Aviary – Free Graphic Tools

In my constant quest for finding quality tools for free, I’ve come across Aviary – a collection of image tools, all beautifully designed and easy to use. The cornerstone of the collection is Phoenix a desktop image editor, perfect for those quick photo-editing tasks like cropping, rotating and touch-ups. Because it’s web-based, it’s always to hand and it loads really quickly. It also supports layers which is fantastic if you’re combining images.

Also in the collection is Toucan, a colour editor. This allows you to explore how colours are related and look together. Great if you’re looking at colour wheels and colour theory as part of an art project.

Other tools include Peacock, an effects editor (tricky to get the hang of to begin with, but great fun once you get going); Raven, a vector editing tool (comprehensive and easy to use). Finally there’s Falcon which allows you to mark up images and make easy screen captures.

Falcon is the application I use the most. If you’re using Firefox as your browser, I strongly suggest you install the Falcon plug-in (Talon) since it give you the power of this handy tool while you’re browsing the web. It’s great for making, cropping and saving screen captures. Yes, it has replaced Cropper as my preferred method for doing this!

Finally, a very handy trick is provided by Aviary. If you’re wanting to capture part of a webpage just type Aviary.com/ in front of the web address (URL) in your browser’s address bar. Try it!

Finally, why the bird theme? Apparently, it’s creation on the fly…!

BBC Class Clips

Some of you may recall the Creative Archive Licence that was launched a few years ago. The idea behind it was that some of the archives of some of our quality broadcasters would be made available for use in education and creative projects.

From the BBC’s side of things, it all went quiet about two years ago. However, I stumbled across a new service that is located in the BBC’s Schools section – Class Clips.

This is a superb collection of over 2000 educational videos that aren’t only bits of stock footage, but extracts of educational programming  that can be used in a wide range of contexts. The searching is clean and simple and watching the clips is easy. You can view them via the web page or copy and paste various URLs so that you can hyperlink directly to just the video (see Video Options at the bottom of the right hand menu).

(And for those of you that read my last post, yes, the above image was created in three clicks!)

Visual Literacy

Spell with Flickr

Spell with Flickr  Spell with flick grabs images from flickr (the One Letter and One Digit groups) and uses them to spell what you’ve typed in. These would be great for classroom display. They can also be embedded within a blog, wiki or website.

Online image editing

Picnik

I really liked Picnik . I can see this being really useful especially in conjunction with something like the ASUS minibook where the limited memory is going to require that most of the software used will be online tools. You can use for free or upgrade to remove the advertising, which may be beneficial for school use. Interesting tools include blemish removal and teeth whitener!!

Big huge labs

It is easy to get so distracted when looking at the array of online tools available. On this site I had great fun creating my own identity badge to be a member of NASA!!! Would be really good for roleplay or school events with a few plastic lanyards. There are numerous frames for images including postage stamp borders and Polaroid style frames. I also used the Warholize tool – see the site for more details!! Please be aware that links within these sites could take you to other websites which maybe less desirable.

 Creative Commons Search Engine

http://search.creativecommons.org/

This search service helps you quickly find those authors and the work they have marked as free to use with only “some rights reserved.” If you respect the rights they have reserved (which will be clearly marked, as you’ll see) then you can use the work without having to contact them and ask. In some cases, you may even find work in the public domain — that is, free for any use with “no rights reserved. This is a teacher tool rather than for Primary aged pupils.

Wikipedia in the Classroom

Many people know of Wikipedia - the online, collaborative encyclopedia that is perhaps the most famous example of a wiki website.

Many of us would also agree that it is a great resource for reference material, images and statistics. However, it is a full encyclopedia, not written for an audience of young people. Not only are there articles on subjects we would probably not want in the primary classroom and images that we wouldn’t want chidlren to watch - the actual article text isn’t usually child friendly. There are two ways around this:

The first is to use the language feature built into Wikipedia. On the left hand side, underneath the Search box and the Tool Box, sits the Language box. Here you can click to see the article in different languages. One of those languages is often “Simple English”. If this is displayed, it means someone has rewritten the article in a simplified way, using easier language. However, the content still may not be suitable for children.If Simple English isn’t displayed, then no one has rewritten the article. You also may find that the Simple English version is too light on information. If either of these situations is the case, why not click on the “Edit this Page” tab at the top of the article and write it yourself?

The second way is to use Wikipedia’s own hand-checked, non-commercial version, targeted around the UK National Curriculum. This can be found here. It’s not as comprehensive as the full encyclopedia, but it seems to have more than enough for many primary school users. The whole selection can also be downloaded onto a DVD disk.

Photo editing

With the recent explosion in the use of digital cameras in schools, many teachers and pupils are wanting to edit their photographs. However, the tools often available in the standard paint programs found in schools don’t offer the range of tools that users require.

We’ve found Photofiltre (http://photofiltre.free.fr/) to be an excellent tool for some of the more advanced photo editing tools that you may require. It has a good range of filter tools as well as a selection of artistic tools to make photographs resemble oil paintings, pencil sketches etc. It’s also useful since it supports transparency and allows you to have two images open at the same time.

Another useful tool is the online photo editor http://www.splashup.com/ which apart from offering a comprehensive range of tools, supports layers. However, it is perhaps for the more confident user. A more clunk and click editor that also has an impressive selection of features is www.fotoflexer.com. Both of these can be linked to online photo albums (such as Filckr or Picassa) and can be used without signing up which is useful in the classroom. Take a look also at phixr.com which has a wide range of tools, pixenate.com which has an interesting interface and snipshot.com which is very straightforward to use.

For pure fun and wackiness try Flickr Toys at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ Here you’ll be able to create movie posters, calendars, blog headers, motivaltional style posters and a whole lot more.

Finally, our friends at Common Craft have another great video. This one is all about online photo sharing.

Subject Leaders’ Meeting

Yesterday, 26 teachers attended the first of this year’s Primary ICT Subject Leader meetings at the Brislington CLC.

The focus of the day was WEB 2.0 and the changing nature of education in light of the way technology is affecting working practices and allowing access to a wealth of resources and information.

The feedback from the day was fantastic – everyone commenting on how useful they found the day. As usual, there was a lot to take in, but in the true spirit of the day, the support material from this blog will allow participants to follow up those areas they feel most interested in.

The venue also proved to be a hit with people really enjoying the surroundings and having access to the computers. The Chill Out Room was very popular – allowing space to discuss key issues as well as take a break from the computers!

Please keep checking the meeting’s support PAGE. New items have been added already. In particular more support material for Scratch.

We’ll also post some advice on creating a custom image header for your WordPress blog. Many people wanted to create a fancy header after being inspired by ours!

Results of the Making the News session can be seen HERE.