whsweb20 - Recently Updated Pages

Working with Audio/Sound

mradkins — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:26:57 CST

If you are looking for an easy audio editor, look no further than Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is a free sound editor available to users under the GNU operating system for creating and sharing software applications. Audacity allows you to export sound files as MP3s, Wavs, and even MIDI formats. You may have to get some additional plugins for Audacity like WinLAME - http://winlame.sourceforge.net/ (makes the MP3 export work without error).

Tutorial site for Audacity - http://aquaculturepda.wikispaces.com/podcast4

If you are wanting to create your own music loops or need to manage more detailed Audio files, I recommend going to your local software shop and looking into Sony's Acid Pro or even SoundForge. http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/acidfamily.asp - Acid products and http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/soundforgefamily.asp - Soundforge products.

I used to teach Sony's Acid Music Studio which is great for compiling already produced loops into interesting musical tracks. If you are needing a more professional program, look at the Sony Acid Pro program. It gives you more control over the different layers of loops you add to your score.

If you play your own instrument and are looking for a partner to jam with, check out http://musigy.com/ - where you can connect globally with other musicians and play together online.

Resources for finding Sounds:

AltaVista* Audio Search Engine - http://www.altavista.com/audio/default Search specifically for MP3, WAV, WindowsMedia, Real AIFF, and other sound files on the Web.

FindSounds - www.findsounds.com
FindSounds.com is a free site for finding sound effects and musical instrument samples on the Web. It is a Web search engine, like Google and AltaVista, but with a focus on sounds. Audio files containing obscenities are filtered out so this site is safe for children. Allows you to choose the type of sound file, the maximum file size, and more. Given any sound, FindSounds.com can automatically find similar sounds on the Web. Provides a colored wavform display for any found sound. Also provides a quick list of categories for searching: www.findsounds.com/types.html

KidsClick: Kids' Search Tools - http://www.kidsclick.org/ssearch.html
Several sound search engines on one page, plus special sound collections such as sounds from history, animals, the human body, and national anthems. Not just for kids! A great starting place for finding sounds.

Lycos Multimedia Search: Images, Video, Audio - http://multimedia.lycos.com
Type a search term, then click Images & Video. To narrow your selection, select Images, Video, or Audio and then click GO GET IT!

Podscope - www.podscope.com Podscope lets you search the spoken word for audio and video that interests you.

Podzinger - http://podzinger.com "Using speech recognition technology, PodZinger searches words within both audio and video, not just the metadata, to classify content based on topic and usage. For consumers, PodZinger is the only search engine that allows users to find audio and video content based on keyword searches and then skim the results for relevance the same way they would for text. Consumers can then "jump-to" a specific location in the audio and video without fast forwarding or listening to the entire file."

Searching the Internet for a Certain MIDI File -www.aitech.ac.jp/~ckelly/midi/help/midi-search.html Search engine for midi files, which often sound like synthesized elevator music. Midi files cannot duplicate the human voice, so these files are only "instrumental." The significant advantage is file size. An entire song is often smaller than 100 kilobytes.

Singing Fish - http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/home.jsp Search for audio and video. Singingfish only indexes multimedia formats, including Windows Media, Real, QuickTime, and mp3s. Search through categories spanning music, news, movies, sports, TV and radio, and finance.

SoundDogs - www.sounddogs.com/catsearch.asp?Type=1 Search and preview sound effects and production music for free - no account required. Sounds are free to sample. Purchase for clear, top quality sound.

WavSearch - www.wavsearch.com WavSearch focuses on clips of 30-seconds and shorter. Using WavSearch.com you can find almost any major quote from almost any movie or TV show.

Yahoo! Audio Search - http://audio.search.yahoo.com Find audio files from across the Web including music, podcasts, interviews and more.

Web Places: Sound Clips - www.webplaces.com/html/sounds.htm
Sites with sounds to download, listed by category and type of sound files available.

Sound Archives

A1 Free Sound Effects - www.a1freesoundeffects.com/noflash.htm
This site is made for Internet Users who need FREE sound effects for Non-Profit Use and intend to use them in schools, churches, any home computer user, anything that will not make a profit from the use of our sounds.

Midi World - www.midiworld.com
Lots of resources and links for midi files, which often sound like synthesized elevator music. Midi files cannot duplicate the human voice, so these files are only "instrumental." The significant advantage is file size. An entire song is often smaller than 100 kilobytes.

Classical Midi Archives - www.classicalarchives.com
Midi files categorized by classical composers.

Self-Sequenced MIDI Files on the Net - www.aitech.ac.jp/~ckelly/midi/search/self.html
Links to sites with midi files of music in the public domain or of those with permission granted from the copyright owner to use their music. Music categories such as Celtic, Gregorian chants, Civil War music, classic rock and pop, etc.

Microsoft Sound Downloads - http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?url=/downloads/topic.asp?url=/msdn-files/028/000/124/topic.xml
Free sound downloads from Microsoft (wav and midi).

Guide to Animal Sounds on the Net - http://members.tripod.com/Thryomanes/AnimalSounds.html

The Daily WAV - www.dailywav.com
Music and sound clips. Not organized by category so may be difficult to use unless you know specifically what you're looking for, but has some very funny sound clips. Has both wav files and good quality midi files.

WAVCentral - www.wavcentral.com
Music and sound clips from movies, TV, commercials, and sound effects.

The Looney Tunes Sound Source - www.nonstick.com/sounds

Special Operations.Com: Military Sounds - www.specialoperations.com/Multimedia/sounds.html
Explosions, battle sounds, artillary, music, civil war sound effects and sayings, etc.

Partners in Rhyme: Sound Effects - www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.html
Includes royalty free and public domain sound effects.

Video Production

mradkins — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:22:38 CST

Best Tips for Video Production:

1) Save - make a one-stop shop folder where you not only save your video as you edit but also where you save all the media that goes into the video. Do not save anything outside of this folder!

2) PLAN - Don't start filming until every film-second is planned. Storyboard your ideas if you have time. The more you plan, the faster you can film and "end scene".

A tool like Celtx may help you PLAN. It is a program you can use to organize your characters, timeline, shooting schedule, script, etc. all in one place. Very cool free tool!

Online Video Editors

Kaltura Toufee Vuvox Jumpcut

Slide Animoto

Windows offers Movie Maker

Microsoft Movie Maker Atomic Learning Movie Maker Forums

Using Movie Maker More online videos Handouts and video tutorials for Movie Maker

Adobe Premiere

Adobe Premiere online tutorials Adobe Tutorials Video Tutes

Adobe Tutorial Wiki Steven Gotz tutorial site Special Effects

Sharing your video:

1) Upload it to YouTube if you are home. http://www.youtube.com
The best deal for teachers is that they all have access to YouTube. So your teacher's computer that is connected to the projector can connect to YouTube to show your video. YouTube is free storage for videos.

or

2) Upload it to TeacherTube if you are at home or school. http://www.teachertube.com
This site is for teachers (and students) to host educational videos. It looks and runs just like YouTube.

or

3) Check out SchoolTube. http://www.schooltube.com/
This is a site to encourage students and teachers to use video technology more in their schools. Not only can you upload videos to share but you can view a lot of other student video projects online. Its an awesome resource!!! And I love the idea of film making for our students. Such a tremendous resource and so interesting too.

Online Video Search Tools:

AltaVista's Video Search Engine - http://www.altavista.com/video/default
Search specifically for MPEG, Avi, Quicktime, Windows Media, Real, Flash, and other video files on the Web.

blinx - www.blinkx.com "7 million hours of video content. Search it all. ...blinkx is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Fed by automatic spiders that crawl the web for audio video content and content partnerships with over 100 leading content and media companies, blinkx uses visual analysis and speech recognition to better understand rich media content." Default setting is with a Safe Search that blocks unsuitable content.

Lycos Multimedia Search: Images, Video, Audio - http://multimedia.lycos.com
Type a search term, then click Images & Video. To narrow your selection, select Images, Video, or Audio and then click GO GET IT!

Podscope - www.podscope.com
Podscope lets you search the spoken word for audio and video that interests you.

Podzinger - http://podzinger.com
"Using speech recognition technology, PodZinger searches words within both audio and video, not just the metadata, to classify content based on topic and usage. For consumers, PodZinger is the only search engine that allows users to find audio and video content based on keyword searches and then skim the results for relevance the same way they would for text. Consumers can then "jump-to" a specific location in the audio and video without fast forwarding or listening to the entire file."

Singing Fish - http://search.singingfish.com/sfw/home.jsp
Search for audio and video. Singingfish only indexes multimedia formats, including Windows Media, Real, QuickTime, and mp3s. Search through categories spanning music, news, movies, sports, TV and radio, and finance.

Yahoo’s Multimedia Video Collection Sites
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Multimedia/Digital_Video http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Multimedia/MPEG

Online resources for finding video clips - Creative Commons

Prelinger Archives - www.archive.org/details/prelinger
The goal of Prelinger Archives is to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. There are currently 1,902 movie files available for viewing or download. "You are warmly encouraged to download, use, and reproduce these films in whole or in part, in any medium or market throughout the world, for any purpose whatsoever except...You may not sell, represent, license, or charge access to these films as stock footage."

Financial Multimedia - http://fisher.osu.edu/fin/clips.htm
Pictures and video clips that cover finance topics. Free for educational use.

Apollo Mission Movies - http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/html/movies1.html
A collection of avi and mov video clips from the Apollo missions.

The Electronic Universe Project: Galaxy Gallery Page - http://zebu.uoregon.edu/movie.html
Movies that show a variety of encounters in the galaxy. e.g., "encounter between two equal mass galaxy disks which interact via different orbital plane geometries."

Saturn's Ring System: Animations - http://ringmaster.arc.nasa.gov/saturn/saturn.html#ANIMATIONS
QuickTime movies of Saturn's rings. Also includes images and other references.

CSU Hayward Student Animations Winter 94 - www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/tebo/Anims/README.html
Original digital videos created by students at Calif. State University, Hayward. If used, definitely needs full copyright citing.

Jet Propulsion Lab Images and Videos - http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html Images and videos by category: Earth, solar system, stars and galaxies, technology, spacecraft, and deep space network . "JPL images are available for use by the public free of charge... JPL's image release policy is located at www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/policy/index.html."

NASA JPL - Ocean Surface Topography from Space: Gallery - http://topex-www.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/gallery.html Includes ocean-related videos. "JPL images are available for use by the public free of charge... JPL's image release policy is located at www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/policy/index.html*. The credit line should read 'Courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech'. We would also really appreciate copies of publications where you use our imagery."

Copyright & Creative Commons

mradkins — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 10:33:03 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Welcome to Westlake Web 2.0

mradkins — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:22:12 CST

Welcome to the Westlake Web 2.0 site. I hope to use this site to share student and teacher resources for future web, graphic, game, and video projects at our campus and across the world.

Feel free to use these resources for your classes as well.

Use the navigation on the left to access the various subsites to this one. Content added daily!

For Mrs. Jimeno's classes, click on Multimedia Resources in the left navigation and then on Video Production.

Or click this shortcut: http://whsweb20.wetpaint.com/page/Video+Production

Image Resources

mradkins — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:54:37 CST

Free Images Sites The following sites offer images that can be freely used on most Web sites and other publications. However, many of these images are not in the public domain and have some use restrictions. Be sure to check the use restrictions at each of these Web sites. If you use any of these images, be sure to provide credit to the source, which should be noted underneath the image as well as a full citing on a separate page.

Image Collections - http://bubl.ac.uk/link/types/images.htm	An unbelievable annotated list of image resource sites appropriate for education—132 different sites at last count. When using these images for purposes beyond your classroom, be sure to check each site's use restrictions. Although many of these sites contain images that are in the public domain or are freely available for non-commercial use, some have restrictions on their use.
Microsoft* ClipGallery Live - http://dgl.microsoft.com	Provided for the purpose of granting rights to licensed users of Microsoft Office. Examples of permissible use include, but are not limited to: newsletters, brochures, Web sites, presentations, flyers, postcards, trade show materials, newspaper advertisements, product catalogs, and reports.
The Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs Reading Room - http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/pphome.html	The catalog includes about 250,000 records representing over five million items. About 90% of the records are accompanied by one or more digital images. Some materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law or restricted by terms of Library of Congress gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners.
Images of American Political History - http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/_browse.htm	A collection of over 500 public domain images of American Political History.
FreeFoto - www.freefoto.com	FreeFoto.com is one of the largest collections of free photographs for non-commercial use on the Internet. The site features 50 main sections with over 1,600 sub headings. The photographs are free to private non-commercial users and for sale to commercial users. FreeFoto.com includes over 58,000 exclusive images found nowhere else on the web with new pictures being added every week. Students may use their images in their own work. An individual teacher may make occasional use of their images in the course of their own personal teaching work. In both cases, a credit to Ian Britton - FreeFoto.com is required. No materials may be distributed that contain our images outside one's own classroom (so no use on classroom Web pages, wikis, or blogs).
FreeStockPhotos.com - www.freestockphotos.com	Download stock photographs absolutely free. Arranged in a variety of categories. Use in any Web site or publication you wish - personal or commercial, but must include the domain name (FreeStockPhotos.com) along with each FreeStockPhotos.com picture used.
Zettweb Photo Site - www.zettweb.com/grab-a-picture	More than 3000 jpg pictures arranged by subject. Non-commercial use: Web site, online, and multimedia designs; advertising and promotion campaigns; presentations and brochures; packaging for anything except software , books, CDs and cassettes, and videotapes. For all uses of images at this site, provide a credit: "Image © 1999 ZettWeb. All rights reserved." to appear adjacent to the images or in a credits comment.
CalPhotos: Plants - http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/flowers/index.shtml	At last check, this site contains 44,348 images of plants. A variety of organizations and individuals have contributed photographs to CalPhotos. Please be aware that these various contributors maintain copyright; follow the usage guidelines provided with each image.
The Society of Architectural Historians - www.sah.org/imagex.html	Somewhat difficult to navigate, but has a huge amount of resources for photographs and drawings of historical buildings. Most images can be used for non-profit educational use; republication must preserve the original credit for the source of the image. If any image is identified as "PR" (permission required), those images cannot be used without permission from the image provider. For easier access, categories are listed below:
	World Survey, Ancient through Medieval, plus early non-Europe: www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Cities/wld/wcapts1.html
	World Survey, Renaissance through Modern www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Cities/wld/wcapts2.html
	American Survey [1600-1779] [1780-1849] [1850-1899] [1900-1944] [1945-1976] [addendum of less consensual pedagogical favorites].
NIX (NASA Image eXchange) - http://nix.nasa.gov	Photographs are not protected by copyright unless noted. If copyrighted, permission should be obtained from the copyright owner prior to use. If not copyrighted, photographs may be reproduced and distributed without further permission from NASA.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Photo Library www.photolib.noaa.gov/collections.html	Well-organized site containing albums and catalogs of over 16,000 images. Great site covering 18 different subject categories. "Most NOAA photos and slides are in the public domain and CANNOT be copyrighted. Although at present, no fee is charged for using the photos credit MUST be given to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce unless otherwise instructed to give credit to the photographer or other source."
Smithsonian - www.si.edu	The Smithsonian Institution ("SI"), and its Office of Printing & Photographic Services ("OPPS") image files are made available for non-commercial, personal use. Copying or redistribution in any manner for personal or corporate gain is not permitted. Images may be put on a file server in one's school, company, museum, etc. only if there's no charge for the user. All the accompanying text information, caption, etc. must be included, and must be presented completely and unchanged. Images cannot be placed on a CD-ROM, public domain or otherwise. See additional usage rules at: www.si.edu/siphotos/CAPTIONS/oppsrules.html
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pictures/Images - http://pictures.fws.gov http://images.fws.gov	"Most of the images on our Web pages are in the "public domain" (which means they have no copyright restrictions). If an image on our Web site is not restricted and does not say it is copyrighted, then you can assume it is in the public domain. You may download and use those copyright-free images in your print and electronic publications. There's no fee to pay (i.e., they're free), and no need to get permission from the Service for reusing them."
Pics4Learning - http://pics.tech4learning.com	"The Pics4Learning collection is intended to provide copyright friendly images for use by students and teachers in an education setting. The original photographers of each image retain the copyright to these images and have graciously allowed their use in this collection. Images in the Pics4Learning collection may be used by teachers and students in print, multimedia, and video productions. These could include, but are not limited to, school projects, contests, web pages, and fund raising activities for the express purpose of improving student educational opportunities."
American Memory - http://memory.loc.gov	"The nature of historical archival collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Whenever possible, the Library provides information about copyright owners and other restrictions in the catalog records, finding aids, special-program illustration captions, and other texts that accompany collections. The Library provides such information as a service to aid patrons in determining the appropriate use of an item, but that determination ultimately rests with the patron."
American Memory: Selected Civil War Photographs - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/cwphome.html	"There are no known restrictions on these photographs."
American Memory: America from the Great Depression to WWII (1935-1945) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html	"Photographs in this collection were taken by photographers working for the U.S. Government. Generally speaking, works created by U.S. Government employees are not eligible for copyright protection in the United States. While the Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright in the FSA/OWI Black-and-White Photos, there is a narrow possibility that a very small number of items may have copyrights associated with them Suggested credit Line: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF35-1326]"
American Memory: Map Collections 1544-2002 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html	"The maps in the Map Collections materials were either published prior to 1922, produced by the United States government, or both (see catalogue records that accompany each map for information regarding date of publication and source). The Library of Congress is providing access to these materials for educational and research purposes and is not aware of any U.S. copyright protection or any other restrictions in the Map Collection materials."
FDR Library & Digital Archives www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/photos.html	Copyright-free pictures of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, the depression and New Deal, and World War II.
U.S. Air Force Photos www.af.mil/photos	"Information presented on Air Force Link is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested."
U.S. Navy Online Library www.history.navy.mil/branches/org11-2.htm	"To the best of our knowledge, all Online Library pictures are in the public domain and can therefore be freely downloaded and used for any purpose without requesting permission."
Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/index.jsp	The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time Charles Cushman extensively documented the United States as well as other countries.
Discovery School's Clip Art Gallery http://school.discovery.com/clipart/index.html	Permission is granted to download no more than ten different clip art images for non-revenue-producing use on hard copy documents or on Web sites with the following restrictions: Any reproduction must be unaltered from its original downloaded form. This includes, but is not limited to, colorization, cropping, or editing. Any use of clip art images on Web sites must credit Discoveryschool.com or include a link to the Discoveryschool.com Web site.
Icon Bazaar - www.iconbazaar.com	Lots of clip art and animations. Limited permission is granted for institutional use of up to twenty (20) images in toto from these archives by WWW developers representing not-for-profit organizations, governmental organizations or educational institutions. Copyright notification should be included wherever appropriate.
Graphics Libraries www.net-ads.com/development/graphics.html	List of links to graphics libraries with extensive annotations of each.
KidsClick: Kids Image Search Tools www.kidsclick.org/psearch.html	Several image search engines on one page, plus special image collections in categories such as art, astronomy, animals, history/society. Not just for kids! A great starting place for finding images.
PicSearch www.picsearch.com	Easy to use. Very clean -- no ads. Although it states that it is filtered and "family-friendly," some images may not be appropriate.
Image Finders and All Purpose Picture Files http://library.sau.edu/bestinfo/Online/pictures.htm
Image Search by Proteus www.thrall.org/proimage.html
Altavista Image Search - www.altavista.com/image/default
Google Image Search - www.google.com/imghp
Lycos Multimedia Search: Images, Video, Audio - http://multimedia.lycos.com
Yahoo Image Surfer - http://gallery.yahoo.com
Artcyclopedia - www.artcyclopedia.com/index.html	The fine art search engine. Search by artist name, artwork by title, or art museums by name or location. Or browse by movement, medium, subject, or nationality. Images are not copyright-free. See each individual museum site for usage restrictions.
Phixr www.phixr.com	Photos you upload to phixr can be of (nearly) any size. However, phixr will scale down big photos to a smaller size, depending on your account's limit. The free account is currently limited to 1.6 megapixels, which means that the size of your photos cannot exceed approximately 1440x1080 (or any other width/height within the limit of 1.6 megapixels). Phixr is strickly for editing photos. Pictures uploaded for editing are removed from their servers after three hours in the free account. No registration, logging in, or downloading/installing software. Make your edits, then download the edit picture for immediate use.
Creating Online www.creatingonline.com/Online_Image_Editor/index.html	Nothing to download or install. No applets or activex. All editing is done via your browser. You can resize, scale, rotate, flip, crop, add text, add clipart, correct color, change to grayscale, colorize, make parts transparent, reduce File Size, edit photo dimensions, and more. Upload JPG, GIF, PNG image file formats. Images saved as JPG or PNG (including transparent PNG). Maximum size to upload: 2400 x 2400 pixels, 2 MB.
Pixenate http://pixenate.com	Upload your image and edit using easy-to-use browser-based toolbar. Make standard edits such as cropping, brightening, removing redeye, resizing, but also has fun effects, such as adding snow, changing pictures to look like oil paintings, adding text, and more.

Design Resources

mradkins — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:05:44 CST

This section of the site is to provide links to online training and resources for our graphic design students out there.

Magazines for every Graphic Designer:


Applied Arts	@Issue	Before & After
Communication Arts	Create	Computer Arts
Creative Business	Creative Review	Design Tools Monthly

Eye	Graphis	How
I.D.	InDesign Magazine	Luerzer's Archive
PC Graphics Report	Print	Step Inside Design

3x3	Illustration	Pop Photo
Photoshop User	Baseline	Planet Typography

Learning more about Design (not the tools but the trade)

Ad Critic	Creative Latitude	Creative Pro	DT&G
Design Master Training	Graphic Design - About.com	Thinking with Type

Top Design Schools

Art Institute Online	Parsons School of Design	Pratt Institute
Rasmussen College	RI/RI School of Design	SAA College
Sessions.edu	Texas State University	VA/VCU

Portfolio Sites

Altpik

Portfolios.com

Illoz

Blog Sites for Designers

Design Observer	Design Sponge	Designers who blog
the design weblog	HOW Design Blog	Roger Black
Speak Up

Inspirational Sites:
Seidlitz - I love the design of this site. Click on any piece of the image map.

I really would love to piece something together like this for a student organizational site or have a contest where kids make a site similar to this that links to the different things that make up what their perspective on life is.

Wildcard - Who said graphic design has to be static? I love watching the ribbon unfurl on this first gallery.

LAB - Mathieu Badimon - More interesting graphic web design that is clickable. Fascinating stuff.

Dave Werner's Portfolio - I like this one because not only does he showcase his portfolio but he also provides a video for his items that includes why he used certain designs in his print work. Very educational!!

Austin Shaw - a website of graphic design boards and personal galleries of Austin Shaw. If you are a graphic designer, you need to start building your own personal profile of work to showcase your talents.

Business Card Gallery - Just what it says. Get an idea of the different types of interestingly designed business cards out there.

ZeFrank - I like to build my own kaleidoscope of color using this site. Click on a shape and drag it to the "radar" circle on the left to watch what it makes in the circle on the right.

Color Scheme Generator - It used to be that you had to pay a few hundred bucks out to get a color tag (a book or chain of colored tabs for getting schemes together). Now this is a really great site not only for graphic designers but any visual designer.

Pick a color and it provides the other colors that contrast or compliment the shade you select. This is a bookmark favorite! < a keeper!

Tutorial Links:

Photoshop Tutorials - Any site that provides really great training on Photoshop and the extreme ways to use it will always be top in my list.

I learned on here how to make a tattoo look real using layer masks.

PhotoJoJo - more information about photo-editing but also about photo taking. Sign up for the very informative newsletter as well. Check out the archives for interesting tutorials too.

Graphic Design.com - Free online tutorials for Photoshop layer effects and masks.

Scott Kelby - Scott Kelby is the Photoshop Guru. He has released several books including Down & Dirty Tricks with Photoshop which was like my Photoshop bible for several years. He has tons of great resources and ideas on his site.

Top 100 Font Downloads - There is nothing like hunting down the font you need and finding that not only do you have to go through leaps and bounds to install it but you have to pay $32.95 for it. Not at this site. Free fonts. Updated weekly.

TypeNow.net - Movie theme and Album art fonts. Free too.

Free Tools Online - Don't have Photoshop at home? No problem! There are alternatives!

Paint Net - Free tool for downloading and running on your computer. This one looks and feels the most like Photoshop but is free.

GIMP - Open source shareware application that allows you to edit photos at home.

GIMP Tutorial Site

Splashup - Newer online tool for not only photo-editing but sharing in Picasa and Facebook.

Linux

Tuxthepenguin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:28:44 CST

Basic guide to installing linux.
How to create a $0 computer.

What is Linux? Linux was created to be a powerful and free OS (operating system), driven by the community rather than sales (or greedy super-ceos). Linux has been basically the same over the years. However in this time, the graphical user interfaces (such as GNOME and X, but ill talk about those more later) have made it as, If not more, than today’s cutting edge OSes from Microsoft and Macintosh.
Common misconceptions about Linux.

1) Its hard to use
This may have been true in the past, but in some cases it is MORE user friendly than windows xp/vista. (Why am I not mentioning Macintosh? Because ultimately Macintosh IS Linux, yep that is right. Steve job’s OS, famed for usability, is based off of Linux.)
2) I have programs that only run on windows, so I can’t use Linux.
Wrong again, there are many programs that are for windows/Linux compatibility. Such as WINE (an acronym for “wine is not an emulator” which it is) which allows you to run windows .exe files on Linux with a certain degree of compatibility. There are other programs such as samba which allow network interfacing between Linux and windows computers.
3) Linux requires the use of the “terminal” as well as a bunch of different commands.
Again, not completely true…… Although many people (such as myself) use the “shell” (terminal) because we find it easier to use and it is necessary for the things we do, it is not necessary with GUIs (graphical user interface) such as Gnome, x, or KDE.

So, how do I install it?

First you must identify your hardware, this doesn’t mean you have to crack open your computer and see exactly what kind of hardware you have, its as simple as determining your “architecture” .

So here are the basic architectures

I386 This basically covers most of the computers in the world, this will work with any 32 or 64 bit processor. This is your computer if you have any Pentium 1-4, a Celeron, or any other generic, non 64 bit, processor. Also true for any non-64 bit AMD processor (almost all AMD processors have 64 bit variants so I’m not going to list them.) Statistically speaking, there is a 70% chance this is what your computer is, however if it is not then its one of the ones below.

64bit (also known as “AMD 64”) If you have a Pentium processor this usually WILL NOT work with your computer, this will only work if you have an amd 64 bit processor running on a 64 bit Front side bus. I would only suggest this if you KNOW your computer has these two vital components. If in doubt, got with an I386 version, they are backwards compatible. But if you know your computer will work with this, then it will make your computer run a lot faster.

PowerPC (macintosh) This will work for any kind of Macintosh.

Xbox/playstation 3/other yes you can load Linux on your console system. However I wouldn’t suggest it unless you REALLY know what you are doing….

There are other architectures, but they are almost exclusively on purpose-built servers…..

Obtaining install media

This is basically the disk which your computer will “boot” off of in order to install the OS to your hard drive.

you must either order the CDs or burn them to a cd, either way its free, you must pay for the shipping of the CDs however, so burning them is usually a cheaper option.

If you provide me (Grayson head) with a CD I can make copies of any of the distributions listed below, in addition to a few others.

Ubuntu - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GettingUbuntu
Fedora Core- http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora Note how x86 and AMD 64 are on the same disk, that disk should work for either architecture.
OpenSUSE- http://software.opensuse.org/

Those are the three distributions (subdivisions) of linux I would suggest. I’m not going to say which one is “better” as basically, they are the same thing. Ubuntu is probably the easiest to use, but I like Fedora for its flexibility and security. openSUSE is also a good distro if you want an easy to use interface.

Choosing GUI

Shortly after installing one of the three distributions listed above, you will get a choice between 3 GUIs, being GNOME, KDE, and “X”. This step may be kind of out of order, but it would be best to decide now so you know what to do after you get your install media set-up. GNOME is probably the most advanced of the three, however, it also is the most resource “hungry”. If you are running on a computer with less than 256 of ram, or anything less than a Pentium 3 or AMD with a speed of less than 1.0GHZ, you should probably choose to run KDE or X instead. The reason that im touching on this now is that certain distributions require you to choose which GUI you will use from the install portion of this.

However, should you choose the KDE CD option if you install fedora core and do not want to use GNOME.

Installing

Opensuse:
http://en.opensuse.org/INSTALL_Local

Fedora Core:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f8/en_US/

(I will provide a simpler and complete walkthrough on Fedora Core 8 in the near future.)

Ubuntu:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation#head-a4ce2efae45e59e9c2d668173338133ac2e755e4

As with almost all linux distributions, these contain very simple easy to use GUIs for installing.

To start the install process you may need to set your BIOS (basic intelligent operating system) to allow booting from a CD drive. Guide is here: http://www.hiren.info/pages/bios-boot-cdrom
Note: If done wrong then there is a slight chance your computer might not function properly. If your computer does get temporarily messed up, it is easily reversible by opening up the computer and popping out the watch sized battery on the motherboard (the main part of the computer) with the power DISCONNECTED for 15-20 minutes then plugging it back in. The memory of the CMOS (stores data that can be edited by the bios) is volatile (will not store data unless there is power) so removing that power source will reset it back to factory defaults, which will work.
Partitioning

You can set the installer to partition automatically, but in case you want to partition it manually to utilize the best of your space, I will describe more in-depth here.

/root partition, also known as simply “/”.- This is the equivalent of your windows C:/ drive, it contains all of your operating system information. Minimum of 3 gigabytes, no maximum

/ boot – this contains the information that certain boot loaders use. Usually 256 megabytes give or take.

/swap - this portion of the drive is used as ram, I would suggest a 256 megabyte minimum and a 1.5 gigabyte maximum, although theoretically you can assign it to whatever size you want.

Others:

You can also mount a drive to a subdirectory of /root, for example.

/home is inside of /root, this the location would be /root/home. You can mount /home to a different portion of the hard drive outside of /root. (home is comparable to “my documents”

So in the partitioner you can assign any subfolder of root, to a different partition to changing the mounting location to …/*whateverfoldernameyouwanthere* the advantages of having a different partition for /home is that if your /root partition is somehow ruined, all of the information in /home is safe and can still be used when the os is repaired.

If you choose to mount a folder in this fashion, look for the “mount location” in the partitioner window after you have chosen to modify a partition.

Install!

After this step, its time to install the operating systems files to your hard drive….this is an automated process and does not require close monitoring unless you are using more than 1 cd/dvd.

Enjoy!

After the install step, there is usually a configuration program that appears after words that should walk you through some basic operating system settings.

You will find after learning some basic functions that the operating system is easy to use, and the best part is, its reliable and installing new features is easy!

Some basic guides can be found on your distributions website, I will provide some more in-depth guides in the future. Most operating systems have a guide that pops up when your operating system first starts as well that provides a basic guide for using the operating system.

I will be writing some more in-depth guides in the future.
A local Linux freak.
-Grayson Head

Interactive Whiteboards

TimFahlberg — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 10:15:34 CST

Interactive and collaborative white spaces have been a work in progress for many years with one of my colleagues at our campus. He has been working with creating online whiteboard movies for years for his kids to access from his website. In the past year, we have watched with excitement as several sites generated their own online and collaborative white-spaces for people to use to work on a whiteboard together.

Here are some of those sites:

http://www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage - from GE - you can even invite 2 others in to the whiteboard with you. Free and online.

http://www.writeboard.com/ - A free online whiteboard that even saves a history for sharing. Its not as fun as drawing but its a white space for typing on. You password protect it and then share it with others.

http://www.scriblink.com/ - Scrib Link is another free online whiteboard that you can share with others. I like this one because you can chat together in the shared space.

http://thinkature.com/ - This one is newer and combines Inspiration mind mapping with whiteboard sharing.

If you are interested in creating whiteboard movies for your classes or want more information on the topic, I want to send you to whiteboard movie (aka mathcast) guru Tim Fahlberg's site: www.math247.pbwiki.com. Another guru is my friend and colleague Norman Morgan who is a contributer to this wiki as well.

Literacy

janicef — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:50:56 CST

We are going to Wikipedia and then brainstorming what new literacy skills students need to learn in order to function in our world now. Here is our list:

Videoconferencing

mradkins — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:26:50 CST

Our district has provided each campus with a mobile Polycom VSX 7000 system that plugs into our network and provides point-to-point conferencing.

Through our local service center, we can bridge to be a multi-point broadcast if needed.

Through videoconferencing, we can allow our students to visit people and places they would not otherwise be able to visit. We don't use the system to just allow the students to "chat". We want to use our system to provide a virtual field trip or experience that meets the educational needs of our classes.

Real world application of the videoconferencing tools for our students:

Students can work together on projects but combine classes across distance.
Compare/contrast information collected in different regions.
Debates can be held with students taking different perspectives.
Student demonstrations for other students based on what is learned in a class.
Students can research topics and develop presentations while collaborating in the system.
Interviews can be conducted across the world.
Professional development opportunities for staff to attend without travel costs.

A videoconference is only as good as the educational value that comes from it.

If you are a teacher on campus and you are interested in using the videoconference equipment, here are some steps to get you going:

1) Time - We need at least 4 weeks of advance time to set this up. There are many factors associated with this type of project that we need the time to work to get them all in line.

2) Find a partner - we need to find you the person/place you will be connecting with.

3) Prepare your students - students need to not only know about their project but they also need to know about appropriate behavior when in a video conference. For many of them, it may be their first time experiencing a video conference.

Students need to know that it is a 2 way communication and not just watching a one-way broadcast.

I heard someone once say 70% of your videoconference should be planned ahead and allow only 30% to be spontaneous.

Videoconferencing success is based on experience. The more you do it, the more you learn how to deal with all the issues that can happen during them. The only way we can make the use of any technology adaption is through the experiences we gain from using the tools.

If you are interested in using Videoconferencing in your classes, let's start talking.

Multimedia Resources

mradkins — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:42:15 CST

This is a page with resources branching off of it. Click back on the navigation window to view links to video production, design, web design, and more.

Web Design Resources

mradkins — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:32:59 CST

This section of the site is to provide links to online training and resources for our future web designers.

Magazines for every Graphic Designer:


A List Apart	Digital Web	Ping Mag
Communication Arts	Treehouse	Computer Arts

Learning more about Web Mastering:

ClickZ	Creative Latitude	Design Mentor	E-Fuse
Lynda	Use-It	Web Design - About.com	W3Schools

Online Resources by Category:

Blogging	Broadcast	Code Editing	Content Mgmt	Feeders	Forms
Blogger.com	Podcast Maker	Dreamweaver	CakePHP	Feed Burner	Form Tools
Edublogs	Wimpy Player	J-Edit	CMS Made Simple	Simple Pie	Icebrrg
Movable Type	Gabcast	Notepad++	Drupal	Page Flakes	Survey Monkey
Typepad	Gcast	Textmate	E107		Wufoo
Wordpress			Expression Engine		Zoomerang
			Joomla
Email Tools
Campaign Monitor			Plone
Constant Contact			SkyBlue Canvas
Mail Build
Vertical Response

Miscellaneous Resources:

Browser Check	Code School	Code Src Javascript	Colour Lovers
CSS Generator	CSS Zen Garden	DHTML Scripts	DNS Lookup
HTML Dog	Google Webmaster HQ	Internet.com	Internet Retailer
Link Popularity	Map a Site	Search Engine Watch	Stat Counter
Web Info	WayBack Machine	WhoIs

Inspirational Sites:

Phatterism - I click through this site and am amazed at everything he has put together in here. Watch his video by clicking on More, then Me, and watch "What Really Matters". Very cool!

Inspirational Sites:

WordPress Theme Hacks - I really like the design of this site. The content is great too but the overall design here is really engaging.

Dan Philibin - A young webmaster who posts how he works with Wordpress and designs.

Tutorials and Tips:

Color Scheme Developer - I posted this link on the Graphic Design Page but its a shared resource for web designers as well. Select a color and then get the complimentary and contrasts that go along with it.

Wildcard - Who said graphic web design has to be static? I love watching the ribbon unfurl on this first gallery.

LAB - Mathieu Badimon - More interesting graphic web design that is clickable. Fascinating stuff.

JQuery UI - Build your own interactive widgets for your website.

HTML Tutorials - with Java, PHP, and more.

423 tools for Webmasters - Color guides, CSS, tutorials, etc. So much stuff that it almost does away with the need for this site you are on now.

Free Web Templates

CSS Remix - Free CSS templates.

OSWD - Free CSS templates - Click Browse to go through all the designs.

Internet Safety

mradkins — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:53:41 CST

For parents, this site provides an informative look into the Web 2.0 generation of kids and what they have available to them via the Internet and chatting tools.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

It is a great starting point.

The Texas Education Association has released a new site to help provide information about Internet Safety in the schools. You can find their web site at: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/imet/intersafe/index.html

There are a number of sites out there about Internet Safety and most especially about the use of Social Network sites such as Facebook and MySpace. As a public education institution, there is very little a school can do to enforce the safety of students while they visit these sites. We try our hardest to block their access during the school day to these sites using proxy filters and education about safety at the district and campus level. However, proxy access sites spring up at an hourly rate to provide students a way past network filters.

MySpace tips for parents: http://www1.myspace.com/misc/tipsForParents.html

Facebook safety tips: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?tab=safety

MySafety Guide - http://www.wiredsafety.org/internet101/myspaceguide.html

Stop Cyberbullying - http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/

National Crime Prevention Council on Cyberbullying - http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying

Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens - http://www.cskcst.com/

Pew Internet - http://www.pewinternet.org/ - I use this resource to find free and up to date research about trends involving the Internet and its use by the world. If you use the seach box, you can look for information on teen use, cyberbullying, and other topics.

In 2007, I was quoted in an article that was published in Austin Family about Internet Safety. The article is linked here and there are other similarly topics posted on their site as well.

Tools to find information:

http://www.zoominfo.com - You can search for information about anyone on the web. This will search for any website posting mentioning the person by name.

http://www.zabasearch.com - Another search tool for finding public information about someone. Type their name and select a state to find what you can.

If you find information about yourself, just imagine the information people can find about you online and then pair that with Google Maps or Google Earth and you have a system for finding the home of someone very quicky. Scary stuff!

Bonnecarrere's Class

mradkins — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:14:20 CST

Podcasting:
http://www.gcast.com

http://www.gabcast.com

http://www.jott.com

Wikis:
http://www.wetpaint.com

http://www.pbwiki.com

Text Messaging:

http://www.twitter.com

http://www.skype.com

Blogging:

http://www.edublogs.org

http://www.blogger.com

Other tools:

http://groups.google.com

http://del.icio.us

http://www.furl.com

http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/

Geek Out!

mradkins — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:22:28 CST

This is that "misc." site where I will post interesting ideas and tools to share. Feel free to post a thread or idea of topics you find online as well.

This T-shirt contains my personal philosophical statement.

Its available along with a number of great "Geek" ideas for gift-giving this season at ThinkGeek.com.

Sites for Sharing

PipeBytes - This is a site you can use for transferring files to friends or from home to school. Its free and you don't have to add new software or download anything.

Expressivo - This is one of the only pay sites I will recommend on here but the idea is facinating. You buy this program and it allows you to insert text that it converts to audio. You select the voice and even the language and it converts text into audio format for podcast, RSS, or other applications on your computer are turned into audio.

MakeUseOf - I found some great Google Mail hacks here. This is the directory of Geek Hacks and cool tips/tricks to the resources we all use in cyberland.

Etch-O-Sketch - Need I say more?

File Hippo - Free online software tools you can download.

Firefox 50 Plugins - free tools to make your Firefox experience better.

What are some cool tools you have found worth sharing?

WHS Blog/Wiki Directory

mradkins — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:21:56 CST

These are blogs and wikis our staff use:

If you need an introduction to blogging, you may want to watch this video from Common Craft that explains blogging in very simple terms.

Our principal, Linda Rawlings, made this presentation on 21st Century Skills last year to members of the school board, parent organizations, and teacher groups on campus. The presentation is web viewable through Producer at this link: 21st Century Schools presentation.

Blogs used in our parent, teachers, student planning groups:

Vision Committee - Last year a group of parents, teachers, students, technology, and library staff worked together to find the vision for our campus. The blog contains the discussions we engaged in online.

Community Committee - This committee discussed in the Vision committee meetings how the business, college, and community can interact better with the high school.

Campus Site Visit Committee - subcommittee of Vision - looking into various campuses to visit for 21st Century Skills and to develop a cohort of shared resources

21st Century Schools - analyzed and discussed the research about 21st Century Skills and Schools.

Staff Blogs and Staff Development Blogs

Not So Distant Future - WHS Librarian and blog celebrity posts about new technology resources, curriculum trends, and all things education. You can also find her on Twitter as Technolibrarian.

Tumblr - Campus Technology Coordinator Joel Adkins posts interesting commentary, pictures, videos, and quotes about the media and Web 2.0 tools for teachers and students on his page. He is also on Twitter as mrjadkins.

Project Technology - Last year, Carolyn and Joel provided weekly staff training before and after school for staff. The resources are posted on this blog.

Teacher Blogs and Online Resources:

WHS Career Tech - BCIS Teacher Vicky Abney leads her students through ongoing commentary and conversation.

Debora Orrick - 9th grade English Pre-AP I and a 10th grade English II teacher, Debora Orrick uses multiple blogs in her classes for students to discuss the many things they are reading.

Bob Witowski - Algebra I teacher used Gabcast to record an audio lesson. Gabcast allows you to create a podcast using your cell phone as the recording agent. The site then converts the recording into streaming audio.

Bob also completed a project using cell phones in the classroom. Students were tasked with finding someone to figure out a problem in their address book. Students texted the problem to someone and had to teach them how to answer the problem. Responses came from all over Texas with some coming from oversees.

The Tools we Use:

Edublogs - Our free online blogging community that allows us to create and manage our blog sites

Del.icio.us - Global bookmark sharing system where you can post your favorites, view what others post as their favorites, and find more bookmarks by topic.

Gabcast - Record a podcast using your cell phone. Simply create an account and call in your podcast. Gabcast converts it into a web-streaming audio file you can embed into your website.

WetPaint - This site is running off a WetPaint wiki. A wiki is different from a blog in that it allows multiple people the same rights to add and manipulate the content of the site. Its very easy to use. Plus, you can petition them to have ads removed from your wiki by informing them that your site is an education site. This is a huge plus!

Microsoft Movie Maker	Atomic Learning	Movie Maker Forums
Using Movie Maker	More online videos	Handouts and video tutorials for Movie Maker

Adobe Premiere online tutorials	Adobe Tutorials	Video Tutes
Adobe Tutorial Wiki	Steven Gotz tutorial site	Special Effects