Technology in our classroom

By reading the blogs of other people like Larry Ferlazzo, you often come across a website that has potential in the classroom.  This happened to me today when I found a link to this site at PicLits. Naturally I checked out any age limits and could find nothing mentioned on the site, so joined and created my first masterpiece.

You are shown many photos to choose from, then can drag and drop or create freehand a poem or significant line to add to the photo.

 
See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

As we are doing work using the multiple intelligences, perhaps you could create a collage, with one liners for each type of intellignece.

Having joined Tutpup with the students, the race is on ……. who is going to be top of our class ladder by the end of term?  Look at where I am so far …..  Binga, you will have to get a move on.  In a 24 hour period finishing at 9.38am this morning, this is where I was on the Australian board. But if I look at my results over 365 days, I am 104 after playing 121 games. 

I did this by graduating in all levels in spelling, graduating all levels in tables and beginning to graduate in algebra.  Even as a teacher, I find some of the top levels very challenging especially against some students from countries with a high education standard such as India, China and the Scandinavian countries.

 If you want to take a picture of where you are, use the print screen button on your keyboard, then go into a paint type program to crop and resize your picture.  Save on your drive then upload to your blog.

Have you ever seen or heard an alpaca talking?  I have!! It has such a cute accent … South American I think, maybe Spanish or Portuguese. If you want to hear it then visit this site … lots of fun to play around as a guest but must be 13 or older to join.

One of our activities relating to the Olympics is to create a scrapbook of highlights. 

If you are 13 years or older, perhaps you would like to use this program called “Scrapblog”. 

Rules still apply though, about finding images that have the correct attribution.  Have a play with this program and upload your scrapblog to a post on your blog.

You might create a sport scrapblog or one about a famous athlete participating in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Original image:’Project365 Scrapbook’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64673380@N00/1034662822 
by: Summer

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

I’m at a seminar at the moment and just learnt about a quick, easy way to give attribution to images. Visit this website which allows you to search for creative commons images.  It also gives you the attribution which you need to include with the image on your blog. You may include it with the photo or add it under the photo.

Original image: ‘Tassie devil’
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30805622@N00/351640307
by: Adam Tibballs

Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License

Steps to follow:

1. Search for photo by putting in a tag eg sumo or Tasmania or fishing
2. Click on photo you want to use
3. Click on “edit image in-house”
4. Click on “Add attribution” if you want it included with the photo - see my picture on the right
5. Right click and “save picture as”
6. Follow normal instructions to add images to your blog

Be careful, though, when adding the attribution to the photo.  What has gone wrong with mine?

Many students are now taking photos in class and wanting to upload these to their blog.  They have taken part in the marine centre trip, or been to the yo-yo exhibition or have taken a photo of their Hatchet map.

Well here are the steps to follow:

1. Begin a new post and do all the writing first.
2. Decide where you want to put in the photo and whether you want it to be on the left or right of the post or maybe in the centre.
3. Find your photo by clicking on Add media> add an image.
4. Choose files to upload from computer - make sure your image is going to be the right way up as you can’t adjust the direction once the image is uploaded.
5. Copy the link URL.
6. Save all changes and close the upload window.
7. Click on green tree.
8. Paste in the URL you had copied, align your picture and put 5 in vertical and horizontal then insert.
9. Now you click on the photo and adjust the size using the corners.

You have now uploaded a photo from your school computer.

Photo source:  Miss W’s trip to Japan - cleaning sign when shinkansen is being cleaned

Part of being internet savvy is knowing when to acknowledge where you found a photo or information for your blog post.  If you haven’t written it in your own words using your own imagination, then you probably got the idea from another person. 

To keep it legal, you need to say where you got the information from, whether it be another website on the net, a magazine or newspaper you read or a book you borrowed from the library. The thoughts and photos are not yours; they belong to someone else and it is your responsibility to mention them in your blog post.

Sue Waters who writes The Edublogger which you can see in your dashboard, has written a great post about acknowledging photos under Creative Commons.

You need to complete the following for EVERY photo you use (unless it is your own photo)

STEP 1  Find photo with Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.  Right click on photo, go down to properties then copy the Address (URL)

STEP 2  Open your ‘Write Post” page and click insert image into post (green tree )

• paste in image URL
• add description
• add alignment
• put 5 in vertical and horizontal boxes
• now click Insert

STEP 3   Click on image and resize - width about 200 pixels if right aligned.

STEP 4  Now go back to page where original photo is and copy the page URL (at top of page not on photo)

• back to your post  and click on image then click on insert link button (chain)
• paste in the URL
• set target as new window
• now click Insert

Final step  Adding text attribution under photo or bottom of post

Photo by majamom (highlight name then insert link to page URL) licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

If you are unsure how to keep photos legal, then read Sue’s post on the Edublogger as she includes screenshots as well.

Another idea from the blog “Quick Tips”

I am trying to make sure students only use copyright free images in their posts.  I now have them using flickr creative commons preferably

  Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License . 

But if there is one photo they REALLY want to use, I will often email the photographer to get their permission.

As my students are doing work on Survival and looking at the Inuit people, I found a series of photos on Flickr but they were not copyright free.  They were all stills from a series of films that I had used a few years ago at school, but had since lost the video.  Would students be able to use these in their voicethreads and photostory activities?

My Request letter

Dear Sir/Madam,

My students have been doing some work on the Inuit people and are about to complete some activities which will involve using images in photostory and voicethread and they would like to use some of the photos on the Netsilik Eskimo series.  Would this cost money as we would then probably put the final presentations on our class blog?

I then gave the URL for our class blog and the Inuit activity page.

Their replyDear Sue,

You seem like an amazingly motivated and creative teacher. We would be happy to support your students work by permitting you free use of some stills from our Netsilik Eskimo films for the class story telling.Keep us informed about your work.

All the best,

Cynthia Close
Executive Director

cclose@der.orgcclose@der.org

Often all it takes is a polite letter asking for permission and it will be granted. 

Thanks to those photographers and companies who allow students to use their works in their blogs.

For photos from these sites, you will need to acknowlege their website.  You should find a symbol like this on their page.    eg © AarinFreePhoto.com           or you attach a hyperlink to the photo.

Only about 1000 pictures so far here at Aarin free photos

Mention the photographer’s name David Niblack if you use a photo from here

Mention the website name here

Flickr has some free photos but best to include the person’s name somewhere near the photo

Check terms and how to link for these free photos

  Some photos have the name of the website on the actual photo.

If you still can’t find a suitable image then check out Lorelle on Wordpress.  She has listed many sites where images can be found, some free, some with copyright restrictions.  Make sure you read the information at the top of the page first about how to acknowledge the image’s owner.