what it claims to be, 'a social utility that connects you with the people around you'.
The best part about facebook for me was being able to add my two daughters as my 'friends'. I even like the sound of that sentence.
The fact that they are both studying in Dublin Ireland at the moment has meant that I do not always get my 'daily fix' of them, and needless to say, I miss them very much. Thank goodness for SKYPE, but facebook too has given me another way of connecting with them that makes them seem closer to home.
Let's see, we have written on each others' walls. We have sent messages back and forth. We've poked each other.........but I guess the best part for me is just glancing through their many photo albums. It gives me a glimpse into their daily routines and assures me that all is well.
Aside from my children(and their roommates) I don't know anyone else on facebook. I searched all of my hotmail address contacts and none of them is on facebook. So, as 'a social utility that connects you with the people around you', facebook is NOT for me; but as a social utility that connects me with my loved ones, facebook is a success.

Flickr Toys

I had fun in fd's flickr toys, creating a Magazine Cover - so easy! Using a digital photo of my 'offspring', I turned them into instant 'celebs'. So many other interesting distractions on this site to amuse and entertain. Creating Calendars with photos looked promising and so did Captioner. I'm looking forward to returning to play again, but for now it is on to 'My Space' and Facebook. This is the photo I used for the Magazine Cover

Zoho

It is useful to realize that tools such as this exist on the internet for free. I played with the planner and could see that it would be handy in several ways. I was able to share pages successfully, make To Do lists, record appointments, make new pages and request reminders. It was all very straight forward.

Week 8 - Google Docs & Spreadsheets

I am working my way down the list of sites to visit this week and have logically started at the top of the list. I have spent some time experimenting with Google Docs & Spreadsheets and found it easy to get started and familiar in its applications. I created a document and experimented with the tools. I had no difficulty importing photos to the ducument and creating a link to my blog. I was able to easily email the document to my hotmail address and univmail.
Where I ran into difficulty was when I attempted to post the document to my blog. I followed the steps of the instructions but a dialogue box stating 'there was an unexpected problem' appeared, saying 'we're sorry but the username/password combination you've entered is either invalid or you don't have permission to access this blog'. I tried several times with the same result. Am I missing something??

Egg-cellent!

Egg-cellent!
Originally uploaded by KristinRanae.

Sending this egg from flickr......just for fun and practice. Have a cracking good weekend!!!!!!

Flickr and adding photos

Just spending a little time experimenting with adding photos.

I'm not sure why, but sometimes they upload and sometimes they don't.

Tried to add a photo to my profile but was unsuccessful. Will try again when I have more time.

Opened an account with flickr. Couldn't have been easier. Hope to explore the site more at my leisure. They say a photo is worth a thousand words, so it is a valuable tool.

del.icio.us

I have now set up a del.icio.us account and have even added a few websites. Spending time on del.icio.us is easy and it was difficult to drag myself away from 'browsing' in order to spend a few minutes blogging about the experience. There is no shortage of interesting material. Some of the tags are exactly what I would apply, but some are a bit more obscure. I think that del.icio.us is more personal and subjective than a google search. From this short initial visit, I found del.icio.us more international than google. I will definitely be going back ..... and soon.