PowToon! Safety Tips

Two class periods ago we were assigned a new project - To use PowToon (Which you may remember from a few posts ago) to create a web safety presentation to post on our blogs. I have completed mine, and I now share it in the body below. Stay safe, live long, and prosper!

-Visit PowToon here-

Tagul

     Tagul is a free word cloud website, like Wordle. Unlike Wordle, however, you are required to create a free account on the website. It will ask you for your email address, but it will not be disclosed to any outside sources. When you create your cloud, it will generate a random shape with the default word settings. All you need to do is highlight the default words and replace them with your own. Adding a space between words will not separate them into two words, like it did in Wordle. To separate two words (Meaning words you want to be separate, unlike my La Forge example in my last post), you must simply type the word in a new paragraph space.
     You can set specific words to take you to specific websites, as well as change the font, filter out common words, and change word colors. You can save your cloud to your computer, or copy the HTML code to add it to your blog or website. Tagul also supports Zazzle product integration, so you can upload your cloud directly to Zazzle and create anything with your design. For changes to show, you need to click on the "Visualize" button above your image. There is a slight update delay between changing your cloud and your cloud changing on other websites, but it will do so shortly.

Please excuse the large size, but it is extremely difficult to see any words at a lower proportion.



-Visit Tagul here-

Wordle

     Wordle is a free website that allows the user to create a randomized word cloud out of their choice of text. The user may type whatever they wish, or copy and paste anything into the box. It doesn't matter how long or short the message is, as I copied my friend and I's story into it to find the most commonly used word, and another friend of mine just wrote his name. Elaborating on my comment about finding the most commonly used word, Wordle will find the most commonly used words in your message and will add a size modifier for each time the word is used, making it bigger. Wordle ignores "be" verbs and articles, so do not worry about the largest word being "The", as it will not appear at all. If you want words or names with spaces to be stuck together rather than separated, instead of leaving the space out you can insert a tilde, or '~', and Wordle will automatically insert a space in the place of the tilde without separating your word. Handy for sentences you do not want separated or spaced names, such as Geordi La Forge.

     When you finish, press the button in the bottom right-hand corner of the webpage to continue. Wordle will automatically generate your words in a random fashion (In the shape of a cloud), with random colors and a random font. The arrangement of the words, color scheme of the words and background, and font of the words are editable using the tabs above the image. The image can then be saved (A bit more easily by Microsoft users, but Apple fans know how to do it in their own way), where you can do practically anything with it. Be warned: Once you close out of the picture, you will never see the words arranged exactly that way ever again unless you spend your entire life on Wordle trying to find it.

     Another option Wordle provides for its users is the option to type in the URL to their blog (Or any website with an RSS or Atom archive), where it will take the text from and turn into a word cloud. This feature could prove useful for finding what words you favor over long periods of time.

All the names of characters from Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Stargate that I could remember off the top of my head. I went for first names when listing the Doctor's companions. I chose the colors to match the Fourth Doctor's iconic scarf. Click on the words above, or the picture, to go to Wordle.

PowToon

Today we were tasked with exploring PowToon and uploading our creation to our blog. Mine isn't much, but I can learn how to utilize the program correctly.

LooGix

This morning we were asked to visit LooGix and create a short post with examples. LooGix is simply a photo-animation website, with a few nice animations such as Movie, which makes the picture scroll around as if on a rolling screen from the old days, Painting, which turns the picture into a sort of oil painting-like splotch mosaic, and Explode, all of which I showcase below. These are not all, but are certainly interesting.












-You can visit LooGix here.-

Special thanks to Mr. Spock.
Live long and prosper.

Styks

Styks is a program that you download to your computer which allows you to create an animated stick figure, with multiple options that improve your experience and animations.


Create your own animated stick figure at Styks.