Montage is a new development by Microsoft Fuse Labs. I spotted a link from Dave Garland and have had some time to play around with the app.
Here’s a quick video about the features:
Here is a quick video of features:
Montage allows users to sign up via their Microsoft Live, facebook or Twitter accounts, so sign up is easy. Then it’s a cse of entering a search term in the dialogue box.
This is an example of what arrives. The search results look and feel like a magazine, but each section is editable in terms of it’s content and display. I was a little disappointed to see that Montage is very USA biased, and I hope that an option to limit searches within UK search results is available soon. I also noticed that quite a lot of the content is quite commercial.
Having said this, I can see a number of potential uses for this, especially as users are able to edit, save and publish their Montages. The link could be put into a blog and shared with a class, although the app would greatly benefit from an embed code option (although I may have missed this, I did look around).
Here is an example of a custom Montage produced in around 10 minutes:
Within the page there is:
- A twitter feed for #uksnow
- A youtube video interviewing travellers in the UK
- A selection of photographs
- A ‘pinned’ article on Gatwick (although this linked to a US newspaper)
- 2 rolling news items – these are populated with latest pages for the search inputted (for example ‘positive effects snow’)
Visit the Montage here. (I’d be interested to know what you see there…)
There are currently eight panel choices, including a text function which would allow a teacher to set a task at the top of a page. It would also be good to be able to include specific URLs.
I can see a number of classroom applications for this:
- Illustrating the limitations of web searching and bias – why have I selected the information in each panel?
- A montage could be created and shared with a class to limit search time. this would be good for classes that are new to the enquiry process, or if there isn’t enough time to allow a fully independent and open enquiry.
All in all, looks like a potentially useful tool, but will need some classroom trials first….
You could get the students to do a country study of some kind - maybe limit the panels they could use. To trial, perhaps as a homework?
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of it! Good resource found there.
For the image and news searches you can use any Bing query syntax. For example site:uk
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that Montage does is import RSS feeds. At this link, I brought in the feeds of a number of Ontario EduBloggers. https://dougpete.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/follow-ontario-edu-bloggers/
ReplyDeleteI could see this as a unique RSS aggregator for personal use or also as a way to view a collection of student blogs at a glance.