paul reid • blog

With Adobe’s announcement last week of it’s intention to produce a scaled down web-version of PhotoShop I thought I’d have a look at a couple of examples of what is out there already. Picnik and Snipshot a couple of web2.0 online image editors I’ve come across. Both of these apps have interfaces that are very intuitive and my gran could probably be left for 5 minutes to work out how to use them.

Does anyone have any other examples of online image editors they’d like to share?

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   ICTs, Software, Web Apps

This week marked the passing of Paul Rigby noted in The Australian as “the legendary Australian cartoonist whose quirky, stylised work graced the pages of the world’s great newspapers, has died in Western Australia.” Paul Rigby’s cartoons were regulars in the New York Post and Daily News in the 70’s. Cartoons appeal to all ages and inevitably appear in the curriculum at various stages but history examiners have “identified cartoon interpretation as an area of weakness in the teaching of History in Australian schools.” To this end the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library has developed this Cartoon PD in a Package. The team behind the package is looking for feedback from teachers. Here’s one of Rigby’s cartoons from The Sun on 24 July 1971 with a nod to the prospect of computers taking over the Ashes entitled “Damned uncanny, these computerised Test matches…“:

Source: Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, University of Kent

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   Comics, OpenEd

This is the first flash-card style web2.0 application I have seen. Recently West Australian University graduate Kyle McLuckie invited me to test his new app - Rememberize. It is quite a simple tool (in the vein of 37signals web2.0 apps) for creating and learning sets of cards. The site itself is at http://rememberize.com, and the blog post announcing it can be found at http://blog.rememberize.com.

The main occasion I’ve found flashcards of use was in learning Japanese characters. So I went ahead and created a quick test for the first line of hiragana characters - the vowels. The process is engaging in itself. The simplicity by which one can set-up the quizzes is in this sense another level of the memorisation process. Flashcards are wonderfully suited to learning foreign languages but can be applied to learning specific items in many subjects. Students of all ages could use Rememberize. The collaborative aspects built into Rememberize are unique and further this web2.0 social software trend. Kyle says:

If it’s useful enough, I think it also has the potential of being useful social software – facilitating conversations with those interested in the same subjects. If you have the time or interest, please, have a look at it. If you have any comments, I’d love to hear them.

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   Assessment, Australia, Web Apps

MynoteIT is yet another web2.0 online tool for students that allows them to organize their class schedule, class notes, and group their work. It does so quite cleverly in such a way that it can be easily shared and referred to in a few mouse clicks. Potentially it could be used by students of any level. As more eLearning services come out as part of the now famed web 2.0 (”Are we there yet Dad?”) such as Nuvvo and Chalksite, it seems with mynoteIT they are getting more specialised.

Postbubble has a favourable review here as does Lifehack here. If you are interested, it is worth downloading this .wmv screencast from Screeniac.

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   , ICTs, Social Software, Web Apps