Is this tech 2 legit 2 quit?*

Can I admit something? I'm still kind of skeptical of a lot of these websites for use in school. It's not that they don't do a lot of really cool stuff. I just worry that they might take up more of the students' time than necessary in order to convey a concept.

I did think of some fun projects, though, that I thought would be worthwhile:

1. BigHugeLabs - There are lots of easy ways for students to create graphics for presentations or creative assignments here. (eg. biographies presented as magazine covers, cube to create math games, etc.) It's very basic, so it can be used by young students. I could see this being a good introduction to using computers to manipulate images.
2. Glogster can have many uses, but it must be used wisely so it's not just a bunch of text. Some of the examples on the website were so wordy, I thought I was looking at a conference poster presentation (which it turned out some of them may be). If a student wants to include a multimedia element, this is a great tool. I could see wanting to show a video of a red panda in the wild or what it's like to be in an avalanche. A student may also want to include a recording they took at the zoo of a lion roaring or an audio clip of a warbler from a birding website. Glogster would make it easy to incorporate this into a visually interesting presentation.
3. I've loved Doodle for years. It makes scheduling events so much easier than sending a million emails back and forth. A couple years ago I had a "playground club" for my son's Pre-K class over the summer, and I used a Doodle to find the day and time that worked for the majority of kids. I've also used it for scheduling meetings for people coming together from all over New England (and remotely from other parts of the country). There's no way I could have easily accomplished organizing that many people without the assistance of a tool like Doodle.
4. I love the look of Animoto. I can see a teacher of an advanced history class having the students do a project on doing research with non-text sources and having them put audiovisual resources into a longer video like those featured on Animoto. (Of course the featured video I really took as inspiration was a tribute to a deceased relative, but most of the topics being researched would probably feature dead people, so the point still stands...) There are so many great photos from archives and libraries online now (see Flickr!) that this would be both an interesting and fun project.

I have to admit that I don't think I would ever use Voki. This is probably just my personal preference because when Apple came out with the animoji, I was convinced it was the dumbest thing ever. Why would I want a text that's my friend pretending to be a unicorn? If I wanted to hear her voice, I'd call. Like, why??

... I digress. I can see some practical applications of Voki, especially after reading through this week's discussion board, but unless it was really necessary for a student to have an alternative way of presenting, I don't think I'd incorporate it into my planning.

Overall, I like the idea behind a lot of these resources, but I think you need to be very careful that you are using them for valid reasons, not just because it's ~fun~. Not that there's anything wrong with having fun, obviously, but learning a new tool or spending extra time crafting a video needs to be justified.

*Yes, now I also have 2 Legit 2 Quit stuck in my head.