So here is my image manipulation on a photo of my beloved dog “Sammy”. He is my baby and is very, very spoilt. I had a fun time playing around with the wonderful features on Picnik, it’s not my first time using Picnik to edit my photos. I do have to mention I did well this time to stop myself from getting carried away with the many editing features the site has to offer. There are so may tools and features to edit photos I just want to use all of them at once, but alas sometimes they end up turning out a big mess. I guess that is why the saying goes “less is more”.
Picnik can be used in the classroom: -Introduce the many wonders of photo editing to students. -Edit photos for specific purposes e.g. slideshows, school newsletters and classroom displays. -Photos can be saved from Picnik straight to Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket and more. -Edited photos can also be saved directly onto the computer hard drive. -Edit photos for upload and publishing to classroom websites, wikis and blogs.
MobaPhoto is a free program, which helps in the creation of photo galleries for webpages. MobaPhoto is a simple to use program making it user friendly for anyone to use. The program allows digital photos to be resized, cropped and correct red-eyes helping manage digital photos and galleries. This can be done in batches making the process quick, efficient and ready for website upload. The MobaPhoto program being only 1.6MB can be downloaded on USB (Mobatek, 2008) making it portable and possible to manage and upload galleries anywhere on any computer.
Benefits of MobaPhoto in the classroom: • MobaPhoto can be used to manage upload and publish classroom photos and galleries onto the classroom website, blog and or wiki. • The program can be saved onto students USB sticks. The portable application can be taken and used on any computer within the school environment (computer lab, library) and even used on the computer at home. • MobaPhoto can be used to introduce photo editing to student. Allowing students to crop, resize, correct red-eyes, rename and create photo galleries using the application’s tools.
References
Mobatek. (2008). MobaPhoto. Retrieved July 31, 2010, from MobaPhoto the portable toolbox for digital photography: http://mobaphoto.mobatek.net/en/
I had a peak around Flickr, as a guest. I did not want to sign up for an account mainly because I do not have a Yahoo ID (email) and I doubt I would use the program much at the moment apart from this very e-Learning blog posting. But as a guest I was still able to experience the vast collection of images and videos Flickr had to offer, guests can access 80% of the images (National Library of Australia , 2005). Usually when I need images for any reason or a specific purposes I just use Google Images, which anyone can use without an account. I found after comparing my Google and Flickr image searches on Great Danes both produced very similar images. Why Great Danes? Because my beloved dog Sampson (Sammy) is Great Dane breed. I love dogs, especially Shetland Ponies (Great Danes).
Flickr is a popular website for users to share and embed their personal photographs; the website contains more than 4 million images from contributors all over the globe. Flickr is commonly used by bloggers to display images they embed within their blog postings (Wikipedia, 2010). Anybody can add their own images to Flickr, marking them with descriptions and even tags for archiving and retrieving purposes. Of all Flickr’s users, two million of them add a new image to the site every four seconds (National Library of Australia , 2005).
References
National Library of Australia . (2005). Flickr. Retrieved July 29, 2010, from Picture Australia: http://www.pictureaustralia.org/contribute/participants/Flickr.html
Wikipedia. (2010, July 24). Flickr. Retrieved July 29, 2010, from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr
RSS stands for really simple syndication and it was easy enough to set an aggregator in Google Reader, but I think I will just stick to the section in the blogger dashboard. The Reading List within my blog dashboard allows me to see a list of blogs I follow and updates on any recent posts and additions made to those blogs. I have the option to add and manage the blogs within my list, to suit my purpose. To add to the convenience of this Reading List (Blog Dashboard) it is possible to view my followed blog items using Google Reader, simply by clicking on the link View in Google Reader at the bottom right hand corner of the Reading List. I preferred to view blog updates in the Reading List in my blog because it seemed to be easier to follow and comprehend.
SlideShare, just a little program I came across while looking for a solution to upload my PowerPoint (Webquest) to my blog. SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations (LinkedIn Corporation , 2010). SlideShare is a free online program. If you sign up for an account you can import presentations for a much larger viewing audience (worldwide). Plus if you Sync your SlideShare account with your Facebook and or Linkedin account your uploads will show up on all three networks.
SlideShare allows the user to (SlideShare Inc., 2010): -Share presentations and documents with LinkedIn and Facebook networks. -Upload portfolios, resumes, conference talks, PDFs presentations and more. -Supports many document formats for example ppt, pps, pptx, pdf and doc. -YouTube videos and audio files can also be embedded within the presentation.
Your quite welcomed to have a look for yourself it’s a very handy program, especially for Blogging. SlideShare.net
References
LinkedIn Corporation . (2010). SlideShare Presentations. Retrieved July 26, 2010, from Linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=1200
SlideShare Inc. (2010). SlideShare Home Page. Retrieved July 26, 2010, from SlideShare Present Yourself: http://www.slideshare.net/
I completed a Webquest for my SOSE assignment in my first year (2008). A Webquest is basicly an interactive powerpoint so I thought it would be perfect to upload a sneak peak of my Webquest for those interested. The Webquest is about Recycling it was designed for 7-8 year olds.
Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the most frequently used program in the world, many use it because it is versatile, simple and easy to use, making it possible for anyone to create an interactive multimedia presentation (Central Queensland University, 2010). PowerPoints can be used for interactive presentations containing text, art, animation, video and audio clips. If your computer came pre-loaded with Microsoft Office the great thing is that you will most likely have PowerPoint too.
Daniels (1999) states that the PowerPoint presentations allow for students to use the visual differentiations to their own benefit. Each slide allows the student to stay on track and if a printer is accessible printing out the slides as a handout helps to cater for the varied learning styles within the classroom (Daniels, 1999). PowerPoints with audiovisual elements allow students with different learning styles and ESL students to grasp the information required (Daniels, 1999).
PowerPoints could be used in the classroom for: • Enabling students to construct creative presentations for classroom tasks.
• Students develop meaningful technology skills.
• Creating & completing Webquests
• Present information, procedures and or instructions to the class
• Create tutorials, reviews or quizzes for students
• Display students work – Parent teacher night
• PowerPoints can be changed, updated and used again and again for those particular lessons
• Learning Manager can create many activities such as:
o Flash Cards
o Interactive Stories/Reports
o Group or individual Slide Shows
o Photo Stories – Learning Stories – e.g. Science Investigation
o Classroom Slide Show – e.g. Field Trip Story (for parents, peers and other teachers)
PowerPoints can be a Learning Manager’s and a student’s best friend however if they are not used correctly they will not be as effective as they could be.
Here are some PowerPoint Weaknesses (Kaminski, 2003): •It’s easy to get carried away making slides. Making too many sides then are required for the presentation
• PowerPoint can be a time waster. It can become very time consuming tweaking a presentation.
• It is easy to begin a presentation without the plan or ideas first. PowerPoint works best when reinforcing the ideas or information.
• PowerPoint’s can have too many bells and whistles. Making an ugly and confusing presentation
• Too much text with each slide, even incorrect spelling and grammar can become a hindrance
• A presenter can become dependent on the PowerPoint presentation.
It is crucial for a Learning Manager to remember that students can become lost, confused or distracted when a whizz bang PowerPoint presentation is used during a learning experience. So when using a PowerPoint make sure it is used effectively.
Have a look at this Youtube clip "Life After Death By PowerPoint" (McMillan 2007), it paints a clear picture of when PowerPoint goes wrong.
References
Daniels, L 1999, Journal of computing in higher education, Introducing PowerPoint in the classroom: PowerPoint as the first step, vol. 10, pp42-56, http://www.springerlink.com/content/3628423174085807/, viewed 25th July, 2010.
McMillan, D 2007, How not to use powerpoint, YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM&feature=fvst, viewed 25th July 2010.
Central Queensland University. (2010, May 30). Practical Activity: Week 3- PowerPoint, LMS and RSS. Retrieved July 25, 2010, from FAHE11001 - Term 2, 2010 Managing E-Learning: http://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=99697
Kaminski, S. H. (2003, January 16th). PowerPoint, however, has notable weaknesses. Retrieved July 25, 2010, from PowerPoint Presentations: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: http://www.shkaminski.com/Classes/Handouts/powerpoint.htm#weaknesses
