Saturday, March 20, 2010

Thing #6: Mashups and 3rd Party Sites



Well, I tried visiting several of the sites mentioned on the Library2play blog. I visited Mappr and enjoyed playing with Splatter but had trouble with Tile Drawer. I did not understand the instructions - they looked very technical and complicated. So I switched to Flickr Color Pickr and viewed the color wheel with Flickr Central and all the photos from the central pool. There did not seem to be a connection to Creative Commons photos.

I liked Bookr, but was a little confused on how I would create a book with photos from Creative Commons. Maybe I missed some instruction somewhere - how do you pick the photos and give credit as you make the book? Mosaic Maker looked like fun - you had to link your Flickr account and again, I could not figure out how to credit the pictures so I did not finish the book.

I visited the Librarian Trading Cards and was surprised to find few recent posts. But I really like the idea of trading cards so I visited Trading Card Maker and made the card you see at left. I avoided the credit/citing issue by using one of my own. I really like the idea that the students can make something in a relatively short period of time and show what they have learned. If reviewing a book, they can put the title and author and 3 to 4 points to list in the description: character, brief plot, likes, dislikes, overall rating, etc. As they master this and other 2.0 skills they can put them together in a slide show or podcast to show the books they have read or states they have researched, or people they have studied, etc.

I also took a look at some of the other products available on BigHugheLabs. They have lots of great stuff - I used another picture from my trip to make this motivational poster. And they have a place to credit the photo when making a poster!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Thing #5 Flickr

I uploaded this photo by bry105063 from Flickr. We have a dog that looks very similar to the one in the forefront. I have spent several days roaming around the website, playing with different aspects. This photo is from Creative Commons. I chose it from the section labeled: Attribution-NonCommercial License. Once I had practiced downloading and inserting the picture, I decided to check out one of the groups, the Caffineated Librarians group. This is a small group with pictures, but no discussion. I guess they are too busy to talk! I really liked the map with locations of the members - nice visual. We have been using photos with the students in the after-school program as we are discovering the MacBook laptops. The photos are chosen, loaded on a stick drive, and then downloaded onto the laptops for the students to practice with iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband. I can see that there are many different ways you can use this website.