LJ5

In this learning module we learned about more web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 became popular in 2004. The term was created by Tim O'Reilly. It is considered the movement from static web pages to user generated content. Web 2.0 tools are used so widely now. People of all ages use them and a lot of them are fairly easy to use.

The web is always developing. People are always trying to find new way to improve everything that is out there. Pretty soon, Web 2.0 will be a thing of the past and Web 3.0 will be part of our everyday lives.

Here's a little video on Web 2.0 and it developing into Web 3.0.

We also briefly discussed copyright laws. It has become such a big thing in our society now. A lot of people do it because it's cheaper than going out and buying what they want because computer products, movies, music, etc. are so expensive to buy. It's where p2p came into play, or peer to peer. What that means is how people use to share content among themselves. The biggest example of it is Napster. People would search through a search engine and would type in what they are looking for. Other people would upload what stuff they have. So people would be searching for other people's things while other people are supplying it, hence the peer to peer.

Here's a little video on illegal downloading.



Some of the tools we learned to use are Web Resizer, Kizoa, and Voki. With Image Opt, we learned how to edit a photo. It was pretty much a free and basic use of Photoshop. When posting a image from the web, if you don't optimize it, the picture can turn out blurry or distorted. When you optimize it, you can crop it, change the contrast, and a bunch of other little random touch ups. When you upload it to www.webresizer.com, once you upload it, it will automatically make the file size a lot smaller. The next free website we used was Kizoa, www.kizoa.com. It's where you can upload picture from off of your computer and create a slideshow with them. It gives you different options to customize your slideshow. You can add different transitions, effects, text, animations and music. You can choose to either start from scratch or choose a template. My slideshow is in one of my previous post and I did it from when I went to Disney a couple summers ago. The other tool that we learned to use is Voki, www.voki.com.Voki is a free website where you can create your own personal avatar. You can make it look like yourself or you can even make it an animal. You can either type the text it speaks or you can call in or record it straight on your computer but you only get 60 seconds. My avatar is in my previous post.

Our Facebook discussion had to do with illegal downloading of music and content. There were videos that were pretty much based on teens and college kids who have downloaded music. It seems that today, a lot of the blame is being put on teenagers and college students because that seems to be who the soul downloaders are. But it's not true. People of all ages download music illegally. I think people do it because the price of music downloads are expensive. On the iTunes store, it's $1.29 per song. I remember when they use to all be $0.99. It seems like the music industry is raising the prices because so many people download the music illegally so they're trying to make their money somewhere. I understand musicians want to get rewarded for their hard work, but it's expensive to be able to afford all of the music you want. CDs are becoming a thing of the past. Pretty soon they won't exist at all. It will only be mp3 files that you'll be able to get.

I think I put a lot of effort into this learning module. I had fun learning how to use all the new web 2.0 tools like making an avatar, creating a slideshow and learning how to optimize images for the web. The Facebook discussion was interesting because it had to do with illegal music downloading and I really enjoyed seeing people's views on it and whether or not we should be able to do it. It was interesting to read one post where someone, who is an artist, wouldn't mind there music being shared for free because it was free advertisement and the people get free music. Personally I think I'm for free music, but we live in a society where nothing is free. I look forward to learning new web 2.0 tools in our new module!

Terminology:

Resolution- the quantity of pixels within a particular unit of measure

Vector Images- images that are created by mathematical equations that communicate to the software how to draw lines and shapes to create an image

Shareware- Software that you can download and try out, but must pay for it if you decide to use it on a permanent basis

Pixel- the smallest unit of space on a monitor screen that can be addressed by software

Folksonomy- a social collaborative tagging system for classification