iPads, Good or Bad?

Overall, I was quite impressed with these iPads, except one thing I am not happy with is YouTube. It takes forever and a half for YouTube videos to load even 1 minute. Even at home, the videos do not load, but everything else loads perfectly, just like on a Macbook or other computer. Due to the shoddy internet signal here at school, the internet connection goes in and out, so it does that on the iPads as well as the computers. But usually at home, my connection is good and doesn't go in and out... that only happens on my computer. The signal is usually the best in the dead center of the classroom and at the table closest to the door. The table by the bookshelves is the worst connection wise. A trick I have learned for getting videos to load on YouTube is to move around the room until you find a hot spot, where the video starts to load really fast, however, these hot spots are rare and take a while to find.
I don't really have any apps to recommend for these iPads, due to the fact that all the apps I like are useless games.
One thing I can't do on the iPad is play musical instruments on Garageband by just touching the screen and make horrid music.
Overall, I am very happy about these iPads being used in the classroom, they are fun and are a load easier to use.

E-Publication Website Features

We want to make an E-Publication website that is loaded with features! Here are the ideas we have come up with.

Comics- In this section, we will have some amusing comics that will be uploaded weekly.

Videos- Here we will have videos that we think are good. We will have new videos uploaded here weekly.

Music- Awesome music will be here.

News from all over the world- In this section we will have the news from all over the world.

iPhone/iPad app reviews- Here we will review awesome apps for the iPhone and iPad. We will review gaming apps and productive apps.

Movie reviews- Here we will review on Hollywood's latest blockbusters.

Computer program reviews- We will review programs for both Macs and PCs.

Weekly image- We will have an awesome image that will be changed every week.

Video of the week- In this section we will have a neat video that we think is worth watching.

Fun- Fun stuff.

Ten things to do- Ten things to do when bored.

How to- Every week we will make a new how to do something article. For example: how to pick a lock.

Fact of the week- Here we will have an interesting fact of the week.

Fake Horoscopes- Here we will make fake yet funny horoscopes.

I posted feedback on three other people's blogs: Viet's, Nick's, and Alex's.

E-Publications... What Are They?

E-publications are interactive electronic books and magazines, becoming more and more popular every year. It has become very popular in scientific publications and is replacing scientific magazines. Many journals have set up E-Publication websites, while keeping their paper magazines, so their work is available in both magazines stalls and on the internet. Time magazine has done this, as well as Newsweek. There are many electronic examples of traditional media such as:

• CD-ROMs
• E-books
• Online newspapers & magazines
• Electronic journals

I think that all paper copies of magazines and newspapers should be exchanged for more eco-friendly E-Publications. There would be no more need for paper and then we would be able to save paper, which is good for the environment!

E-Publications are not just on the Internet, the magazine Newsweek has made an iPhone/iPad app that is completely free! Time magazine has done the same, making a free app for the iPhone and iPhone.

I have a feeling that all hard-copies of newspapers and books will be phased out and replaced with E-books that are on the internet in the near future. Without hard copies, we will pe able to save more paper, and in turn, save more trees!

Multi-Tasking Review

I think that I am pretty effective as a multitasker, I am able to do homework and not get distracted by other opened windows like YouTube and Flickr. However, this sometimes depends on how interested I am in the homework. Sometimes I am working on something that is very dull and mundane, like maybe a Humanities or Science essays, and then I get drawn to YouTube and other sites I like such as Flickr and Bricktuts. But if I enjoy the homework project, I won't become bored and go away to the other sites.

My distraction levels are not that high. I usually don't get distracted on the internet when working on homework. I only get distracted when the homework is extremely boring, as I said before. Out of 10, 10 being the worst, my distraction level would probably be a 2. No joke.

A strategy to avoid multitasking would be to delete all the other internet tabs and windows so as not to get distracted. I do not like it when I have more than three tabs open in Firefox, so I always close them so it doesn't make the computer look cluttered and so I don't get distracted.

My parents don't really have an opinion on multitasking, probably because they never multitask! my dad sometimes has a lot of tabs open at once, but he doesn't try to work on them all at the same time. My mom might multitask without my knowing, but not on the computer. I don't like to multitask, it makes the computer look cluttered and disorganized.

App Interests...

The first app I am rather interested in is X-Plane Hdef 4-G. X-Plane is a flight simulator game where you can fly a variety of aircraft, like the Boeing 747, MD-88, SR-71 Blackbird, B2 Stealth Bomber and lots of other planes and helicopters. Although X-Plane has a rather large price tag for an app- $9.99- it is well worth it. I already have this app for the iPad, but not for my iPod touch. One flaw in it is the physics of the game. When you crash your plane, it bounces and does not just crash and explode. Apart from this, the game is quite realistic and is fun to play.
The next app I find kind of neat is Fingerzilla, where your finger acts as a monster and you smash and squish things. You can destroy buildings, squish little people, swat helicopters, and much more, all for the price of $0.00. Yes, that's right, it is free! The graphics are also fairly good and it just looks like a very fun app.
The last app I would like to get for my iPod is called Talking Carl. In Talking Carl, you are presented with this red square with limbs, a mouth, and eyes. What you do is you speak into your iPod and Carl says it back to you in his high pitched voice. Although this app isn't very useful, it is fun and you can make Carl insult himself!

My idea for an app is called Doodle Community. In Doodle Community, you have control over a bunch of little circle people. You help them hunt, build houses and cook! You can also sacrifice them in creative ways: from choking them with overcooked food, to being zapped by a lightning bolt, to starting a disease that annihilates the community. You can also give them names and change their moods. Doodle Community will probably priced at around $1.99. And if you tap the screen, they will talk to each-other in their strange circle people language. This app is just a game for people below the age of 20. It is not very useful, it is just a little community game that is for entertainment purposes only.
END

Feedback from others:

AKIRA--

• I thought that the story was about a race back in 1959. After Viet won the race Cameron took revenge. I thought that was your story line
  
• I thought you showed a great deal of technical skills because even though it was a stop motion you put in voice and other affects. Another technical skill I saw was overlapping the voices such as when Cameron and Viet was fighting on your chairs nick started talking over you guys.
  
• I liked the fact that you went all around and put in funny parts such as the toilet part.
  
• You can make it better by maybe making a map of the race at the beginning of the race.
  

Pejman- What I liked about your video was that it was funny and you had a point to it, and If I were to rate it I would give it a 9/10 because you took a lot of time for doing this project and, you did many scenes and took a long time to do one scene, and I also liked how you and had a scene where to groups collided.

I think that this was a very fun stopmotion to make, I mean, who doesn't like zooming around on chairs with wheels? I also think that it turned out really well in the end. Doing the voice-overs was fun, Nick did the commentary on the race and Viet and myself did the racer's voices.
I think we could have made the video better by instead of having sepia for the color, having black and white. And if the images were in a different file format, not a Frame-by-Frame file, we should have added visual effects like green poison gas at the end, which kills Viet at the very end when I go crazy.
One challenge that we were presented with was that Frame-by-Frame, our filming software, kept crashing suddenly and with no warning. When that happened, we lost all of the unsaved work we had done. So we had to save after every scene.
If I got the chance to remaster this film, I would, like I said earlier, add visual effects and make it black and white instead of sepia. I would also have tried to find a stopmotion program that didn't crash all the time without warning.

Some advice I would give to other people who were going to try stopmotion would be to get a good camera, so your images aren't blurry, a good stopmotion software that doesn't crash a lot, a good source of sound effects and a good microphone for recording voices.

Teacher Mug Shots Video

      In Plugged In, we had to take photos of teachers and make a powerpoint on them. Here is our one.