Edunology

There are two search features that Google offers that I would like to introduce. These features are found in the Google Image Search. We all know that Google is the primary website that our students go to conduct just about all Internet searches. Google Image search is their #1 location for images.  Unfortunately, many of our students do not know the copyright and usage rights associated with images that are found online. We have also found that the images available through Google Image Search are not always appropriate for a school setting or the eyes of a child.

Google has included two search setting located in their advanced image search that can help address these issues.  If you visit http://www.google.com and click on Images on the top left of the screen, you will be directed to Google Image Search. Once there you will see a link titled advanced image search located to the right of the search bar. Clicking on this link will direct you to the advanced search menu.

Within the advanced search menu you will see two settings that are of interest to this topic.

Click on the Image to Enlarge

1. SAFE SEARCH – Students can select to use Strict Search Filtering.  By enabling this setting you are filtering out images that are deemed innapropriate.

2. Usage Rights - The default setting for usage rights is to not filter by license. This  means that all of the images that are returned by a search may be subject to copyright. If you would like to limit the search to images that are free to use (not protected by copyright), you can select”Labeled for Reuse”. This will return only images that are allowed to be used.

3. Once you select these settings you can type your search terms in any of the find results boxes.

It is important that students are aware of these settings. They must be educated on the fact that it is against copyright laws to publish images on the Internet that are copyright protected. Digital Stories and Digital Posters are published online. Students working on these projects must use images with the proper usage rights.

For more information about images, videos and text that are free to use visit http://www.creativecommons.org

Enjoy!

Before the age of cell phone cameras, You Tube, and Google Images, America received news and event images through weekly magazines. One of the must-see publications was Life magazine.  They captured the heroes, villains and events that shaped history.

These images are now available on the newly launched life.com. Here is an excerpt from their site:

Welcome to LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the Web.heroes, our stars, our celebrations and heartbreak, the events etched in our memory and the small moments that make life sweet. When you find a photo you like, you’ll be able to share it, print it, and sometimes even buy it.

LIFE and Getty Images, the two most recognized names in photography, have joined forces to provide you instant access to millions of breathtaking photographs — for free. LIFE.com not only lets you wander through the legendary LIFE and Getty archives, but with more than 3,000 new photos added every day, it also gives you the best pictures of the people and places shaping our world now.

These are the photos you won’t forget. Taken by the world’s top photographers and curated by LIFE editors, they tell the story of our times — our

Edutopia Magazine recenlty had a great article on “Teaching with Primary Souces“. Specifically they spoke about using images. They recommend the following:

1. Select Photographs – Use the custom search tool on life.com to hunt for images by topic or photographer.
2. Research the techniques
3. The Library of Congress’s American Memory Website (loc.gov/teachers) provides lesson plans and question guides to help students think critically when examining photos.
4. They also have self directed study modules on teaching with primary sources (loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/tpsdirect/selfdirected
5. Develop a list of questions based on the following topics:

• What is the main subject of the photo
• Time: what might have happened just after or before the photo was taken.
• Framing: What would be visible if you could move the camera left or right, up or down.
• Vantage Point: How far was photographer from the images seen in the picture?
• Dominance: What is the first thing you notice in the picture?
• Original Purpose: How was the photograph first seen or used? How is the photograph regarded today?
• Intention: What do you think the photographer was trying to express through the image?

“When you teach students how to be critical viewers, they learn how to elevate personal opinions into authorative opinions”,  Elizabeth Lay, retired English teacher from Oakland, California

The students in Briggs, Cozy Lake, and Milton Schools have been producing digital stories using MS Photostory 3. In Briggs School all of the second grade students took part in an online project called “Where the Wild Things Went” You can view their completed stories on their new school blog which can be found here.

Mrs. Caraturo’s class in Cozy Lake School created digital stories.  During the month of October, students in Mrs. Caraturo’s class were asked to choose a newly fallen leaf.  Students then illustrated a picture and wrote a story about the journey their leaf took after it fell from its tree.  The boys and girls are very excited to have published their first digital story and to share it with their family and friends. Mrs. Caraturo’s class stories are published here. Please contact her for the password to view the stories if you are interested.

  The students in Mrs. Evans Kindergarten class, in Milton School,  created digital stories describing their favorite animal at Space Farms Zoo.   Each student drew a picture of an animal and then narrated their picture. We used a digital camera and Microsoft Photostory 3 to complete the project. You can view their stories here.

To learn more about digital storytelling click here.

Enjoy!

www.blabberize.com is a free resource that allows you to make any picture talk. I have worked with this resource for a couple of years now. It can be really hilarious. You upload a picture, use the online tools to outline out the mouth, and record a narration. The picture then talks to you. You can upload more then one picture and have the talk to each other.

While this can be entertaining I believe this can be an excellent instructional tool.  Here are some ideas for using it with students:

1. Students upload a picture of an animal or insect. They then narrate an oral report as that animal or insect that provides information they have learned about it.

2. Students upload a picture of Abraham Lincoln and provide narration about him, interview questions, or dictate a speech in response to something.

3.  Students can introduce a story character or respond to a situation as a character in a story.

This can be an excellent tool to showcase a digital story. As with other digital storytelling projects the focus is on writing a script, editing the script and narration. The project can then be published online for students to share and view.

Enjoy

>Good Morning,

I came across this excellent resource that was posted on the blog of Kevin Jarrett. It is a digital story tool developed by Carnegie University. It is called My Story Maker.

My StoryMaker is a free, easy-to-use, Flash-based interactive story development platform developed by The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, with the generous support of Carnegie Mellon University and The Grable Foundation. The basic idea is that you start by selecting characters and a goal:

You then are given an editor and a guide to help you build the story.

All you have to do is drag and drop and arrange the objects where you want them. You can add dialogue and pages to your story. Once you build your story you can choose to share your story. This will generate a six-digit number that can be plugged into the Main Site to search for the story. You also have the option to print you story. It prints as a foldable book and can be printed in color. The site does not require any registration. You just visit the site and start your story.

Enjoy!