A random walk through Cyberspace

This session was one done by one of the highlighted speakers, so I decided to check it out. Patrick Crispen took us on a tour of some of his favorite websites - some of which could be really powerful tools in your classroom, and mostly others have absolutely no use whatsoever except maybe to entertain the viewer. I missed the first part of this session, and he didn't get to all of his links, but all of the sites and a brief description will be posted on his website this weekend

www.netsquirrel.com

Here's a few i can remember:

xtra normal - This website creates cartoons from text. You can type in or copy and paste text into a script and have small cartoon characters act out the script. He suggested typing in the back and forth emails in a not-so-nice email conversation. There's something humorous and therapeutic about watching two cartoon squirrels act out the dialogue you just had with the parent who just doesn't seem to want to believe their child didn't deserve an A last quarter.

Wolfram Alpha - This is a really cool website. Basically an online version of an all knowing oracle. It's like an an answer search engine. Pretty Cool

Instant Chan! - Written explanation can't do this site justice. Click on the link, and then (with your volume turned on) click on one of the buttons. You just have to experience this one.

Dropbox - This is a really cool and useful site. This basicall ends the days of jump drives or emailing documents to yourself. This is a free service that allows you to save a file in a special folder on your computer, and the program will automatically save the file onto the web site, and any other computer where you have the dropbox program installed.

Know your Meme - I didn't know what a meme was before this. It's basically a phrase or a video or a challenge that has gone viral. This is a basically an encyclopedia of memes.

Cheezeburger - This is a database of funny pictures with captions and thought bubbles. I think this site allows you to create your own captions, but Patrick just showed us funny pictures.

Moodstream - This site allows you to set whatever your mood might happen to be at the time and it creates a musical screensaver-like photo array that compliments your mood. It chooses the impages from something called Getty Images.