There are quite a lot of ways to search for images on the internet. I am always on the lookout for something that makes it as easy as possible for me and/or my students to obtain good CC images to illustrate my sites (wikis, blogs, etc). I have been using ImageCodr to find CC images for my wiki and blogs (and it works very well) but I have only been able to use Flickr images.
Wylio offers a very easy way to quickly search through the huge number of free images from different sources and then allows you to generate a code so that you can insert those images directly into a blog post.
It is very simple to use and therefore useful to use with students.
click on it to re-size it according to your requirements as well as set the alignment
click on ‘Get the code’ to obtain the HTML code that can then be used to insert the image in your blog post. The code also includes an attribution to the original photographer
Yesterday the School Library Association of Victoria held another of its conferences for library teams (all staff who work in school libraries). Over the last few years these conferences have offered very successful and practical professional learning for library support staff and others. Yesterday was no exception. I really enjoyed Lili Wilkinson, reader and writer of young adult fiction who also works at the Centre for Youth Literature, at the State Library of Victoria, where she manages the website called insideadog.com.au. It is a site about books for teenagers. Lili is always so enthusiastic about books and reading and she spoke eloquently on her favourite topic reading. She was quite inspiring about reading, no matter what format it may take, be it on paper or on-line. She also talked about the story.
My Multimedia technician, Keely Scicluna, and I were asked to talk about Flip camcorders. I was not sure how to present the information and ended up creating a site via Google sites called TechTools – Flip Camcorders. This was suggested by another of my library co-workers. I was not sure where everyone attending our session was with regards to these kinds of tools but was advised to talk about obtaining the cameras and how our library gives students and staff access to them.
Creating a this space using Google sites allowed me to put in links to useful sites for finding out about buying the Flip camcorders – the different options, the extras that go with them and the prices. I also could put in useful posts and sites that discuss how others have used these great little digital video cameras and some support sites. As I worked I kept adding pages for instance pages with technical tips – simple film techniques, taking video clips and uploading them to the computer and will add soon some advice about responsible and appropriate use.
The site is not fancy as I haven’t done a lot of exploration yet but it was very easy to create and it got the information I wanted to share out there. My other option was to create a wiki but I sometimes find wikis a bit temperamental and not they do not always turn out as I would like them to. Here I could add video and images easily and all the google apps I played with went in seamlessly. There are pre-built templates but you can build your own if you prefer and you can control who can view and who can edit. I would certainly recommend that you have a look at using this tool for creating sites that could easily be used by classes as they space to share projects and classwork.
The keynote speaker for the day was Sandy Philips, Manager of KnowledgeBank: Next Generation, DEECD. She presented information about FUSE , a site that offers all our school community such a wealth of opportunities to find, share and create educational resources. This is an extensive and growing portal of learning resources for k-12.
Sandy opened her presentation with a background view of what we call the Internet and Web 2.0. and how the Internet has changed to a “post anywhere, anytime, and anyhow” resource. She also discussed the 3 different uses, the “Me, We, See” in our schools, acknowledging Stephen Heppell in presenting this concept which relates to behaviours associated with what we do online, from the totally private, the “friends and colleagues only to the totally public publication.
A huge number of resources are available on FUSE without needing a password. Government school teachers already have a login to the other content and a login process is being put in place for non-government schools to access. This is the ‘library’ for government schools and cultural organisations such as Asia Education, ACME, SLV and others are all contributing. Teachers can log and build their own learning resources on FUSE and then submit each for public use or keep it private. There will also be collaborative spaces for discussion, building ideas and sharing etc. Sandy referred back to curriculum content. Thinking, communicating, and being creative are all skills that are encouraged in the ‘new’ curriculum.
Sandy asked us to consider the projects that are being set in our schools for today’s students. Have things changed to use the thinking, communicating, creative skills that are possible with these new resources? FUSE presents a wonderful opportunity to all in schools by offering an enormous range of resources that are appropriate, safe and interesting.
Sandy ended with some cautionary advice. We need to look at what we are doing and consider all the new options available to us. We need to get students to think differently. To explain this Sandy showed a video clip she created, from resources in FUSE, to accompany Billy Joel’s We didn’t start the fire. We were asked to think about how we might approach this activity with our student. For example have the students consider the years since this song was published in the early 80’s
What events have had a global impact?
What were these impacts?
Which ones were connected?
Then could they create an Australian story with an appropriate song.
What event has affected your students personally?
A link to Sandy Phillips’s presentation is available here
Inside Mecca – Watch the Documentary Film for Free – SnagFilms Inside Mecca is an in-depth look at the principles of Islam, the significance of Mecca, and the stories of pilgrims to Mecca. This video from National Geographic (hosted by Snag Films) may be of use to anyone studying comparative religions or cultures
Memorize.com – The Flashcard Wiki Memorize is a neat service that offers users the ability to create and study sets of flashcards. Memorize also gives users the option to create diagrams for studying.
Prose, poetry, and photography « Flickr Blog FlickrPoet, a new application from Thomas Sturm, is a search engine which will illustrate poems, prose, or song lyrics with Flickr images.
Flickeur – Every Picture Tells a Story Flickeur (pronounced like Voyeur) randomly retrieves images from Flickr.com and creates an infinite film with a style that can vary between stream-of-consciousness, documentary or video clip. All the blends, motions, zooms or timeleaps are completely random. Flickeur works like a looped magnetic tape where incoming images will merge with older materials and be influenced by the older recordings’ magnetic memory.
Letterpop Offers teachers premade templates to make interesting newsletters, actionable presentations, invitations, beautiful product features, event summaries, informative club updates, picture collages and fliers.
60 Second Recap A US site that could be very useful for promoting reading and showing creative examples of ways students can respond to texts. Basically, 60 second recap is a site that makes films that summarise texts such as Animal Farm, Jane Eyre, Of Mice and Men, Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice.
About the Germany Under Reconstruction Collection The Germany Under Reconstruction digital collection provides a varied selection of publications in both English and German from the period immediately following World War II. Many are publications of the U.S. occupying forces, including reports and descriptions of efforts to introduce U.S.-style democracy to Germany. Some of the other books and documents describe conditions in a country devastated by years of war, efforts at political, economic and cultural development, and the differing perspectives coming from the U.S. and British zones and the Russian zone of occupation. At the same time, the Germans themselves and the occupying forces look back at the National Socialist period and try to come to terms with what had happened.
I have created a couple of wikis to share information with colleagues and used a few others to allow student collaboration on projects. I have found wikis a very easy way to share information that I used in presentations I made at a few SLAV meetings and conferences. I have also a member of wikis created by others. Next I am beginning a new project with some students where we will share our thoughts and ideas on reading and books using a wiki.
A wiki, in simple terms, is a web page/database of sites that can be edited easily by one person or by many. It can be built on visitors’ comments and offers many additional features. It can be used as for a collection of resources, but its most powerful use is for collaborative purposes, where all members can work in real or virtual teams to create a site full of rich material. They may include all of the text, images, links, video, podcasts and other multimedia options amongst the material they choose to share.
There are basically 3 different types of wikis: “Public” where you can build a freely editable and public wiki (eg wikipedia). If you need, as schools do, more privacy and security, you can choose a moderated wiki format with the possibility of having user agreements and locking some pages from public view. These can be classed as “protected” where anyone can read them but only members can edit or “private” where only members can read or edit them.
In the “Moderated Wiki” format the owners are able to review comments before they’re added to the main body of a topic. It is a very simple way of sharing ideas and information on projects and maintaining a safe environment for our students. You can search all the page contents and also view when all the updates occurred to track the development of the wiki.
There is also this very detailed explanation on slideshare:
And of course Wikis in Plain English is a great starting point for understanding the wiki concept.
There are so many wikis available to us. They are on all sorts of topics and the scope is amazing. If you are looking for wikis, you could try using this wiki search engine. If you are you looking for live editable information or want to find and comment on other people’s wikis then Wiki.com is a search engine that might be of use for you.
It offers a search engine which allows you to search by
keyword
all Wikis
Wikipedia Only
indie wikis only and
encyclopedias only.
This search engine gives you easy access to wiki material including all Wikipedia information.
Some wikis, for education (besides the ones listed in my sidebar), that you might like to visit could include:
For an example of a student created wiki have a look at this example . (This was a wiki page developed for the netgened project. Link thanks to Anne Mirtschin
While you are lat it have a look at this post by Ann about how she and her students have been involved in some fantastic global projects utilising the wiki idea.
GenoPal – Color Schemes A simple tool that allows you transfer the Color Mood from picture to graphics.
Global Voices Online “Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online attempting to shine light on places and people other media often ignore”
Extrema-Home Page Extrema is a powerful visualization and data analysis tool that enables researchers to quickly distill their large, complex data sets into meaningful information. Its flexibility, sophistication, and power allow you to easily develop your own commands and create highly customized graphs.
Enhancing Child safety and online technologies Report of The Internet Safety Technical Task Force who were comissioned to consider, on an accelerated timeline, the extent to which technologies can play a role in enhancing safety for minors in these online spaces. The Task Force was a collaborative effort among leaders from Internet service providers, social network sites, academia, education, child safety and public policy advocacy organizations, and technology development.
Worldometers – real time world statistics Worldometers provides real time statistics up into different areas: world population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy and health.
Home What Works Well is a UK site that offers case studies of best-practise examples of strategies used to improve teaching and learning
Icerocket blog search A search engine that is a good tool for search blog materials as well as otther digital media. Can also be used to follow trends.
educational-origami » home Educational Origami is a blog and a wiki, about the integration of ICT into the classroom. Its about 21st Century Learning and 21st Century Teaching
Main Page – Horizon Project workspace for the Horizon Project. The New Media Consortium’s Emerging Technologies Initiative focuses on expanding the boundaries of teaching, learning and creative expression by creatively applying new tools in new contexts.
The NYPL Picture Collection Online Search or browse “more than 30,000 digitized images from books, magazines and newspapers as well as original photographs, prints and postcards, mostly created before 1923”. Images are in public domain, but be sure to read permissions and link/attribution requirements.
Rhondda
I have created a couple of wikis to share information with colleagues and used a few others to allow student collaboration on projects. I have found wikis a very easy way to share information that I used in presentations I made at a few SLAV meetings and conferences. I have also a member of wikis created by others. Next I am beginning a new project with some students where we will share our thoughts and ideas on reading and books using a wiki.
Rhondda's Reflections - wandering around the Web 