Further Adventures into the Land of Web 2.0

The Twitter Adventure Continues and the YouTube Adventure Takes Flight!

This past week has been a whirlwind of checking out YouTube (which I was already very familiar with) and more explorations on Twitter while delving further into the land of Web 2.0. Combined with working on a group project, it was a very chaotic week with a rush to the end zone! Now it's time to kick off this blog entry! 

Chilling on YouTube

I've been using YouTube since the caveman days when I was still connecting to the internet with a dial-up modem and waiting an hour or two for a five minute video to load. Oh the frustration! YouTube now has evolved quite a bit from where it was years ago. Thankfully I now have high speed cable internet to keep up with our HD world. This week I was tasked with creating a YouTube channel, and then creating five playlists with videos about: Twitter, Wikispaces, Web 2.0 for Learning, something classroom related, and...dun, dun, dun!!! A playlist of my choice! Cue the K-Pop music!

It wasn't very difficult for me to set up a channel because I already had one channel on my account that I am using for this particular class. I simply had to add a new one. I've also created playlists in the past, so that was nothing new. To make it a bit of a challenge, I decided to try to create and add videos to the playlists using the YouTube app on my iPhone. I typically have used my computer to create playlists in the past. 

After a quick Google search, I easily found the correct button to push to add a video to a playlist.

In the above image, you can see my channel TechieAlly with the playlists I've created thus far. It also displays my saved playlists. Scrolling further down the page you would find a list of uploaded videos. I still need to create cover art to my channel page. 

 My Playlist Breakdown

• Twitter Tips & Tools: This playlist is primarily filled with videos of #TwitterTips from the official Twitter YouTube account. You'll notice under saved playlists, I also saved a playlist created by Twitter. My main takeaway from watching these videos, BRANDING is the KEY!

• Wikispaces: In this playlist I saved a small variety of videos on using Wikispaces in a classroom context.

• Web 2.0 Tools in Education: When I searched for videos to fit this topic, I found that a lot of the more interesting ones were several years old. Adding a filter for posting date didn't leave me with choices I found visually appealing. I decided to leave this one at three vids and come back to it later. Overall, I found that I learned about far more new Web 2.0 tools from the class discussion forum in eCollege. 

• Camera Shots & Angles Analysis Videos-Horror Theme: This is actually a playlist that I created with my school account for a unit during Halloween in my Introduction to Television class. I was able to copy this playlist over into this account.

• Storybird Videos: These are videos I shared from Storybird for my group project this week. The videos demonstrate how to use the application in an educational context.

• K-Pop Background Chill!!! I am not afraid to admit that I had the most fun adding videos to this playlist. I've been a fan of K-Pop (South Korean pop music) and K-Dramas (South Korean television shows) since 2013. I like to create music playlists on YouTube for each of my class periods using student suggested songs. I always slip in a few songs in different languages from around the globe. This particular playlist I could see myself listening to while working during my planning period. 

Adding a New Video to My Channel

Although I've added videos to YouTube before via GoAnimate and PowToon, I've never tried to upload directly from iMovie. In order to upload my video demonstration of Storybird for the week's group project, I decided to give it a go!

After selecting YouTube from the Sharing menu this box popped up. I added a title and description for my video then clicked sign in.

Sign in led me to a Google account sign in where I logged into one of my many Google accounts.

After signing in and selecting my channel, I gave iMovie permission to control my life...

And POOF! My video was online. This is the first time I've seen the Creator Studio in YouTube. 

For my last hurrah on YouTube for the week, I used the built in sharing capabilities to share my newly created video on Twitter.

Burning the Midnight Oil on Twitter and more Web 2.0

For our further Twitter adventures this week, we were tasked with exploring the treasure trove that is Cybraryman, exploring Twitter compatible apps on our phones, and continuing to live life in 140 characters via tweeting.

Cybraryman's list of edhashtags was overwhelming to the extreme! His site is beyond useful, but I could see it taking me ages to make my way through it all.

In order to meet the second Twitter criteria of the week, I finally bit the bullet and installed the Twitter app on my phone. Afterall, what app is more compatible with Twitter than Twitter. 😉

At the top is a screenshot of the Twitter app on iPhone. I was curious about the Explore button, since I hadn't seen that option while using Hootsuite or TweetDeck last week. Clicking on the button, I discovered that Explore leads to a list of trending topics and hashtags. I of course had to tweet about my discovery! You'll see my retweet on a trending topic above.

I used the Safari app on my iPhone to share this article from the CNN website on Twitter. 

I shared a video on Twitter account management tools via the YouTube app.

Then I tweeted this very deep thought about watching Twitter tutorials.

I posted a variety of Tweets on Web 2.0 tools I was using or looking into this week. Google Docs used as a group project creation tool and Storybird, the Web 2.0 tool I researched. Memrise is one of my favorite vocabulary apps along with Quizizz. I posted about both of these apps in our weekly class discussion forum. Finally, Photos For Class - a Web 2.0 tool I'd never heard of before that was recommended by a classmate. 

Today, I checked to see if I could share a creation on Twitter from one of my favorite photo apps, FotoRUs (above left) and I went into my Instagram settings to see how to connect Twitter there (above center and left). 

I took a break from tweeting to check out the Superbowl halftime show. I was rather surprised to see the emoticons show up when I tweeted about it after the performance. I wasn't aware that some hashtags automatically added emoticons!

Finally post Superbowl madness I went to search for a few of Cybraryman's education hashtags. I then retweeted a bunch of the resulting interesting posts I found. You'll see above that I particularly liked some of the infographics shared by a user named Alex Corbitt. I also read an article on education in England that was shared on Twitter and tweeted my thoughts on it.

All in all, it was a very activity packed week and I'll be very curious to see what new adventure we are set off on tomorrow!