tip of the week

Finding copyright free resources

Chris 0 Comments

It’s important to remember that when using resources in school, they are often protected by copyright in some form. Finding resources that are not protected by copyright can be tricky. You can make the search process easier by using the Creative Commons search tool, which finds content that you can use more openly in the classroom. Finding copyright free resources can be difficult – a good place to start is the Creative Commons Search:

– To begin, visit the Creative Commons search homepage at http://search.creativecommons.org
– Next, enter a search term in the box labelled ‘enter your search query’
– Finally, using the boxes below the search field, choose the place you would like to search

The list of places to search covers a range of media types – here are a few to start with:

– For pictures and images: Flickr
– For clipart: Open Clip Art Library
– For audio: SoundCloud

You can also find out more about how to use resources within the terms of copyright at the Copyright and Schools site: http://www.copyrightandschools.org/

Digital post-it notes with Padlet (formerly Wallwisher)

Chris 0 Comments

We all love post-it notes. If you want to try something new for capturing text, why not try using digital post-it notes?
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Padlet (http://padlet.com, formerly known as Wallwisher) is a tool that lets you setup a ‘board’ on which your participants can stick their virtual post-it notes. You can access the board with a web address (email is an easy way to share). Visitors can then add one or more notes to the board by double-clicking.

Notes on the board can be re-arranged as your session progresses, so you have the same flexibility as real post-it notes. You might decide to re-arrange the post-it notes using an interactive whiteboard (or ask some of your class to do this).

Padlet is free to use and already being used by many teachers.

Print multiple photos easily

Chris 0 Comments

Every week I share one or more practical tips with the staff in our school. These tips I also publish here and hope you find them useful.

A teacher asked me: how can I print lots of pictures without pasting them into another application?​

Try this:

– Open Windows Explorer
– Select the pictures you want to print (use Ctrl-Click and Shift-Click for different selection patterns)
– Using the mouse or touchpad, right-click your selection
– Choose ‘Print’
– Using the Print options, select how many of your pictures you want to see on each page, from as few as 1 to as many as 35
– Press print and you’re done