Beyond selfies!

Photography tricks for your smartphone
With one exception, the DIY tripod, I had never seen any of these. Really new creative ways to expand the use of your iPhone's camera.

When you go to this page, click on the video which is the second image down, not the first image you see on the page. Awkward layout but a fun 3 minute video.

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Google Images and Copyright

Do you ever find images that would be a super addition to your course but worry about copyright? If so, read GTOD #13: Google Images and Copyright. This informative article discusses Fair Use, Creative Commons, etc. Also included are Google search tips to conduct advanced searches by license type to better insure that you can legally use the images you locate.

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Snagit 50% off Regular Price

Do you use Jing Pro? If so, you probably know that, beginning Feb. 28th the pro version will revert back to the free version. This means many of your favorite features will vanish.

But, just in time, we have a Snagit deal to the rescue!


"Snagit is the perfect tool for recording MPEG-4 video and YouTube uploading - just like Jing Pro. With Snagit you have the freedom to record longer videos, blur sensitive information, scroll long webpages, and more."

Until April 15th you can purchase a Snagit single-user license for the upgrade price - a savings of 50% off the original price. Simply enter the promotion code below before you complete your purchase to get Snagit at the upgrade pricing. You do not have to have Jing Pro to take advantage of this deal. Anyone can purchase Snagit at this discounted price.
Use Promo Code: JINGPRO to get Snagit at 50% off
(coupon expires April 15, 2013)

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Google Image Search Hacks

7 Vital Google Image Hacks is a valuable informative post with seven tips for finding just the right image in a Google search. Did you know that "you can arrange your results by subject, add image-size indicators, look for images in certain colors or sizes, and focus your search on photos, sketches, clip arts and more"?

Note from the author: "Yes, I know Google Images is about to change, it’s just been announced today. However, it will take a while before the change rolls out to everyone, and many of these tips will stay helpful even with the new design."

I encourage you to try out some of these tips the next time you search for an image. Of course, be mindful of copyright laws if you plan to use the image in one of your courses. Oh, and don't check out this site while you are hungry! You'll see why.

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33 Digital Skills for 21st century Teachers

What are you going to learn (or relearn) this new year?
Meg sent this link from this marvelous website Educational Technology & Mobile Learning
She thought it would be a keeper and I hope you agree.
Not only does the author provide a list of the skills, he provides links to empower teachers to develop those skills.
Besides being a terrific resource, I believe it further emphasizes the notion that technology is not just for computer 'experts' or an option you can choose to ignore, but a set of skills that is not optional, and worthy of learning to use well in very specific ways. Furthermore, our attitude towards these skills is as important as the competent use of them when it comes to our students.

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CyberLink Photo Director 2011 - Free

For a limited time, Download Crew has CyberLink PhotoDirector 2011 (Win) free of charge. This program has a list price of $99.95.

PhotoDirector 2011is "an all-in-one photography program for organizing, editing, enhancing, and sharing your digital pictures, one that compares with the likes of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Corel PaintShop Photo Pro." Sounds like a great deal to me. Who can beat free?

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The WhatWasThere site provides a platform where anyone can easily upload a photograph and include the location and year of the photo to provide context. You can include additional information in the tags section also. The site is free to search and to upload your own photos. You might upload photos specific to your course allowing students to see the photo and map location. The purpose of the site is "to provide a new human experience of time and space – a virtual time machine of sorts that allows users to navigate familiar streets as they appeared in the past."

This photo located in Dublin, Ireland in 1940 is an example of the information available on the site. Notice that you can mouse over the photo to see more detail. How might you use this site in your course?

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ThingLink to Tag your Photos

ThingLink is a great tool to add text, web links, and even videos to your images and graphics. You can embed the ThingLink in your ANGEL course or web site. Watch the video below to view a sample and see just how simple this is to to. Thanks to Richard Byrne for the great information.

 

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Crime Scenes

Have you ever wondered how crime scene investigations take place? You may have seen the Hollywood process on any of the numerous crime related shows on TV, but what do the REAL authorities do?

One way that the New York City Police Department is recording crime scenes is to take panoramic images of crime scenes, using the Panoscan camera. Some of these images have been posted online with an audio explanation of what has taken place. These images are real and are a tad gruesome, but are still excellent examples for a criminal investigations class.

On a lighter note, this would also be a great camera for vacation! :)

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SnackTools

SnackTools is a site that includes several tool for very quick online content creation. Once you register at SnackTools all of the tools listed below are available to you.

PhotoSnack, allows you to create an photo slideshow. I added several of the photos we have collected and created an IT Department PhotoSnack. There are several templates from which to choose.

TubeSnack is a great tool that is quick and easy to use. I was working with an instructor who wanted to include the 10 videos below in his course. Instead of embedding each we went to TubeSnack, created a new playlist, and pasted in the YouTube URL for each video. When we clicked Finish the embed code was available. The resulting product allows students to view each video from one link and easily navigate to the video(s) they wish to see. Check out the sample:




Another app is BannerSnack. View the video below to get an idea of the possibilities with BannerSnack.


The free SnackTools apps include:
BannerSnack - A high-quality app for creating professional looking flash banners.
PhotoSnack - A professional photo slideshow creator with a variety of attractive templates to choose from.
PodSnack - An online app that allows users to build audio players and playlists for websites.
TubeSnack - A video playlist creator which makes it easy for web users to share and embed video playlists.
QuizSnack - A very easy and fun to use online poll & survey tool.
FlipSnack - A stylish way to create and share PDFs as flipping books.

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Explore.org Free to Use Photos and Videos

Explore has more than 30,000 photographs in its digital archive of photography — and you are free to use any of them, as long as it is not for commercial purposes. They do ask that you leave their explore.org watermark intact.

Their "video library is a collection of educational "pearls" that are well suited to supplement many types of lesson plans, from presentations on multiculturalism to interactive classes on environmental and wildlife preservation. Films range in length from minute-long segments to longer documentary pieces on a particular region (e.g., China, India, the Arctic)."

The photos can be used individually or you can embed the entire photo album from Explore.org as shown in this example, Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which is home to the Kaaba, the place toward which all Muslims face during daily prayers.



You can also easily embed the videos as the code is provided for each. Not all but most have transcript available.This will be super for ADA compliance. The following sample is Truth behind the Veil – Islamic Women in Saudi Arabia.

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Woophy

Woophy is a site where anyone can upload photos to share with the world. But Woophy goes one step further. Photos are pinned to a map of the world as seen in thumbnail to the left. Users can search by clicking on the map, or by typing in a keyword. When you hover over a pin the name of the city and country where the photo was taken appears. Check out the group of photos submitted by Zeeg on Woophy.

Presently, there are 844,838 photos on Woophy from 41,716 cities. Woophy Terms of Use state: Visitors of woophy.com can download a low resolution image of all photos you upload. They are allowed to use this for non-commercial, personal purposes only.

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Critical Past

Critical Past offers more than 57,000 historic videos and 7 million photos for FREE in one of the world's largest collections of royalty-free archival stock footage. Link to the videos and/or photos free of charge.

You can search the site by decade or topic. I searched "Wichita, KS" and found this video about Joyland.

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Fotobabble

Have you ever wanted to verbally explain what is going on it a photo but did't want to write it down? Check out this link (credit goes to Eddie Andreo for finding this)called Fotobabble

So upload a photo, put on your headset and give it a try!

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The New Flip SlideHD

Today Cisco released its newest member of the Flip Video Camera Family - the Flip SlideHD. New features include:

• Record up to four hours of HD video


• 3-inch wide touchscreen to show your favorite videos instantly


• Store up to 12 hours of videos and photos in Space Saver format


• Headphone jack (headphones not included) to enjoy your videos in any setting

Check it out in the video below or online at Flip Video.

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Fotopedia

Do you need images for your course? Or, do your students need images for assignment projects? Fotopedia is the place to find both and more. It is sort of a photo-encyclopedia, but it also contains information about most of the photos on the site. You can also add your photos and/or information. In this way Fotopedia is somewhat like Wikipedia - on steroids.

The best part is that an embed link is readily available for the photos so you can easily and legally, add the content to your course.

According to the site, "Fotopedia is breathing new life into photos by building a photo encyclopedia that lets photographers and photo enthusiasts collaborate and enrich images to be useful for the whole world wide web."

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