Activity 5: Play Week 

1. Play around with Image Generators

Generators? No, I’m not talking about those petrol-powered back-up things. The generators I’m talking about allow you to easily manipulate image and graphics to create fun images like these:

For this discovery exercise, I just want you to have fun. Find a few fun image or text generators to play around with and write a post in your blog about one of your favorites and display the result. Often adding the image you mocked up to your blog is as simple as copying and pasting code that the page provides. If not, you may just need to right click on the image and then save it to your hard drive before using Blogger’s image button to add it to your post.

If you’re having difficulty getting your image added to a post in your blog, ask a colleague for help.

Discovery Resources: 

• The Generator Blog
• Letter James
• FD Toys
• Also try searching for online generators, text generators or image generators!

Discovery Exercise:

1. Play around with some image generators and find one that you like.

2. Post the result of your discovery process in your blog.

   Note: Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too. So take some time and have fun with this exercise. And remember to be tasteful too!

2. Roll your own search engine

Do you have a group of websites that are your favorites? Or a set of online resources that are similar that you frequently use to answer homework or reference questions? Well Rollyo may be the tool for you. Rollyo allows you to create your own search tool for the just the websites you know and trust.

Take a look at some of these search rolls that have already been created:

• Public Domain e-Books Search
• Rare Book Library Search
• Free Photos
• Quick Quotes 
• Explore other rolls here.

Here’s a searchroll I threw together to search some websites about The First Fleet.

Try a search for broad terms like "homework” or “history” to see results listed from multiple sites.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore Rollyo and create an account for yourself.

2. Create a search roll for any subject you like.

3. Create a post in your blog about your experience and link to your search roll. Can you see a potential use for tools like this?

OPTIONAL: Add your searchroll to your blog using the "Create a Searchbox" tool.

Rollyo - You just never know when this little tool might come in handy.