Teaching with Digital Images....the COOL Way!

If you use digital images in your teaching, you will love this free web-based photo editing and design software. BigHugeLabs.com goes above and beyond basic photo editing. It provides a ton of fun photo gadgets allowing you to create customizable photos in an array of different layouts. Examples include magazine covers, jigsaw puzzles, inspirational posters, trading cards, pop-art posters (Warhol), badge makers, and much more. OK, so you are probably thinking...big deal...another free photo editing site...right? This one is a little different as they keep adding more and more "cool tools" to use, it's free, and you can create an educators account allowing you to sign-up your students ahead of time so they do not need to log-in with an email address.

I could see this site being used for a variety of creative learning activities for your students. Keep in mind that any of the "enhanced images" can either be printed or saved. Take it a step further and incorporate these image masterpieces into programs such as Prezi, Movie Maker, PhotoStory, or PowerPoint.

Here are a few ideas of projects you could use with your students. Enjoy!

1. JIGSAW PUZZLES: Teachers could create "Famous People in Time" jigsaw puzzles printed on card stock. After putting the puzzles together, students would have to name the people, and provide at least one thing each person did in history that made them memorable (make it more challenging by allowing them to only use their notes and text book....no Internet!!).

2. MAGAZINE COVERS: Have students create a magazine cover that reflects a certain period in time, science topic, important people in history, current events, famous artists, or characters from a recent book they have read.

3. TRADING CARDS: Assign students a topic (Example: diseases, famous artists, etc.). Set a limit for the content of the cards for students to summarize the most important facts.

4. INSPIRATIONAL POSTERS: Add some motivational artwork in your classroom.

Here is an example magazine cover I created within minutes.

Got Music?

One of the most frequent questions I get asked when working with classes doing some type of a multi-media project is "Do you have any good sites for songs and sound effects?". Music is something that can really add to a project to show expression, concept understanding, or as a simple tool to keep your audience's attention. However, finding royalty-free music can sometimes be a challenge. Another hurdle, is finding media files that can be downloaded and in a format that the application you are using can read. It seems that MP3 files are the most commonly read file format for most applications.

Three of my favorite sites for royalty free music and sound files are PurplePlanet, Jamendo, and SoundBoard. All sites are free, easy to use, and provide direct downloads in MP3 format.

Purple-Planet is a donation funded website whose music can be used for any type of media production (movies, podcasts, blogs, etc.). No account is needed to use and download from the site.

The songs are grouped by moods (such as dramatic, horror, mystery, etc.) making it easy to find music to fit all your project needs. Click on the mood of your choice to display a list of tracks that you can preview and download. Quick and easy!!

Jamendo is the world's #1 platform for free and legal music downloads. Available in seven languages, it offers the largest catalog of music under Creative Commons licenses. Songs and playlists are uploaded from artists from around the globe! Downloading from Jamendo is quick and easy. Once you create your user account, you can download from an artist, album or playlist page, or even straight from their player.

SoundBoard is awesome!! The web's largest catalog of free sounds and soundboards - in over 20 categories. Some of the categories include Politics, Celebrities, Movies, Science/Nature, Historical and many, many more! What are soundboards? SoundBoards are like an audio album or soundtrack/jukebox for all your favorite Mp3 soundbytes and audio clips. You can build a soundboard for your own listening pleasure or upload your sound and share it with the world.

Enjoy!!

Rock the House with Animoto!!

Digital video projects are a great way for students to creatively express themselves. Our digital savvy students enjoy making movies because the media they choose for their movies typically comes from web resources they use in their private lives such as YouTube, PhotoBucket, Flickr, iTunes, PlayList.com, etc. Because digital videos can be shared with the world through sites such as SchoolTube or TeacherTube, these projects create a "real audience" that motivates student learning. If you are fan of video hosting sites such as YouTube and TeacherTube, you know that videos can be designed to fit any subject and grade level.

Videos are a snap to make using Animoto! Free for teachers, Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button. "Animoto videos have the emotional impact of a movie trailer and the visual energy of a music video." Users can upload their own pictures, videos, and music, or can use Animoto's bank of media resources (images, videos, and royalty free songs donated by the artists themselves)! Animoto does most of the work so students can focus on learning the content, instead of focusing on how to use the application.

Teachers can apply for a free Animoto for Educators account that comes with a few more "perks" than the standard Animoto account. Teachers can create group accounts allowing them access to monitor student's progress. In addition, these account holders have unlimited video creation rights!!

Below is a video I created on Animoto entitled "From Seed to Flower". It took all of 5 minutes to make (after I found the images, video, and song).

Click here to see some case studies of how educators are using Animoto with their students. Or, check out this one entitled: "Top 100 Children's Books".

Put some Pizzaz into your Presentations with Prezi!

Have you heard of a website called Prezi? Prezi is a digital zooming story telling and presentation tool that helps you create outstanding visuals for your thoughts. The site allows teachers to create engaging and interactive presentations in which you can ZOOM into specific key points according to the discussion in class. Once you are finished presenting to students, you can give them the web link to review the presentation at home.

What's neat about Prezi is that all your information such as text, graphics, videos, etc., are placed on one big canvas (no additional slides are needed!). You move around from topic to topic setting up paths from one to the other. You can ZOOM out to see a whole concept, and ZOOM in to take a closer look at it's parts. It blows PowerPoint out of the water!!

Here's an example of a prezi that I created (click the link below). Not only was it fun to make, it was really easy to do. Once my prezi opens, use the on-screen arrow keys to navigate and the magifying glasses to zoom in and zoom out.

"What is Prezi?"