Thing 4: RSS, Personal Home Pages and Feed Readers

When Google Reader was killed off (which I was VERY distraught about), I struggled to find a replacement. I gave Feedly a shot, but for some reason found it confusing. Now that I've been forced to revisit it through this course, I'm not sure what was so hard about it, but I decided on using The Old Reader initially.

What do you like about RSS and feed readers?

I like that the RSS readers are a one stop shop. One thing I especially like about Feedly is that I can categorize my feeds. I might be switching over from The Old Reader after all.

What features did you explore?

I added a few of my feeds from The Old Reader and put them in various categories. I also added the Cool Tools for Schools to my list of "Ed Tech" blogs that I follow.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?

I see myself using this primarily for work. I send out a weekly "Web Find" to the teachers at my school, and often times find the tool or site I will feature through the RSS feeds I follow. I also present at each faculty meeting and again rely on my reader to do much of the work for me.

Did you find any great sources we should all add to our feed readers?

A few of my all time favorite blogs are:

A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet

Cathy Jo Nelson's Professional Thoughts

Edudemic

The Adventures of Library Girl

The Daring Librarian

Thing 3 : Photo Sharing

I have to start out this post by admitting that I am a photo addict. I have thousands and thousands of photos, mostly of my children. I have been known to spend hours editing, creating photo projects, and backing them up on numerous hard drives because I am terrified of losing them.

My latest obsession is the "Auto Awesome" feature embedded in Google Photos. The last time I updated Picasa on my home computer I must have somehow turned on the auto backup feature, which I LOVE, because as I said before, I'm terrified of losing my photos.

Anyway, Auto Awesome automatically creates fun new versions of your photos and videos when they are uploaded with certain criteria. You can read more of the specifics here.

If photos are taken in quick succession, it will automatically generate a .gif file. I can not get enough of these! Auto Awesome calls this feature "Motion." Here are a few of my recent favorites.

 

 

See how amazing they are!?

Below are just a few more features.

 

This photo was created using the "Smile" feature. Auto Awesome will choose the best shots of each person in your image and merge them into one photo. Basically it automatically swapped Chloe's head (the baby) from a different picture!

 

Here is the original photo from which the smile was taken

 

This next effect is called, oddly enough, "Snow" It's seasonal :)

 

 

Finally, this one is called "Mix." If you've taken a series of portraits sharing similar background elements, Auto Awesome will compile these photos into a photo booth style grid. This style works best with close-ups of faces.

 

 

I hope you learned something new from this post and I hope you have as much fun seeing what Auto Awesome can do with your photos as I have.