Big Huge Labs

This is another FREE source to do fun and creative things with pictures.

When you get to the website http://bighugelabs.com/ you have a number of options. Many of the options do not require joining any other site, but some do (i.e. flikr). So, do some experimenting before you ask students to try it out.

You can

• make a motivational poster

• Magazine cover

• Movie poster

• Trading card

• Captioner

• Billboard

These allow you to take an image and then through their simple step by step process you add additional text.

There also are some fun picture related tools including

• color palette generator

• bead art

To create the image you simply select which thing you want to do. I am going to show the picture captioner.

First select where the picture is. If it is saved on your computer, select browse and upload the picture.

You then can type in what will be in your speech bubble or thought bubble. Then when you click create, you are able to move all the bubbles around to create your image. You then can save it, edit it, or print it.

Google Images

Did you know that Google Image can do great advance searching options to help you more quickly find a picture or image that you need?
How to get there- 1. Go to Google. 2. Click on the images link. 3. Click on Advanced Searching Options.

You can type in your search words. In your search you could specify color or size.
You can also specify the content type: any content, news content, faces, photo content, clip art, and line drawings.

You can determine the size or aspect ratio. You can also determine the type of files (jpg, gif, png, bmp). You can also determine if an image is black and white or color.

You can also filter pictures by the use/copyright that is allowed with them. If you encourage students to use “labeled for commercial use with modification” you are able to use it and could sell it and change the image if you wanted to.
In all the three picture examples, I searched for "yellow bird" and did so with photo, clip art, and line drawing. If you have a very specific image in mind, this can be an easy way to filter what you are looking at to more quickly get what you want.

Calendar Sign Up short tutorial

We will now use our "Google Apps" calendar to sign up for Moblie Labs, LCD and more.

Where are the Calendars located:  
The calendars are on the left hand side of the page. You should find them under "Other Calendar". You should only find calendar's appropiate to what you teach, for example elementary teachers will not see the HS mobile lab.
* If you think you should be able to view/use a calendar that you are not currently able to view, please email me @ rburrow@ecsdcards.com to request to view a calendar. Since I am individually adding teachers to the calendar, I may have unintentionally neglected to add you to the list of people I am sharing the calendar with.

To View a Calendar:
Make sure the calendar is darkened in the color. If it is white with the name of the calendar in the color, you are not currently viewing the calendar.
* This is an advantage over the Outlook Calendar. You can easily only look at the LCD calendars and not have to look at the library and computers.
To Hide a Caledar:  Click on the caledar so that it goes pale/white. You will still be able to see the name of the calendars you are a part of, but it is live and you can view it when it is dark.

Signing up for/Create an Event: 

To get to the "add an event screen":
1. Click on "Create an event" in the upper left hand corner of the page.
2. You can double click on the calendar in the spot you want to add an event.
* This is set up to do events on 30 minute intervals. It also only automaticall gives you the "what" box. You will need to choose which calendar to sign up on through the drop down box. If you are wanting to add additional information, you can click on "edit details" and will see the regular " create an event sign up screen"

What: Please enter your Name, Class and period.
For example- Peterson US History 5th per. [For next year, having similar periods for MS and HS will make this especiall helpful].
When: You will need to select/enter the correct date. By clicking once in the date a drop down calendar will appear. You can eiter type the date or click on the date on the caledar.
* for the "when" please do not select the "all day" even if you are using it all day. This will appear at the top of the day, and is not as clear to see and with how the features of the calendar work could lead to double booking as google does not apper to to have a pop up to prevent you from signing up at the same time as someone else.
Where: At this time I would like to use this part of the calendar to put number of students (especially for computers) or identifying that you are only planning to use something for the 2nd half of the period. Also for the library this would be the appropiate place to note if you are planning to use tables or computers or both.
Calendar:  This is probably the MOST important part of the signup. You will need to select which calendar you are signing up on. Due to how the calendars are set up, the calendar is which item you are signing up for. Please be careful in checking what items you are signing up for.

Reminder: We will have to see how all of this works, but you can send an email reminder or choose pop up. Since I created the calendar, I am not sure if I will get all of the reminders or if the creator of the events will. This part may be a work in progress.

To view more details on an event:

If you click once on the dark "time bar" at the top of an event, it will bring up a details box with all of the information given on an event. It will show the where, and who added the event. This is an easy way to find out how many laptops someone else is using or if there are extra computers in the library.


WARNINGS:
1. It is easy to delete items that are not yours. Please be careful. We have not had malicious deleting of items in the notebook or on the online calendar, but it will be easy to accedently delete items that are not your own.

AEA's Webisite

For those of you who have not been to the AEA website recently, it looks very different than the last time you most likely saw it. The thinking was to have a more “user friendly” site to the public.

Things you might be looking for:

Online Resources and the Databases:

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select, “media library.” This will take you to a number of different links. “ComCat”- this is a way to do interlibrary loan through the school library. If you are interested in this we will need to work to set up a school account, so please talk to me. “Media Net” is the AEA catalog of books, DVD and other resources. “Online Databases” are the databases that I have been highlighting over the last year. “World of Media” is the newsletter article and blog that AEA puts out about using technology and resources in the content areas.

 

Online Databases: I am in the process of revamping the main library page, the elementary library page, and the MS/HS library page. I will have all of these databases linked from the library page. If these are databases you frequently want students to use, you also could link them from your own web pages or have a link to the library page.

World of Media

Did you know that World of Media that comes from the AEA each month is now available online?
http://wom.aea11.k12.ia.us/

World of Media is set up into curriculum areas and offers tips of online resoruces and using these resources in your content area. While many of the tools that are out there are great for all areas, this does explore all areas that people may teach. This is also a great way to see what others are doing that is innovative with technology, creative use of technology, and is also student centered.

This is currently set up as a blog. It has older "world of media" going back to 2008. At this point you can not search for topics, but all of the posts are in the "in this issue" and by clicking on the arrows you can easily browse the titles of articles in that month's issue. Many of the short articles include links for the sites they are suggesting.

Discovery Science- DE Streaming

Also part of Discovery Education is Discovery Science. This is only currently available through Heartland (www.aea11.k12.ia.us) under the “resources and research tools”.[You can access it through Iowa AEA online (http://www.iowaaeaonline.org/) but since you have a Heartland AEA online you will be directed to Heartland's extra features, i.e. DE Science.  After you log in, you will have the option of going to DE Streaming (which I featured in the previous blog post) or DE Science. After clicking on DE Science, you will have the option of “elementary” or “middle school”.

Under the Elementary Science you can search: earth science, life science, and physical science. These are broken down into smaller topics with tabs and pictures. In the elementary section when you start to get information there are four levels “learn, explore, demonstrate, and extend.” There are also is a glossary of terms off to the right hand side of the page.

Under the Middle School Science you can search: physical science, life science, earth and space science. In the middle school there are virtual labs, explorations, interactive videos, integrated science simulations and more under the “Interact” tab. Under the “watch” tab are video clips and under the “read” tab are articles. Many of these could be teacher directed or student explored. * For those of you that teach the elements - chemistry or physical science- under the middle school section there is a "feature" with an interactive periodic table.

Discovery Education Streaming- DE Streaming

Discovery Education Streaming [also called DE Streaming or United Streaming]
Many of you are already using DE Streaming to show video clips on particular topics. For those of you that may not be familiar with DE Streaming, this is one of the many resources through Iowa AEA and Heartland AEA (www.aea11.k12.ia.us). Video clips are available on numerous topics. Besides showing the videos in class, these videos can also be a dynamic way for students to research about topics in your class. It is VERY easy to search topics. You can also download videos that you want to use over and over and save them to your computer. If you want a video clip at the last minute, this could be helpful. (There are clips for library and using the library, so you should be able to find almost anything that you want).
The videos that are available range from short (less than 1:00) to full length programs being 30 minutes to 45 minutes and some are even an hour. Many of the full length videos are divided into segments so you can watch a 5-10 minute part instead of the entire full length vide. Some of the videos that are in the 2 minute- 4 minute range are great for giving brief explanations on topics. One of the advantages of DE streaming is that you can pause and restart the video. If you are asking students to take notes from the video clip, if all students have a laptop, or are working in one of the computer labs, all students can work at their own pace. When they need to pause to take notes, or write something down, they can. [On a side note, having all students trying to access the same video can really slow down the down loading/ buffering of the video. If you have multiple videos that students are supposed to watch and have students start with different videos, it helps with the speed of downloading of videos].