Digital Images

(Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/heritagefutures/5819962079)

Over the last few weeks we have been learning about and then working with digital images.  Digital images are something that most of us work with quite often but do not put much thought into.  I have definitely learned a lot about them that I did not know.  I knew of the different ways to get digital images, but I did not know the importance of copyright on pictures that are found online.  I knew that pictures were resizeable and were of different formats, but I learned what these sizes and formats actually meant.  I feel that this better understanding of digital images will help me greatly when I get into the classroom.

One of the first things we discussed about digital images was how to obtain them.  The best way is of course to take an image with your own digital camera or phone.  You can also get a digital image by scanning another picture through a scanner, using a webcam, or by from an image sharing source.  If you take a picture yourself you never have to worry about whether or not you are breaking copyright by using that image.  It is yours and you are free to use it as much as you want and in any place that you want.  If your scanning pictures you need to be careful to avoid scanning an image that is copyrights that would restrict its use.  A webcam is sufficient for obtaining images of oneself but their quality is not good enough for most purposes.  An image sharing source can be a great way to get images, but again one must use caution when doing this.  There are dedicated sights that allow one to download images free of cost, giving you the rights to use that picture.  An example is Flickr Creative Commons.  You can also obtain disks such as the Big Box of Art that contain hundreds of images for you to use.  For in classroom educational purposes images can also be taken from Google images, or any other website for that matter, but one must be really careful in doing so.  You do not actually have the rights to use these images for any purpose outside of face to face teaching.  You cannot post them in a project online or edit them in any way.

Resizing a digital image can make a big difference in how much space it takes on a disk and how long it takes to load, but may not make a noticeable difference in its quality.  For example, an image that is going to be used on the internet does not have to be in a high resolution or of great size.  It needs to only have a 72 revolution, which means 72 square pixels per inch of the image.  For printing an image out a resolution much higher is appropriate.  By making images smaller for the internet they take less time to load for the user.  I also learned about the different formats in which images come.  Many images are in the JPEG format, which is usually the default format of most cameras.  These images are good for posting online and for printing.  There are also GIF, PNG, and TIFF files that all have their uses on the web.  GIF and PNG are only for small web images, whereas TIFF files are very large and are for web and print based projects.  There is also another important difference between some images.  Raster images, those that are taken by cameras and consist of pixels, can distort when being resized.  Vector images, images that are created in drawing programs, can be stretched and shrunk continuously without distortion.

By spending some time learning about digital images I feel as though it better prepares me for being an educator.  I will be better equipped when working with images and will know which format I need, how to resize it, and the copyright restrictions associated with it.  I will also be able to help my students in obtaining their own images for projects.  Lastly, I will be able to use images in teaching that will help promote understanding and interest for my students.

ABC Scavenger Hunt on a Picasa Web Album

This is the Picasa Web Album with the images from the scavenger hunt that my group completed. Our task was to do the ABC Scavenger Hunt by finding things on campus that went along with letters A-L of the alphabet. I think the images and the album turned out quite nicely. Tell me what you think!

Digital Scavenger Hunt

As part of this weeks lessons we did scavenger hunts!  When I heard that we were doing scavenger hunts I was really excited because I love scavenger hunts!  We split up into teams by content area to complete our hunts.  My team had four different Elementary options for the scavenger hunt project. We chose the ABC project.  With this we went out onto campus and searched for things that began with the letters of the alphabet.  We then photographed one object for each letter.

When first looking at the projects I thought that this would be a relatively simple scavenger hunt, but I was a little surprised at how hard it was to come up with objects for some of the letters.  B, for example, was really easy.  We instantly thought of bricks, bicycles, and a few other things that started with B.  Other letters such as I and K took a little more creativity.  After dwelling on what we were going to do for these letters we realized that two really good options were already in our pockets: the iPhone and Keys! All in all it was a really fun project and was a nice change from setting in the classroom and working on the computes the whole time.

To continue our scavenger hunt project we are now going to take our images that we collected and edit them, and then put them into a Picasa Web Album and into a Google Presentation.  Using a presentation we could help children learn and polish their ABC's and letter sounds by showing them things that begin with those letters.  Collecting images and making a presentation could be helpful for teaching many different things to children of all ages across all of the subject areas.

Using similar techniques we could use scavenger hunts with our future students.  While younger children would have a hard time splitting up into groups and doing one, a teacher could take the whole classroom on a tour through their city with a scavenger hunt in mind.  When I was in the 3rd grade my teacher took us out on a walking tour of our city and made a local field trip out of the day.  She gave us questions to answer and things to look for as we did our tour.  I remember really enjoying this because I learned things that I never knew about the place I lived.  I remember taking a disposable camera with me and taking pictures of things that I thought were interesting.  I believe that I could do something similar with my future class.

Wordle

As we continue to learn about Web 2.0 tools our groups have started to teach the entire class about specific tools.  This week one of the groups taught the rest of the class about Wordle.  Wordle is a Web 2.0 tool that allows one to make a word cloud of their own words, and then print it out or save it to their computer.

I had previously used Wordle several years ago, but was not very familiar with it and did not know how advanced that it could be.  In the above image I made a simple word cloud of the vocabulary words of the water cycle.  Using some of the tips from class I made "The Water Cycle" stay together and made it larger than the other words.  And then, I was able to make the more important words a little larger than the least important words.  Using the randomize tool I was able to go through various designs until I found a layout that I liked.  I then finished it off by changing the colors.

Wordle is a tool that could be used in many different ways in the classroom.  Teachers could make word clouds of vocabulary words or key words from a specific lesson.  They could also let their students make their wordles that included the main points of a book or lesson, or maybe as a get-to-know assignment in which the students made a wordle that included some references to their favorite things.  I believe the possibilities are really endless.  I think students would enjoy using this tool, and that teachers could come up with many different ways to incorporate it into their classrooms.d

A Closer Look at Web 2.0 Tools

We all rely on the internet quite a bit.  We use it to stay connected, look up information, entertain ourselves, and work.  This week we have been looking at Web 2.0 tools in class.  These are tools that allow a user to create a project or a task completely on the internet without using a separate program downloaded to the computer.  The great thing about Web 2.0 Tools is that they are accessible from almost anywhere and they are for the most part free.  You can start working on something on one computer and then go back and complete it on a different computer thousands of miles away, all without having to have some sort of special program.  All you need is the internet.  To better understand tools we were put into groups that were assigned different tools to research.  Some of these included Google Docs, Pixlr, and Wordle.  My group was assigned to research Strorybird.

A screen shot of my Storybird in progress.

Storybird is a tool that allows users to look at and read virtual storybooks.  It can be used by anyone, but could prove especially useful in the classroom.  Besides being able to read virtual storybooks you can also create your own!  You find artwork that you like on their website and then draft a story around that image, using other pictures from the same artist to complete your story.  Once you choose one image the tool automatically gives you images from the same artist that will go along well with the one you chose so that you can make multiple pages.

I really enjoyed getting to learn how to use Storybird, and am excited about being able to teach my class about it in a few weeks.  I am in the process of completing my first story and am having a lot of fun with it!  As a future elementary teacher I see Storybird as a valuable tool that I could use in my classroom.  I could find stories that relate to something I am teaching, or make my own that would be customized to my class.  Students could also search for Storybirds that they would enjoy, or get creative and make their own!