Week 5: Pictures and videos
Admin: This week I am starting to highlight student names and classes from the participants list, if either I or your mentor feel you have not completed enough challenge posts. I know some classes have been on holidays and fall break, so to stay on the list, you need to have completed the following:
- an about me page or post
- 2 other posts related to challenge activities
I will be highlighting in red those students that I will be deleting next weekend. Anyone who still has the basic blog with no posts at all will be deleted immediately.
Now to this week’s challenge
I have been visiting many blogs over the last few weeks. Some students new to blogging have been writing some great posts while others who have been blogging for a bit longer have started adding videos and images to their posts.
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?
Sue Waters over at the teacher challenge has written a fantastic post about images, copyright and creative commons. I would suggest you all head over there to read the post. She explains about creative commons and the licences, attribution, how to find images for your blog and how to upload images to your blog. Most of this would be appropriate whether you are using Edublogs, blogger or any other blogging platform. This might be very wordy for some students, but Sue uses lots of images and how to do sections in her posts.
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Have you read Sue Waters’ post yet?
Off you go then come back here for more information and the activities for this week.
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Other places to find information
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? Follow the instructions from Sue Waters’ post.
Other places to get images and music:
You will need to work out how to get the attribution to put on your posts. Check Sue Waters’ post to get more help and more places for images. This post from Edublogs explains how to add media in all its forms to your blog posts or pages. If using blogger, check out the posts from this blog.
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 (with attribution) and write a poem relating to the image or music. Invite your readers to write their own poems.
Activity 4. Similar to activity 3. Find an interesting landscape image (include attribution). 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? You might need to visit some other bloggers and invite them to finish your story. Remember to leave the URL of your post for them to click on. Leave a comment on this post if you want me to visit and finish your story.
Activity 5. Write a sentence using just images – no words. You still need to include attribution for each image you have used.
Activity 6. Find 5 images that create a story – again no words only the attribution for each image.
Activity 7. Create a slideshow, photo gallery or poster about your interests to add to your about me page or as a separate post. Your final slide should include attribution for each image.
Activity 8 – Create your own images and add to a post of your choice. In your post add a link to the website or tool you used to create your image.
Other options for creating your own images include:
- Image Generators such as ImageGenerator.org
- Comic Generators like MakeBeliefsComix.com, ToonDoo
- Photo Editors like Befunky, fd’s Flickr Tools
- Tag Cloud Creators such as Wordle
- 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.
Activity 12– Tell the story of the picture
From Bill Ferreirae – I sometimes 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.
Photo Source: from Miss Wyatt’s Flickr account
Activity for 13
Find 13 websites for creative commons images, clip art, music, videos. This can also include tools for finding these images. Write a post including a link to each site or tool.
Still got time left this week:
1. Visit other student and class blogs – leave some quality comments
2. Reply to comments on your own blog – if your country is in yellow then your mentor has been leaving comments but you haven’t answered.
3. 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.
4. 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 Blogging Friends
- Other Class 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.
PS If you have done the blogging challenge before, you will find these activities are nearly the same each time. If you have ideas for different activities please leave a comment on this post.