learningIT

LIFE magazine provided Google with their photo library, now we have Europeana. Internet users will be able to access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films.

Europeana – the European digital library, museum and archive – is a 2-year project that began in July 2007. It will produce a prototype website giving users direct access to some 2 million digital objects, including film material, photos, paintings, sounds, maps, manuscripts, books, newspapers and archival papers.

(the site was down for a major part of the day so keep trying)

The BBC Reports:

Surfing the internet, playing games and hanging out on social networks are important for teen development, a large study of online use has revealed.

The report counters the stereotypical view held by many parents and teachers that such activity is a waste of time.

More than 800 teenagers and parents took part in the three-year US project.

“They are learning the technological skills and literacy needed for the contemporary world,” said the report’s author, Dr Mimi Ito.

“They are learning how to communicate online, craft a public identity, create a home page, post links.

“All these things were regarded as sophisticated 10 years ago but young people today take them for granted,” Dr Ito told the BBC.

Click here for the full story.

From the Google Blog:

The Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; The Mansell Collection from London; Dahlstrom glass plates of New York and environs from the 1880s; and the entire works left to the collection from LIFE photographers Alfred Eisenstaedt, Gjon Mili, and Nina Leen. These are just some of the things you’ll see in Google Image Search today.

We’re excited to announce the availability of never-before-seen images from the LIFE photo archive. This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We’re digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.

Not too sure if this is essential but thought I should share it anyway. May be of use to elementary students as it is quite simple to use and may help design comic books, greeting cards etc. (though there are more integrated options if you own a Mac). I am looking forward to their video version though. They state the following (click here to go to the site):

Upload your image and start using the cartoonizer tool to warp, sketch and color your cartoon. Add all kinds of frames, graphics and shapes to your design and then share it on your favorite social networks including FaceBook, Myspace, Hi5, Friendster and Bebo. No special art school education or graphic design skills are needed.

Here’s one I made:

From Engagdet (Thanks Brian L. for the tip!):

If you’ve been waiting for that Minority Report-style interface to really come to fruition, you can finally exhale. One of the science advisors from the Steven Spielberg film — along with a team of other zany visionaries — has created an honest-to-goodness, real-world implementation of the computer systems seen in the movie. Dubbed g-speak, the mind bending OS combines “gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels,” to deliver what the creators call “the first major step in [a] computer interface since 1984.” There are some things that need to seen to be understood, so watch the video after the break, and prepare to have your mind thoroughly blown to bits.

From TED:The powerful link between creativity and play

At the 2008 Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play — with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn’t).

Basically, playfulness in the workplace and in schools can help us be more creative and productive.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. I simply use a screen capture to keep mine. What a great way to save keywords for brainstorms in the classroom. Here are two I have created. One for story-telling and the other for myself. This has also been added to the “Cool Web Tools” page.

Mashface “…is stupid, fun and free.” It’s in beta mode and well….ah, yeah, it’s kind of stupid. Basically you select a photo and then video insert your eyes, mouth etc into that. I can see some potential in it too. I could see this making a good history project using a photo of a world leader, a famous artist or an inventor etc. with dialogue recorded by a student. (Hmmm).

Better yet, try out Xtranormal. “If you can type, you can make movies.” Select your actors, location and begin typing the dialogue. As you type the dialogue, you may insert expressions and camera angles. It’s quit simple really.

Lawrence Lessig launched his latest book “Remix” on October 29 in San Francisco. Brave New Films put a celebratory video together for this extraordinary man. Sit back and enjoy this entirely creative commons video created by friends of Lessig who all pay tribute!

Recently I have been posting about presentations. At some point we all have to do it and depending on our audience, we all do it in different ways. Some students and teachers at my school are attempting to present, share and collaborate while at the same time trying new formats.

First of all, our grade 4s are inquiring about Japanese culture and what makes it unique. Students have been asked to take pictures of unique elements relating to Japanese culture (every student has a camera equipped cell phone here). These photos are then sent to the teacher who has set up a Posterous account. As a grade level, they will use this information to define Japanese culture and think about how history and geography have shaped it. If you are knowledgeable about Japan, have visited or are interested in Japan, have a look at the student photos and leave a comment for them. I guarantee it will motivate them. Click here to visit the site.

Our High School History students have also used Flowgram (an interactive guided presentation) to share information related to American gangsters of the 20s and 30s. Perhaps it was to tie into the American Presidential Election? (Sorry…I couldn’t resist). Click here to view.