The Redback Project

Tags

I am sure you have seen the little section for “tag” in your blog by now. In fact as I write this page there is the little box underneath where I am typing, what are they you ask?
Remember when you were back in school, during revision you highlighted text in your notes, to easily find specific thoughts or themes. Or using sticky notes to mark/highlight specific parts in a book, labelling them so you can find it more easily. Tags help you to find relevant information using specific key words from information across the internet.
Tags effectively organise lots of information. You can use tags on text, images, videos, music, photos, podcasts etc. They will give it a “label” that search engines can find. They organise your information into categories, so it can easily be put together.
I have labelled many of the posts I have created for the Redback Project “ictatemc” or “redback project”. This means if anyone does a search, anything with these tags will be found.

If you want to share your blog with other people it’s a good idea to include tags relevant to your posts, that way when someone is searching for a specific topic they can find your relevant tags. By adding tags you create a way to attract viewers to your blog. Sharing and reading other blogs, posting comments is the basis of the collaborative nature of Web 2.0

Social Bookmarking

Another way to use tags is to arrange your bookmarks. Have you ever been on a computer and couldn’t remember that great site you have bookmarked on “the other computer”. There are a range of online bookmarking sites, but one of the most popular, regularly making its way to the top of the Web 2.0 tool greatest sites lists is del.icio.us Del.icio.us allows you to add your bookmarks to your account from any computer. When you want to find “those great sites on art history” you go to your del.icio.us account and type in your tag. All of the sites you have bookmarked with those tags will come up, regardless of when or where you posted it from.

Images

The internet is overflowing with images of all sorts… some which are appropriate, many which are not. Some available to use, many which are copyright protected, however, this protection is not a lock and key, it is honesty and ethical use of images you may find on the internet.

There are many online image sites which allow you to use the images you find on them for a range of projects. Using tag information you can find the type of image you are after. Here are some links.

Tech4Learning

Pic App

Gimp Savvy

Archive.org

There are lots of ways to share images, places like Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa give you a place to put your images on the web and share them with friends, family and anyone around the world. Each of these sites have a range of special tools which you can use to play with your images. You can use your phone camera to send an mms to many of these sites, or to a special “moblog” such as Radar or Moblogs

There are also a range of sites which you can use to create your own images.

Hockneyiser - Create your own collage effects at the click of a button

Simpsoniser – very much fun to create avatars with that Simpson feel, based on your image.

The Glass Giant – This has heaps of different options for making different images to add to your blog, wiki or website.

Voki – create your own animated talking avatar

Graffiti Creator – Create and customise your own graffiti banners

MagMyPic – Put your photo onto the front page of a magazine

Fodey – has a range of image generators including the ninja one and newspaper clippings

Easy Street create your own street sign.

You can see some of the images I have created at my Flickr site, sadly you will have to look at home, as we don’t have access at school. You are able to add to this album either by email or mms, and I will send you the link, to add your images to the album.

I use Picasa for my family pics, send the email link to my family overseas, and have the albums locked so only those people I want to see them can (the link is to my public galleries).

How can images be used in your class? The most common way is as an illustration, but creating the image can be the learning, or manipulating it, capturing the excitement in your classroom, or a procedure, or using it as a starting point for discussions. What other ways do you use images in your classes?