Spotify and cheating the network to search Google images

I have been doing lots of social networking through Spotify. It is almost perfect. And the collaborative playlists are loads of fun. Music on tap. Just the way I like it.
Sadly, tried to use it in school today and, of course, it was blocked. Go figure. A shame; I was looking forward to investigating some interesting class collaborations in mixtapes.

Flickr is also suddenly blocked this term. Which makes the Creative Commons image search completely useless now. Going, going gone.
Fortunately, my stage clever stage partner shared a clever way to bypass the the filter on Google images.
Put something like 'Scotland' and the word 'photo' or 'image' into a normal Google search engine. Some photos will appear along the top of the search results. Click on an image. Along the top it reads 'back to image results.' Click on that and suddenly you are in the Google image search engine proper. Put whatever you want to search for in the search engine and off you go. Nice!

Glow...

... worms








... in the dark.

Attribution






... sticks








After leaving another twilight session to introduce Glow to the staff, I am very tempted to be cynical about Glow, but I am countering my urges by focusing of the benefits of online content for enhancing teaching and learning.
I have already covered some places I find useful for finding and editing photos here. In this post I would like to cover the topic of copyrighted images and possible ways for schools to avoid getting themselves in a pickle once staff and pupils start uploading loads of photos to their Glow groups. This was an issue that arose in the twilight session.

There are many options for using images and resources in education that would cost you money in the commercial sector.

Creative Commons is a global licensing project. The various licenses you can choose to label the resources you create are explained here.

If you click on the symbol beside each license then that links to a page where you can download html to add a badge to your web page or glow page. Probably the best option for schools is the 'Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike' license. Quite a tongue twister! Basically, it allows you share content with others as long as they acknowledge where it came from. They can also do what they want with the content as long as it is for non-commercial purposes. Perhaps where there are pictures of children it would be more suitable to choose a less flexible license.

If you use flickr, then flickr allows you to add Creative Common licenses to your photos. Here is an example of one of my photos with a Creative Commons license attached.

The Creative Commons search tool is a great way to find suitable pictures and videos that come under the correct license. You can choose various search engines from Google to flickr, and by selecting 'Search for works I can modify, adapt, or build upon', you are provided with a selection of resources it is safe to use in the classroom, or share on a Glow group.

I think that because we are using resources for educational purposes, then we can stretch the law a little bit, but it is better to be safe than sorry. Check if there are any copyright issues with resources, and if in doubt email the person to ask their permission.

VIDEO RESOURCES
Sites like youtube and blip.tv make it very easy to embed content directly onto your Glow site, therefore getting round problems of downloading and copyright. Teachertube and Schooltube are alternatives where filters block access to youtube. But I have found Teachertube to be quite slow. Hopefully, this will improve in the future because it is a great resource.

If you want to download video resources, then there lots of great resources available through the Creative Archive. The BBC led the way initially with a wonderful selection of clips to download and edit for educational purposes. I have them all! But since have pulled all the clips and seemed to have changed focus to streaming content such as this. Unfortunately, the Creative Archive seems to have lost its steam, but their are lots of downloadable clips available under the license from Teachers TV, the BFI, ITN Source (which allows you to download clips in Quicktime)pick n mix (channel 4) Channel 4 and the Open University.

You can access streamed clips through school computers of the BFI's extensive ScreenOnline resource. There are some excellent history packages for streaming to be found here. Scottish Screen are developing a similar resource for Scottish film clips in their archive.

You can use your school computer to access clips and download free clips (for educational purposes) from the British Pathe website. This is lots of fun for old fashioned newsreel soundbites!
The Internet Archive is an American project similar to the Creative Archive and full of goodies to use.
This NASA site has a fantastic collection of interesting, if sometimes very hazy, Apollo Lunar clips to download.

SOUND RESOURCES
This link for the Audio Network Library, if accessed at school, allows you to listen to and download its clips for free. Teachers (and pupils) can listen and browse the selection outside of school hours here.

Information about using copyrighted songs can be found here.

There are many other sites too, but I think this entry is already too long. I am too tired and I am writing this after watching the famous Aberdeen go down 4-1 to Dundee United. Gutted. Good night.

Online photo editing / image searches... spreading the love ( a little early)

How could you resist??? Those fun guys over at Picnik have released some great Valentines Day add-ons just in time for Feb 14th. If you've not used Picnik before, you should, because it's really easy and fun. All you need are some class photos that you want to jazz up a little. You don't need to register. The full 'Premium Edition' is only $24.95. Not much if a school registers for a year. My class had great fun designing Christmas posters as part of their Enterprise last term. You can see the fantastic results below.

| View | Upload your own

We also had fun using the Big Huge Labs site to design our own Christmas Top Trumps trading cards. This site had loads of amazingly easy but impressive graphic design options. Loads of visual fun and literacy combined.

| View | Upload your own

There are one or two other online photo editing sites I have discovered that have some cool features. Take a look at Pikifix, Pixenate, Fotoflexer, and Splashup. But I like Picnik the best!

I'm finding the Creative Commons search engine, a great one stop shop for searching for images okay to use in school. Other online free stock photography sources I find useful are openphoto, pixel perfect digital and freefoto.com.

For more specific image requests I really like NASA, and geography resources here and here. The New York Public Library online resource is fantastic and the BBC have recorded a great sweep of the UK here.

Animation Backgrounds is a blog with an amazingly rich collection of old, yes you guessed it, animation backgrounds. As for Pictures from Old Books, well I'm sure you're already there.