You may have noticed that your igoogle page looks different – this is because of recent changes. Check out the changes. There are also new and improved gadets to check out!
Update: Looks as if Australia will have to wait a little longer for the new look, I’ve just discovered it’s only available in the US so far.
The above photo was edited using Be Funky.
Use one of your own photos and add special effects from any of the tools below. Upload the image into your blog. Write a review of the site you used and the tools available for editing. Don’t forget to add a link to the site you used to edit your image.
Piknic: crop, resize and tons of special effects.
FotoFlexer: image editor and dazzling photo effects.
DrPic.com: modify and resize your image.
FotoFlexer: online image editor using effects, fonts, distortions, doodles.
Be Funky: cartoonize your photo.
Dumpr: create effects such as photo artist, celebrity, alien, mosaic, rubic’s cube and so on.
image created with dumpr
A really fun thing to do is combine two photos into one via morphing. Visit Morph Thing the online face morpher, to find out how.
See previous post on class blog, Copyright Issues and Creative Commons, and scroll down to the paragraph that says, How to Upload an Image.
You can also read Sue Water’s post on Image Width in Blog Posts.
Read the information below which is taken from the site: All right to Copy?
Works that appear on websites are protected by copyright in the same way as works published in other ways. This means that you can only copy a work that is on a website if you have permission from the copyright owner.
The website owner might not be the copyright owner of all works that appear on their site, so you will need to find out who owns copyright in each work that you want to copy. For example, a search engine might show lots of images, but it normally wouldn’t own the copyright in them.
If you are copying the work as part of your homework or for a class assignment, you often won’t need to get permission but if you want to use the work in other ways, such as entering the work into a competition or exhibiting your work publicly (such as on the internet), you will need to get permission from the copyright owner.
Photo by The Consumerist.
You must always credit the creator of all works that you copy.
It is also a good idea to acknowledge the copyright owner in the work.
If you have downloaded an image, credit in the way you would an image. If you download a music track, you need to credit in the way for music recordings.
You may be unfamiliar with this term as it is a new system that allows individuals to share their works with others. So for example, images that have a Creative Commons licence, mean that the originator is allowing others to share their work, providing credit is given to the originator.
Flickr is a photo management/sharing site where many of its users offer their work under a Creative Commons licence. There are different licences which enable users to identify how they allow their work to be re-used.
Visit Flickr and read about the different licences: Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works and Share Alike, that are applied. This may seem a little confusing, but basically, if you stick to using images with 
Attribution License and credit the work, you are safe.
Adding images to your blog make it more appealing and add interest. I’ve located an easy way to access Flickr images using the Attribution License so take a look at the link below.
Read the post Why Choose Flickr photos? which is an excellent explanation of Flickr and Creative Commons. It also explains the different types of creative commons licences.
Your task is to write a post about a place or country you would like to visit. Use an image from flickr, making sure you apply attribution to your image by adding a link back to the original work.
Include a short paragraph explaining Creative Commons and what you think about it.
Note: Read the post Refining flickr searches before image searching.
1. Firstly, choose an image that you would like to use. Save it to your picture file or somewhere you will be able to find it. Also save the url link to your image as well as the name of the person who took it. The most convenient place to put this imformation is in a new post as you will be using it to add to your image.
2. Reduce the size of your image so that it will not take a long time to load on your page: the easiest way to do this is via picture manager. If you right click on your saved image, the option will appear: ‘Open with’ > select: Microsoft Picture Manager which will enable you to resize the image. From the menu, click on picture > compress pictures, on the RHS > click on the button ‘compress for web pages’. You will see that your picture will dramatically reduce in KB size. Resave your picture for uploading.
3. Follow these steps for uploading your image:
From your dashboard:click on the first icon from Add media:
As examples, all the images used in this class blog have credit attributed to the images. Just below the image in this post, you will see that the image has been credited to the image provider. Follow the steps below to credit your image.
Visit your site and make sure you are happy with the image. Check that the link to your image takes you back to the original image.
There is no doubt about the usefulness of Flickr for image sharing. A couple of tools that can assist the user (and may not be as commonly known as Flickr itself) are flickr-storm and flickrCC. I was going to write a post about each of these but since they have already been done, I’ll conveniently provide the links here.
ICT Guy has done all the hard work for me (thanks!) with images of how the site works so visit his post at A perfect flickr storm.
What I particularly like about flickr-storm is the fact that you can search for images within the licencing category you are after. Just under the ‘keyword search box’ there is an advanced button. When you click on this a drop-down box will appear just to the right of the search box, and you can then select what type of licensed images you want.
A Joyful Jubiliant Learning has posted a helpful post about the meaning of the different creative commons licencing terms and it is here that I came across flickrCC.
FlickrCC is a site published by Peter Shanks (an Information Technology Teacher at Bathurst TAFE, Sydney, Australia) to help search for free, Creative Commons licensed Flickr images. Thanks Peter!
Please go through the following list and make sure you are up-to-date with setting up your site and tasks to-date:
Image by cambodia4kidsorg
Google is so much more than a search engine. Go to your igoogle page, just above your igoogle logo, click on the ‘more’ drop down menu and then ‘even more’ (the last option). This will bring you to a new page ‘More Google Products”. On this page, visit Explore and Innovate (second column) for new google products.
Write a review on three tools that you did not know about. Write a suitable heading for your post.
Writing about a special event is a way to record it so that the memory stays with you always. For example, everyone has milestones in their life that are worthy of recognition. You may have won a sports event, received a recognition for an achievement, mastered a new skill or attended a special family celebration. You may have many such events, in which case it may be difficult to choose one to write about!
In writing about your special event, here are some points to help you shape your writing:
Image by J Deamer
Make sure you have the blog avatar widget on your site.
1. Go to dashboard, RHS, click on ‘Settings’.
2. Then click on ‘Blog Avatar’. Upload your avatar. This will add your avatar to your site.
3. To add your avatar so that when you leave comments it will appear: dashboard, RHS, click on users, click on ‘Your Avatar’. Upload.
