The big winner from today’s applications has to be Draft. Had I known such an application existed my freshmen year of college, I would have spent a lot of money on it. I don’t know how much I intend to use it for Project 3 but I can see this application being immensely helpful for my post-undergraduate life as I prepare and submit articles. Having easy quick access to a copy-editing service and an easy way to share writings online without using Google docs would be immensely helpful, especially considering the addition of a “confirm changes” option.

I saw Cowbird as potentially being useful as well, but that’s the sort of application I would have to spend some time with before deciding if it was actually helpful or just a new way to waste time.

The tool that interested me the most today was Canva. It was appealing because I often want to create documents for flyers or something and I do not know how to work with InDesign well. I am interested in it because it looks easy to use and it looks like a simplified version of InDesign — just what I need. As soon as I learned about Canva in class, I went to the website and started designing my resume. For a long time, I had been wanting help designing my resume in InDesign, but with Canva, I can do it myself.

Today, The web-tool I found the most interesting was Pixlr, presented by Emma. Emma’s presentation was detailed, engaging and highlighted all the useful features of this web tool. While I do not regularly  take and edit photos, it is helpful to have knowledge of potentially useful tools if the need ever arises for a class project or something like the YouTube channel I run on my own time.

Today there were another set of presentations. I unfortunately was not in class today, but I did go on each person’s presentation and read/watch what their interface was about. I was able to take a little bit longer time to analyze each one and compare them and see which I liked better. So after going through each presentation I was most interested in Pixlr.

Like I stated above, I think the one that I was most interested in was Pixlr. Pictures are another thing that I like to do along with music, being able to capture a photo and share it with others is amazing. This interface allows you to take those photos that you have and add filtered or changing them to your liking. It reminds me a little of Instagram in how you can use it on your phone and laptop, but it is a little easier to use and gain access too. As well, the photos you use are more professional and don’t have to be so casual of just anything you take. Overall I think Pixlr is a great site and I will take time to learn more about it and hopefully use it for myself.

For the first day of presentations, the tool I found the most interesting and useful was Soundcloud. Tiny’s presentation was effective and concise, and increased my already present interest in using this tool. I have always been a big fan of music and have been involved with it since I began playing the trombone in 4th grade. So, a web tool that would allow me do everything from simply search for and play my favorite tracks, to being able to create, share and comment on my own music, is very appealing to me.

I really liked Canva. It was actually my top pick for my presentation, and after seeing all of the features, I’m definitely considering using it for Project 3. I like that it allows the user to do so many different things. A lot of the applications we’ve seen are good at one thing, but Canva allows you to do a lot of different stuff in the same place. It also seems that the tools actually function, which is more than I can say about some of the other applications presented today. I might use it for making a presentation, because it provides a cool alternative feel and offers more creative freedom than a PowerPoint.

“A global public library of human experiences”

That description of cowbird is what initially made me interested in the site. I really like using Storify, and this seems like a different, yet similar form of the same type of tool. From what I can tell, Storify looks to be more news oriented and Cowbird is really more about a STORY (ironic). It’s a writing tool for storytellers – which I love. Being able to combine social media aspects to create a story is something that our current generation really flocks to.

I really like the “places” feature, because it gives you another option for how to search stories – area based. The daily stories page is nice as well for users that visit cowbird often and need inspiration. I would most definitely use this tool for fun and for personal uses.

 

 

 

I really liked two of the tools today– Storyteller and Drafts. As a writer, these tools offered help in editing (Drafts) and publishing/copyrights (Storyteller). These two tools together could help me edit a particular text I’m working on in Drafts and then publish it in Storyteller so I’ll be getting audience feedback on a copyrighted piece while I’m still a “novice” author.