And so on....

Yesterday and today I started looking at media tools for creating timelines. The first one I looked at was Dipity but didn't really like the format. In my opinion it is not visually appealing or free-flowing. So I moved on to Capzles. At first glance Capzles seemed to fit the bill: Nice flow, allows for audio and image uploading, sharing and so on. However, it is nowhere as simple as I was first led to think. It's got some peculiarities that you've got to figure out how to work around. Next I looked at the new tools for this week and watched the tutorials on Yahoo pipes, MeeMoo and Popcorn Maker. And I asked myself, "Self, why do we need these? What makes them different from some of the curating tools we investigated earlier?" Maybe they offer some hidden benefit I haven't discovered yet but nothing I saw was appealing enough to encourage further exploration. It's also possible that people just want their 15 minutes of fame and so keep creating and adding to the already HUGE stack of tools that exist out there on the Web. However, the triumph here for me is that I waded out into the water on my own with the timeline tools. Before this class, I would never have thought to go looking for some media tool, independently (i.e. of my own volition). Progress is being made. Maybe Dr. Dennen will make good on her threat to turn me into a techie after all. I hope every one has a a safe and wonderful July 4th. Independence is a wonderful thing.