Catching the Best Flickr Images- free

I came across a great guide: finding and using incredible images in flickr at the Skelliewag blog site. In the post Skellie describes the kinds of licenses attributed to flickr images and what they mean. You are not permitted to use images that are marked copyrighted; however, you are allowed to use any image in flickr's creative commons. There are six types of creative commons licenses; the one that give you the most freedom will say attribution license. This license allows you to modify the images (by cropping them, or writing on them, for example) and to use them in both commercial and non-commercial spaces. The only requirement is that you credit the author with a link back to their profile (credit for this picture.)

Not only did the post explain flickr creative commons, but it also highlighted the advantages of using flickr over other image searches, like Google and Stock photos. I think my favorite part of the post was a section called Finding the best images to suit your needs, which walks you through the steps to speedily finding great creative commons-attribution license images to use in your blog. Excellent. I found this advice so helpful, that I wanted to share it with other readers. I also bookmarked flickr search page for attribution licensed images where I found this image.

Easy as Paint

In our classroom wiki we decided to change the member picture for the students. This is convenient, because it is easy for them to find their discussions and posts by looking for their member picture, rather than weeding through all the member names. Using MS Paint made the task a cinch. The kids have used Paint since their first year at school, so it was a great tool for the task. This is how we did it:

• In Paint: click Image-Attirbutes and set the width and length to 2. Set the unit of measurement to inches. Design-away in the 2x2- inch space! Save with a JPEG file type.
• In the Wiki: click My Account-Change Picture-Browse. Browse for saved picture. Click Upload. Click Save. Done!
• Return to main page of wiki by clicking its name on left sidebar, or by clicking the wiki logo at the top-left
• Easy as Paint, right? Your kids will love it.
  

Progress Report

blog
Since beginning this blog at the start of the year, a lot has been happening, and I have been learning a lot. I set up another blog for a group of 4th and 5th grade students interested in environmental issues. I have been spending more time on that, and the children are enjoying learning about the nature of blogging and in protecting the environment. We have invited students from an elementary school in Singapore to take a look at the blog and comment. Our children are totally wowed by the ClusterMaps showing our visitors from around the world. We are getting ready to add a poll this week, surveying our faculty and friends, and the global community at large. Any words of environmental wisdom for our students? Feel free to visit us and comment!
wiki
In addition to working on the student interest group blog, I am also diving in to a new classroom wiki for my 4th grade students. Parents signed a permission form for their children to engage in the wiki by posting discussions. Tip- after some frustration and research, I discovered that Wikispaces will give students membership to your wikispace- you email the list of usernames and passwords you want to set up for your class, and they set it all up and email you back when the member list is created. Awesome, so after parent permission for their child to be a member, I did not have to worry about them having, or me creating, an email account for them- 10-year olds don't all have email accounts! Right now I use the wiki as a classroom, posting curricular content and engaging the children in "owning" the site through positive and thoughtful discussions. I have also added a student showcase area in which the students can add school work, such as poetry or artwork, of which they are particularly proud(an idea I got from BobSprankle's Classroom site- see below.) It's going well. The children seem happier to study the material in this way, and I am getting more classroom response than I used to with open discussions. The children take time to respond. Children who normally would not raise a hand an contribute find this non-threatening. It is successful so far. The enthusiasm for being in class is much higher- the curiosity level- the what's next? One student went off the first day the wiki was introduced and created his own at home. Bravo. We have just being adding our own pictures to our member names. I have the children using MS Paint: set the attributes to a 2x2-inch workspace, save as a JPEG, and upoad their new picture under My Account back at the classroom wiki. We are learning so much, and having a great time doing it!
resources
I am continually finding that the best way to learn new web 2.0 tools is to use them and become part of the web 2.0 community- visit other blogs and wikis, post comments, read what others have written. I contacted Bob Sprankle in Maine, who is well-versed in the use of web 2.0, and he suggested we use Skype to converse online. Well, talk about getting your feet wet- in trying to learn more about the nuances of various blogs, I also download Skype software and gave it a whirl- how convenient it was to talk after hours via Skype and learn right from home, Thank you, Bob. I also joined the WOW 2.0 (Women of Web 2.0) and viewed a live cast (Tuesday nights.) I'm getting there. I am enthralled with how much there is out there- so much to learn.
curious
I really want to find out more about a few things- OpenId for logging on to sites- is this a single username and password set up that logs me on to just about any site that supports OpenId (starting to get confused which sites want a email username, which not, what that password is- oh, yeahhh-- after 3 tries), and I want to learn more about good use of RSS and tags, so I might get more people contributing comments to my blogs. Another goal- collaborating with a 3rd grade homeroom to get a podcast newscast-for-the-week created. Lots to do- until later- and hopefully sooner than later-

New Year's Resolution

Actually, I made this resolution for the new 2007-2008 school year, but to ring in the new 2008 calendar year, I resolve to strengthen my commitment to learn about (yes, and use in my curriculum) this new Read/Write Web, Web 2.0 kind of stuff, which is pretty exciting. Last Spring I heard Alan November speak at the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools tech conference. His keynote address was humbling, and I decided then that a little update, a little moving and shaking in the way I use technology with my students, would be in order. So, I entered the school year with renewed interest in how I teach and how I work with kids in the classroom. I have been reading a lot on the Web, also leaning from the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, by Will Richardson. This past Fall I enjoyed tuning in to the Fall, Tech Forum, and this summer I am planning a trip to Boston to attend November Learning BLC 2008. Here is the next step, this new blog, Talk 2 Tigers, a place where I will track my Read/Write journey, a first step anyway. I want to share the kinds of things I am doing with the students, along with the things I am pondering and planning.
I have also started a del.icio.us post (is there an easy way to remember where all the dots go in this?!), and I have a shell of a classroom wiki space for our classroom projects. It is overwhelming me, but what a fun way to be overwhelmed- thinking about how to tap into the webkinz-facebook-myspace-flickr-youtube-kind of world in which our kids are engaged. They are not only engaged, they are learning and collaborating with each each other, with kids all over the world, from all walks of life. Now, that is neat. You may have great suggestions for how to get started in the classroom. Being quite the newbie, I would love to hear from you.

What is your New Year's Resolution?