Activity 26 Digital Image Collections

I really enjoyed playing with this activity. I found two really neat websites that I would like to Blog. My favorite site was the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Digital Library System. This website contained a large collection of still images (photos) from ten different Fish and Wildlife libraries from around the country. They are working on improving the Keyword search feature, but I did a few subject searches and was impressed. As and example I put in a search for Polar Bears, which resulted in 29 records. Once I chose an image to investigate further, I was given the option of downloading the image to my computer. Some came in different sizes so it allowed my to make a choice. I especially liked the fact that it presented me with all the information needed to do a proper citation for the image.
The other website I visited was the NYPL Digital Gallery Their images are arranged by categories. If you knew the category the image you were searching for fell under, one could just search that category. If not the library would search all ten categories. This Free website is divided into Arts and Literature, Cities and Buildings, Culture and Society, History and Geography, Industry and Technology, Nature and Science, and Printing and Graphics.

I didn't stop to search it very far, but the Smithsonian also had a Digital Library listed, as well as many other museums. Students seem to think that the only place to go is a goggle image search. It is nice to point out that there are many other choices out there to explore.

Class April 16th

I must admit that I was not in the best of moods to think about trying anything new on Wednesday night, however you quickly peaked my interest and got me out of my mood and for that I thank you. I had a lot of fun doing the podcast. My only disappointment is the fact that I went to show off my podcast the next day to my student aides and Intern and all I have is a white square. Did any one else find a problem? I hope it is only me, as there were some great podcasts. I wonder if we are missing som sort of plug in on both the mac and pc's in our building? Did anyone find out if we can do more than one without it affecting the previous recording? I can certainly see where this would be a lot of fun to do with a group of students. If we find out that more than one can be recorded it has a lot of potential for us as media specialists. Not only would it be nice for quick notes to the sub, but also for short here's how on our media web pages.

First Podcast

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Thing 28 Photos and Images

The other activity I took time to explore this snowy weekend was I wanted to learn about Flickr. I can certainly see how popular it is. It is owned by Yahoo. It looks like you can use any of 8 different languages to access photos. It claims to have over 2 billion images, and I believe them. It is access able from either PC or Mac. It claims that you just grab your photo and drop it on a map where you took it and it will add it to the files. So I thought great. I am heading to Lancaster, PA this summer maybe I can view some photos about the area to see if I might be interested in visiting. WHOAH, be careful of that. Up pops a bunch of photos of some woman breast feeding her child. I never did locate many photo's showing the location. Glad I didn't try that for the first time in front of a classroom full of children. It looks more like a place for people to dump their personal photos without regard to content. I certainly would not use it with young children. I am sure there are others out there but I stopped looking after that.

Activity 25 Digital Map Collections A Snowy Weekends Work

Well we certainly didn't get the predicted snow fall, but I usually head north to Wisconsin on the weekend. Good thing I didn't as my mother is still snowed in. By Friday night it was up to Dixie's belly (Shitzu) and by Sat afternoon the drifts in her driveway reached her back. Now I know she is not a large dog, but shoveling that heavy snow is a little much. Luckily Mom doesn't have to be anywhere till Wednesday, and the weather should melt the snow to a drivable level by then. It's the end of the drive that is the worst as the county plow did come out and plow so big chunks are at the end of the driveway she said. So I decided it was a good time to catch up on the different activities so here it goes.

I went to three different websites that I would like to share:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gnthtml/gmdhome.html

Library of Congress Website

The map collection is organized by seven categories: Cities and Towns, Conservation and Environment, Discovery and Exploration, General maps, Cultural landscapes, Military Battles and Campaigns, and lastly Transportation and Communication. In most cases a map is only assigned to one of these seven categories, although there may be exceptions.

I typed in Minneapolis, Mn and the computer search of the webite produced 20 different pictures and maps after searching the seven categories. I found the maps hard to see until I zoomed way in but one must remember they are on old parchment paper and have turned a little yellow.

One feature that I found interesting for a website is a whole section devoted to answering questions on copywrite issues and a link to instructions for how to cite electronic sources was provided.

http://www.census.gov

United States Census Bureau

Maps for the United States only. Again I had trouble viewing as it was tiny and light. Good Old Zoom Button. I had to download the maps, but brought them up with the preview feature. I went into the Native American section and called up by tribe different types of information.


http://digital-library.usma.edu/colletions/maps

United States Military Academy at West Point

Great source for civil war maps, colonial and federal maps

Activity 31 Bibliographic Tools

Today I wanted to blog on different bibliography composers I have found on the internet to assist students who are struggling with their bibliography citations. I have used Citation Machine for many years with my 8th grade students. When I came to Henry, I added this link to my home page on the school website to help many of the students who continue to struggle. For this blog activity I tried to locate other tools on line that were free to students. One of our teachers suggested noodletool.com, but unless I am mistaken I didn't find it to be free. Perhaps he subscribes to the service and has his students use his account. There is a free starter account available for grades 1-5 and ESL students. Everything else I clicked on appeared to cost. So I went on the hunt and found www.easybib.com. I didn't like this website. I found it confusing and difficult to navigate. It looked like you would access under mybib, but that it only did MLA Bibliograhies.

I did locate www.studentabc.com as a free service for students. I liked this website, and found teacher resources to be an added bonus. Students can do either an APA or MLA style of bibliography. You can also link it to your home page.

Those using firefox may want to use the extention www.zotero.org.