Rain on a City Street
Originally uploaded by SaundraG
About Me
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Internet Activity #4
I have always wanted to learn how to speak hindi ever since I saw my first bollywood movie when I was younger. My parents are both of Bengali heritage but can speak fluent Hindi and Urdu as it was mandatory in school. My mom is so good at it when she speaks to people who's mother tongue is Hindi or Urdu they are always apalled that it is not her native tongue because she is that good at it. I've always asked my mom to teach me but to be honest she is not a very good teacher and she always says no. She will throw it out randomly and ask me if I understand and I pick up on most of it but not all. So when Jamie suggested learning a language on the podcasts, I decided to try it out. The two I picked were, "Learn Hindi, Real Life Situations. Real Time Songs. Experience India" and "Namaste Dosti - The Learn Hindi Podcast"
The first one I was pretty excited to use because I thought it would use popular recent Hindi music, which I do happen to listen to. I can even memorize all the lyrics and sing them with the proper dialect but I don't understand it. So I figured this would very exciting not only would I be learning but I'd hear songs and maybe understand them in a more creative manner. As I listened to the podcast, it was not exactly what I had imagined. It sounded very low budget, I know that is something you can see but somehow I heard it too. It seemed grainy and not very clear. The music was very loud and not clear, it seemed like old songs my parents used to listen on their record player. To the ears, it was not very pleasing. I did not like the way it was formatted it was confusing and hard to understand. I feel i only propelled backward as I tried to learn Hindi. The songs being very old did not help as it did not appeal to me much since they were songs that were unknown to me. It did not have a flow that made it easier to understand as it went along it only seemed to become more confusing. The second one "Namaste Dosti" was much more better, it had a formatted layout followed every week with dialogue and still incorporated the bollywood culture by taking a popular movie and having dialogue from it and one of the popular songs and describe the meanings. The first Bollywood movie I ever watched was one of the featured podcasts in a previous week. I found this way more appealing and that I actually learned some things, as I said in previous entries when I tried out Google Chrome I haven't stopped since so maybe now I will start actually using this application in the future. I believe it is a positive and forum for those to learn that of other languages in an easy manner. I really enjoyed how it was set up and it is helpful as it is inexpensive and a good way of learning. I think its better method of providing information because reading abuot languages can be hard to absorb because it is passive you need to be more active. However being in a classroom setting or enrolling in a class can also be difficult, so being able to listen to it and repeat it is a better alternative to the latter. I can see how this information can be better than formal methods because sometimes it just helps to hear things rather than sitting and reading. If something does not interest you your mind can wander, but we use our hearing so avidly and listen to things we might not want too an audio podcast may be a better forum and more effective in that sense.
The first one I was pretty excited to use because I thought it would use popular recent Hindi music, which I do happen to listen to. I can even memorize all the lyrics and sing them with the proper dialect but I don't understand it. So I figured this would very exciting not only would I be learning but I'd hear songs and maybe understand them in a more creative manner. As I listened to the podcast, it was not exactly what I had imagined. It sounded very low budget, I know that is something you can see but somehow I heard it too. It seemed grainy and not very clear. The music was very loud and not clear, it seemed like old songs my parents used to listen on their record player. To the ears, it was not very pleasing. I did not like the way it was formatted it was confusing and hard to understand. I feel i only propelled backward as I tried to learn Hindi. The songs being very old did not help as it did not appeal to me much since they were songs that were unknown to me. It did not have a flow that made it easier to understand as it went along it only seemed to become more confusing. The second one "Namaste Dosti" was much more better, it had a formatted layout followed every week with dialogue and still incorporated the bollywood culture by taking a popular movie and having dialogue from it and one of the popular songs and describe the meanings. The first Bollywood movie I ever watched was one of the featured podcasts in a previous week. I found this way more appealing and that I actually learned some things, as I said in previous entries when I tried out Google Chrome I haven't stopped since so maybe now I will start actually using this application in the future. I believe it is a positive and forum for those to learn that of other languages in an easy manner. I really enjoyed how it was set up and it is helpful as it is inexpensive and a good way of learning. I think its better method of providing information because reading abuot languages can be hard to absorb because it is passive you need to be more active. However being in a classroom setting or enrolling in a class can also be difficult, so being able to listen to it and repeat it is a better alternative to the latter. I can see how this information can be better than formal methods because sometimes it just helps to hear things rather than sitting and reading. If something does not interest you your mind can wander, but we use our hearing so avidly and listen to things we might not want too an audio podcast may be a better forum and more effective in that sense.
The ida of an audiobook can be good and bad. For classroom settings and children during their formative years certain audio clips of songs, stories and games is a good way to get them to learn and listen. But when it comes to providing an audiobook of an entire novel, that is really up to the person individually. I do not think I would really enjoy that kind of literature as I really enjoy reading and I would rather be active reading than just passively listening to someone else read a novel, but of course thats not the same for everyone and can be interpreted differently.
Video Podcasts
My embed Video
Spaghetti Cat - It's hilarious. This actually happend and the other day when I was in the movie theatre it was on the screen all of a sudden, it has become a cult phenomenon.
Spaghetti Cat - It's hilarious. This actually happend and the other day when I was in the movie theatre it was on the screen all of a sudden, it has become a cult phenomenon.
The videos that I watched were Master MC Lupe Fiasco joins Jian Ghomeshi in Studio Q
Lupe Fiasco born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco is a Grammy-Winning rapper. I decided to watch this video because Lupe Fiasco is critically acclaimed as being a breath of fresh air from other rappers as he is a practicing Muslim and does not swear in his raps. He seemed like a very humble person during the interview declaring how he only decides to make 4 albums as that is what he came set out to do and after that there is nothing more to produce, as other entertainers just keep producing music that is not always their best.
My other clip was of "The Soup" with Joel McHale. This is one of my favourite shows, the host Joel makes funthigns in popular culture in his half hour show that occur during the week. In this clip he makes fun of Tyra Banks and how such a historical moment occured that Barack Obama won she still finds a way to make it about herself. Its absolutely pathetic
I enjoyed the vidcasting but I did find it easier just to get youtube videos because I have never been a fan of iTunes specifically. I think it is poorly designed as a Media Player and there are better options out there from VLC to Media Player Classic to even DivX.
It is for that reason I did not like doing the vodcasting because you had to specifically download it and I've always found iTunes to be slow on downloading. i would much rather prefer Youtube to see a bit of it and if its worth it to let it keep loading or to close it. Regarldess
it does not take that long on that website. It was an interesting experience but it wasn't something I would continiously do as stated before partly due to the player. I Do not like the format or how the videos are played within, I find it somewhat annoying to do anything.
It is better in the sense that if you miss something you can always find them and it is a broader search capability for people to find the things they like and watch it.
Youtube has become an international phenomenon I believe because back in the day there was not much to do on the internet for the average person. If you thought about it
Napster was the most profound thing and slowly one p2p sharing program would get bugs and viruses and eventually shut down. All of a sudden youtube emerged as a place where you could place
video clips online. It is a forum for this technological age to express how they feel and create a platform for their opinions where it never was before. It has become a place for people with similar intrests to find the things
they love. I belive that the video capability was the last thing availalbe really helped why Youtube because such a huge driving force in todays pop culture media.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Photos
Online GeneratorsThese are some of the favourite Photos I placed within a slideshow
Mashups
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharid/147768998/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharid/147768998/
Flickr
I've heard of Flickr in recent years and seen how it ahs fared next to other online image programs like Picasa, Photobucket etc. I have been aprehensive to get a new account in Flickr as I already use Picasa for the most part. However I realised I already do have an account because I used to use Yahoo Images until they shut down their product I believe cause they could not compete and asked if I wanted to transfer all my pictures to Flickr.
When I explored Flickr through their sections I found some of the most beautiful photos that I otherwise never would have seen. It was an interesting format that they used through 2.0 where if I stumbled upon this website and I was unaware of what I wanted to do or find, Flickr provides the tag clouds and the calendar for what was popular that day and other interesting things. I really enjoyed the tag clouds as I have seen them in some video hosting websites before, mainly Veoh and Dailymotion where they display the tags that were popular that day in alphabetical order, whereas the most popular are bigger in size and vice versa. I found it very helpful and easy to find what I was looking for or at least give an idea of what to find when I was unsure.
If you look at the top of the page you can see some photos I have found.
The photo of the purple flower I found through the Interestingness area where I checked out their Calendar for the msot popular of the day. I could not find a way to share it other than through the slideshow I made in a previous entry
I thought the ColrPckr mashup was incredibly cool, just by clickin on a colour scheme you were provided with very rich photos.
Using BigHuge Labs this is the slideshow I created
Most of the online generators I really liked, their format and how easy it is to use through the Web 2.0 intereactivity. However how it was displayed
that it is really easy to provide photos from Flickr from blogs, I suppose I did not find. I found it somewhat difficult and not as easy
as I would have liked, there were numerous photos I did find, but I could not link them directly by simply displaying the photo i would need to provide the actual link to the photo isntead of being able to embed them. That was the only frustrating aspect because I wanted to showcase what I found in an easy way. I would have hoped to have developed a way to make the photos more clear and concise and displayed
clean as opposed to jumbled up. Everytime I would try to upload an image through blogger or provide the website it would say i uploaded but failed to
show an image in my postings unlike other previous posts, so I was forced to create new posts with the photos directly from Flickr or creating a slideshow using the online generator. I'm sure there is an easier way to do it but clearly I could not figure out how to do it sadly enough. Other than the problem I indicated the process was fairly easy just embedding the images within the posts where the only thing I struggled upon.
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