Week 4: A picture is worth

Yes, this week we deal with using images, music and sounds in your posts.

But can’t I use any image, music or sound that is on the internet?

No, you must use creative commons or in some cases the fair use rule.

But where can I find these images, music and sounds?

Head to the creative commons website. Check out the CC wiki to find out what is happening in your country. What are the different licenses used? Teachers check out the education section of creative commons. Youtube allows creative commons for videos. Teachers: A fantastic guide to copyright, fair use and creative commons has been written by Ronnie Burt and I would suggest you read this to understand more about using images, music and video on your blogs. Larry Ferlazzo also has a great “Best List for images” that you might want to check out as well. Mrs Yollis did an activity with her students about creative commons.

OK I want to use some legal creative commons images and music in my slideshow. Where can I go to get them?

Do you have compfight plugin for your blogging platform? Click on this link from previous challenge to find out how to activate it in Edublogs and how to use the normal compfight website.

Other places to get images and music:

You will need to work out how to get the attribution to put on your posts.

Images

Music and sound effects

Jamendo, CCMixter, post with 14 websites for music, post with 20+ websites for music, post with 55+ sites with sound effects

Now for the activities for this week

Activity 1 Watch this video about sharing work and write a post about what you learned.

 Activity 2. Check out this story using remix and fair use of video. Leave a comment below after watching the video. What was interesting, positive or negative about it?

 Activity 3. Find an image or piece of music. Add it to your post and write a poem relating to the image or music. Invite your readers to write their own poems. PS April is Poetry Month. Thanks to Mrs Hutchison for this idea.

Activity 4. Similar to activity 3. Find an interesting landscape image.  Write the beginning of a story relating to your image. Remember to include a conflict of some sort between your characters. Invite your readers to finish the story. How many different endings can you get? Which ending do you prefer?

Activity 5. Write a sentence using just images – no words.

Activity 6. Find 5 images that create a story – again no words.

Activity 7. Create a slideshow, photo gallery or poster about your interests to add to your about me page or as a separate post.

Activity 8 – Create your own images and add to a post of your choice

Other options for creating your own images include:

  1. Image Generators such as ImageGenerator.org
  2. Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com,  kerpoof, ToonDoo
  3. Photo Editors like Befunky, fd’s Flickr Tools
  4. Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle
  5. Graph Creators including GraphJam and Crappy Graphs

Mixing up your images using these types of tools can really spice up your posts! Leave a comment on this post, if you or your class can recommend some other image sites to add to this list.

 Activity 9– Zoom out from an image

We first tried this activity in the challenge in September 2010. Choose a picture, and have your readers zoom out, so to speak, by leaving comments.  Check out the example from Huzzah who finished their story. If doing this activity, include the word ‘zoom’ in your title so I can find it easily. Remember to give attribution. Most important here is to read previous comments, so you can add to the story.

Check out these zoom pictures: Becky, Jacqueline, Abbey

Activity 10 – Go back to previous posts

If you have used images in any previous posts you have written, then you are ethically obliged to go back to the post and give the correct attribution or take the image out of the post if it does not have the right creative commons license.

Activity 11 – Create a jigsaw from your image. Check out how Mrs Schmidt’s students did this for a previous activity. Here is a post from Mrs Schmidt with a tutorial on how to create the jigsaw images.

Hot air in the cold air and early morning glowActivity 12– Tell the story of the picture

From Bill Ferreirae – I sometime find a picture and tell students to use that picture to come up with a story. It can be about the picture, what happened before, what will happen next, etc. So, here is the image I have chosen for you to start with. Copy the image to your post, then write the story. Remember to give attribution. If you don’t have your own blog, tell your story in a comment here.

Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Let Ideas Compete via Compfight

Still got time left this week:

Visit other student and class blogs

Start using tags and categories with each post you write to make it easier for people to find posts on certain topics. Make sure you have the tags and categories widgets in your sidebar.

Have at least five other student blogs linked on your sidebar – students from other classes and schools- not your own. We will need this for a game we play in a couple of weeks.

Try to have a few different headings like

  • My Friends
  • Class Blogs
  • Overseas Blogs

Having lots of  links to student blogs from other countries will help spread the game.

Here are the instructions for adding links to your sidebars.

Edublogs, Blogger, Kidblog – not sure if this widget goes on the class page or each student page

 Most important thing to take away from this week’s challenge is:

Use creative commons images, not just any image on the net. Always include attribution of where you found the image. Compfight plugin does this for you.