Discovering Something New

This week, to discover some new online tools, I went to Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything.  Having taken a previous Wilkes class with Ms. Schrock, I knew that I would be able to find some very interesting sites through her page.  I chose three different sites to evaluate, and I enjoyed using these sites and learning more about them.

Pixlr:
The first site I looked at was Pixlr, a photo editing website.  I have an interest in photography, so this site appealed to me.  I have Adobe Photoshop Elements installed on my computer, and use it regularly.  Pixlr is quite comparable to Elements, at least when it comes to the basic tools (which are all I have learned up to this point).  As Pixlr is a free site, I was very impressed with the capabilities.  In order to explore and learn about the site, I decided to edit a picture.  I started with a picture I had taken at a 4th of July party.  I used Pixlr's text option to add the date to the picture.  Then I started editing.  I used the spot healing tool to get rid of a distracting mark on the pier, and then I adjusted the brightness and contrast.  Then, I applied a slight blur filter to just the outside edges.  I tried other filters and adjustments, but found that I didn't need to add them.  The end result of the editing I did on Pixlr is this picture:

For my classroom purposes, I don't think that Pixlr would be very useful.  However I can certainly see how appealing it may be to other subject areas.  My friend/colleague teaching a class called Project Runway, and part of her curriculum includes using Photoshop.  She was lucky enough to receive enough copies of Photoshop for the computer lab, but I know other teachers in the county are not as lucky.  Pixlr would be a great, cost-saving alternative.

Gliffy:

The next site I explored was Gliffy.  I had come across this site before, but never had a chance to explore it.  In my school district, there is a huge push to use thinking maps.  We are expected to use thinking maps at least once a week, and administrators look to see if our students are creating thinking maps regularly.  Our students are very familiar with the different types of thinking maps, however I find that they get bored with them quickly.  They use thinking maps so often that the students are not engaged by them anymore.  Before exploring Gliffy, I was hopeful that it would be a tool I could use with students to re-motivate them to use thinking maps.  I set to creating a flow map for a story that my French II students read each year.  Here is a screen shot:

Gliffy is extremely user friendly and intuitive.  The tools work in a way that makes sense, so I didn't have to spend any time trying to figure out how to work them.  

The downfall of Gliffy is that it is not entirely free to use.  With a free account, you can only create five diagrams per month.  Unless I had each student create an account (which I am not allowed to do), I would not be able to have students work on this program.  We could use it to make thinking maps as a class, but that eliminates a lot of the purpose behind thinking maps.  Gliffy does offer discounted prices for academic institutions, however with today's financial concerns, it still may not be feasible to use.

Flisti:

The last site I chose to explore was Flisti, which is a poll creator.  I was recently introduced to the wonderful world of Google Forms, so I was curious to see how other poll creating sites stacked up.  While Flisti does not come close to the features of Google Forms, it was easy to make a poll with it.  With Flisti, you can only make a one question poll with multiple choice answers (as opposed to Google Forms with its unlimited questions and various types of questions).  I do like Flisti's option to embed your form into a website, which I have done here:

Could you see yourself using Flisti with your students?

Yes

No

Maybe

or View Results

Create your own poll at Flisti.com

I think that Flisti would be much more useful if you could include more than one question.  If you have a blog you use with your students, Flisti would be an easy way to include questions in a blog post.  However, I would not want to allow students to go to the Flisti site and create their own questions.  Once you create a poll, the site shows ads.  One of the ads that I saw showed a glass of beer, and another showed a scantily dressed woman.  I would not want to expose my students to questionable ads this way. Luckily, when you click "View Results", no ads are shown.  This is why I think that for educational purposes, Flisti would be limited to the teacher creating polls and embedding them.  Flisti does not have a way to contact them listed on the site, but I was able to reach out to them via Twitter.  I have messaged Flisti with the suggestions of being able to add more questions, and to remove questionable ads, and I will be sure to update this post if/when they respond!