As we all know, it’s important to avoid infringing on copyrighted material. So, how can you find excellent quality images to use in presentations or on blogs without having to pay expensive royalty fees to use licensed material? The simple answer is to use the Creative Commons on Flickr. There are literally millions of excellent photos that have various types of creative common licenses that allow you to use them without having to spend money or sacrifice quality!!
How does creative commons work on flickr?
There are several different types of licenses to choose from, you should search for a photo with the license that best fits how you will be using it. Here is a brief description of the different types:
Attribution: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works based upon it but only if credit is given. Noncommercial: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works but for noncommercial purposes only
No Derivative Works: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it. Share alike: Others can distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the work.
If you have not signed up for an account, and plan on using Flickr images in the future, it might be worth it for you to take a minute or two to create a free yahoo account (Flickr’s parent company). One of the many reasons why you would want to have your own Flickr account is because you can conveniently keep track of images that you would like to use. When I am searching for images on Flickr I quite often find other photos that I would like to bookmark for later– since I have an account I can do this quite easily by marking it as a “favorite”. Take a look at the Newbie’s Guide to Flickr for the basics of uploading photos on Flickr or view a presentation that includes a step by step guide to signing up for a free account.
We live in a world where time is precious and the amount of new information that appears every day on any given topic can be overpowering. RSS feeds and RSS reader applications can be very powerful tools for students and professionals who want to tame “information overload” while keeping up with the latest information in their areas of Interest and expertise.
What is RSS and why is it useful?
RSS, short for “Really Simple Syndication”, is a way for Web sites to publish content so that users of RSS reader applications, or “rss aggregators” can easily view links to the site’s latest content. Web sites with RSS-enabled content make their latest pages available to users of RSS reader applications by using links to RSS documents (also referred to as “feeds”, “web feeds”, or “channels”).
Links to RSS “feeds” on RSS-enabled Web sites are typically represented by images labeled as “RSS” or “XML” (short for “eXtensible Markup Language”, the type of code that makes up RSS documents).
In fact, you’ve probably seen them on just about every website you visit, but didn’t know what it was or what it was for!! For some slides on how to recognize feeds and find them on websites, view the short presentation on Slideshare by Kristen.
How can I use a Feed Aggregator to follow RSS feeds?
When RSS feed links are copied into an RSS reader such as Google Reader(web based), Feeddemon (for MS Windows), or NetNewsWire (Mac OSX), the user has “subscribed” to the feed and will be able to viewsummaries of the latest content from the subscribed Web site from within the RSS reader. By subscribing to multiple feeds in an area of interest, or “aggregating” feeds, users can user their RSS reader applications to browse, search, and sort content from many Web sites without having to visit them individually.
This capability can save a great deal of time and allow users to use information from the Web much more productively.
For this week’s screencast, I’ve created a brief demonstration of how to use the Google Reader RSS application to subscribe to an RSS-enabled Web site. If you are new to the idea of using a feed reader, it’s probably best to start out with using Google Reader. However; there many different feed readers available for any platform with a variety of interfaces. Here’s a chart comparing the different features of three popular feedreaders: Bloglines, Google Reader, and Newsgator with a list of pros and cons for each. If you are looking for a list of feed aggregators and tools, take a look at Mashable’s Ultimate RSS Toolkit. RSS feeds and RSS readers can be used to easily and effectively keep up with the latest news headlines, journal abstracts, blog entries, and organizational activities.
Are you currently using an RSS reader application to make the Web’s latest, greatest content manageable and useful? Can you provide any examples of great RSS-enabled Web sites? Please leave your ideas in the comment section or email them to me at jbehnke@fordham.edu or Kristen at treglia@fordham.edu. We would love to hear from you!!!
Hopefully, you have signed up for your AccessIT ID and have started using MyFiles as a way to backup or store your files online.
If you have, you are probably familiar with the basic features such as uploading, sharing, and downloading files but might not yet know about some of the other useful features you can take advantage of like Webfolders.
So what is a webfolder and why should you use it?
Good question, to get the answer, take a look at the latest screencast Jim has prepared for us:
The Blackboard course shells for the summer semester will be up on April 17th. We’ve started getting phone calls from teachers who want to start preparing their courses for the summer now and don’t want to have to wait so I thought I would post some easy to follow directions on getting a head start:
1. Archive a copy of an “old” course shell (Control Panel: Archive Course).
2. Modify the information in this course shell with the materials for your summer course.
3. When the new course shells become available, use the course copy feature to copy the material from the “old” course into the new course shell (Control Panel: Course Copy: Copy Course Materials into an Existing Course”.
**Remember, in order for your students to see your course, you must make the course available**
(1) Select the course you want to make available.
(2) Click on the Control Panel.
(3) Click on Settings.
(4) Click on Course Availability.
(5) Click on Yes and Submit.
These steps will make the course available, and allow students access into your blackboard course.
If you are new to Blackboard, or would like some help, you can email blackboard@fordham.edu or contact the FTC on your campus.
This tip comes via Crackberry.com which is one of the most trafficked BlackBerry community sites on the net. Chances are, if you are a Blackberry user you’ve already bookmarked this site for downloads/apps or Blackberry help. Here’s one of their helpful posts in the Blackberry 101 series on Keyboard shortcuts.
Hello ITAC blog readers, my name is James Behnke. I have been working with the Psychology Department since last November as their IT Liaison and will be a regular weekly contributor to this blog.
Having worked as a teacher, technical trainer, and I.T. Administrator for a school district, I am keenly aware of how important it is to foster information technology literacy an educational institution. In my efforts to assist members of the psychology department with their utilization of information technology resources, I’ve recently gotten into the habit of creating brief, Web-based multimedia tutorials commonly referred to as “screencasts”. These screencasts, such as the one below, demonstrate the technical operations and software features needed to accomplish discrete, useful tasks using various computer applications.
Going forward, I will be contributing more screencasts to this blog on a variety of topics that I hope will be of interest to members of the Fordham community and serve to raise awareness of the many useful information technology resources available to them.
I am hopeful that these posts will generate a lot of user feedback that will enable me to better target the needs of readers. If you have any questions or suggestions, I can be contacted by email at behnke@fordham.edu.
For the curious and those who want to explore creating their own screencast software demonstrations, the application that I use for creating screencasts is Jing. It is free and very easy to use.
This afternoon I will be giving a presentation to a couple of classes on using digital media in presentations. I’ll also be talking about some exciting and useful tools that they can use. This weekend I’ll upload a copy of the slides I used for the presentation (minus the animation). Feel free to download and use it!! (you will see the animation used when you download the file to view the slideshow)
Have you ever gone back to look at a video that you bookmarked, but it’s not there anymore? There are several sites that can help you download videos from sites like youtube, teachertube, or hulu.
Keepvid: Just enter the page url and click “Download”.
Video sites (YouTube is not the only show in town!):
TeacherTube: It’s the Education version of YouTube, for teachers and students.
Godtube: It’s a Christian version of YouTube. All things Christian welcomed.
5min – Collection of videos that can visually explain anything in 5 minutes.
Travelistic: – A video sharing site that allows users to post video content specific to travel.
TED: Talks given by the world’s leading thinkers and doers.
Discovery Science Channel Videos Hulu: Movies and TV shows
This morning I gave a short presentation to class of adults in the College at 60 program at Fordham. The presentation covered topics in basic computer such as using search engines and using email. I also discussed different Web 2.0 applications and websites of interest. We didn’t get a chance to talk about everything, but here is a copy of the presentation followed by a list of links:
Websites of Interest: Delicious Social Bookmarking site. Sign up for a free account and save your favorite websites online.
TED Inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers Physorg Science news updated throughout the day Impact Lab Science blog updated daily DeviceTechnology blog updated daily Discover Magazine
Common Craft Shows Complex ideas are easy to understand with the short, simple videos on various topics
StumbleUponGreat way to surf the web. Sign up for an account and set your preferences. When you click on the stumbleupon button on your browser you will be taken to random websites within the categories you have specified that have been rated by other users.
The FTCs on all three campuses will be hosting open houses every day the week of 9/8 to showcase our new technologies and offer interested a faculty an opportunity to drop by and see what we’re all about.
Attribution: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works based upon it but only if credit is given.
Noncommercial: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform copyrighted and derivative works but for noncommercial purposes only
No Derivative Works: Others can copy/distribute/display/perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based upon it.
Share alike: Others can distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the work.
