Thursday, June 19, 2008

Web 2.0: My radio Station...Pandora

I decided to give Pandora a shot today. I have heard a lot about it but never actually created my own station. I went to pandora.com and decided to register so that I could create my own station. From there it asked me a few questions...my email, a password, birth year, zip code, and gender. After this I was officially a member of the music genome project that is pandora. I typed in a few songs I like or artists into the prompt box from this pandora created different "stations" that played songs of similar musical tone and rhythm to the ones I had picked out. Pandora also allows you to create an actual profile so that it can help you pick out even more music that it believes you will like. I did not go through that part yet but I do plan to play around on the site some more. It really is incredible that when you put in one song or artist this program can generate so many similar artists and songs! I found the program pretty intuitive. It really wasn't that challenging, the hardest part was choosing my favorite songs and artists. It had prompts throughout and even explained why and how it was doing things. I really like this as a tool for my self. I don't know yet how I would bring thins into the classroom besides playing music for them during a down time or quiet time. I would have to screen many of the songs for appropriate language however, I don't know if Pandora can do that its self, it would be an interesting thing to look into.

5 comments:

Hali Tomczak said...

I also did a Pandora station for my web 2.0. I wanted to actually do what everyone was talking about. I am also concerned about filtering music for school use. I'm not sure Pandora can do it either, or how we find this out.

Genna said...

Im not sure Hali, I was going to ask everyone in class today...unless someone knows and responds before class.

Matt said...

If you click on the "Account" button in the upper right corner. The popup will present three options and long the bottom is an option to edit or allow explicit content. So there you go.

Pierce said...

Yeah, I understand what you are all saying. I do not see the benefit of using Pandora in the classroom, because of the filtering. I can see using it outside of class but inside the class if you want to play music then I think that it is easier to just play your own music that you know is already filtered.

Genna said...

Thanks matt! I agree with you pierce...some technology can be used just to say you use it when there are more appropriate resources