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INTRODUCTION

Photos, graphics, GIFs, video – media is king these days! And many of us (and our students!) use media to communicate more and more.

Knowing how to use photos, take video, capture screenshots, annotate images, create collages, share images online and so on, are crucial skills that are as essential as knowing how to use a word processor or a spreadsheet. And it’s an important type of literacy, check out this article: Picting, not Writing, is the Literacy of Today’s Youth

This lesson is a hodge-podge of tips and tools related to images and video. There should be something new for everyone to explore and practice.

NOTE: Though I’ve tried to find services and tools that don’t stray into the NSFW (not safe for work) area, be aware that you never know what sort of graphics some services might display.

Photos in Education Before we get to the long list of tips and tools, here are some student photo project ideas to inspire you.

• Photography Projects for High School (Pinterest board)
• 13 Ways to Use Canva in Your Classroom
• 9 Ways Classroom Photos Can Create Student Connection
• Easy Creative Projects – Karen Bosch has a series of slide decks w lots of interesting creative project ideas for various age levels, including some great photo apps and projects.
• Photo Scavenger Hunt Ideas – for kids

LEARNING ACTIVITY

Since this lesson has such a long list of resources, we’re putting the learning activity here at the top. Remember, you don’t have to explore everything on this page! There’s a lot here to make sure everyone finds something new and interesting to do.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT IS SIMPLE:

• If there’s one skill you really should learn, it’s how to take a screenshot on your computer and mobile devices. Using the instructions below, take a screenshot from your various computers and devices. Share the screenshots in your blog post. Or use it to create some other media project. Lots of ideas below!
• Already know how to screenshot? Explore something new to you. Or something familiar, but in more depth.
• Or create a photo, video or other creative media project of some sort – simple or complex – you choose! Some more ideas listed below.
• Whatever you choose to do, challenge yourself to learn something new and think about how you could use it with students, connecting with your school community, promote library services, etc.
• HAVE LOTS OF FUN WITH THIS ONE!
• Write a blog post about your experience. Embed your project if you can, or link to it so we can enjoy what you’ve done.

MORE IDEAS FOR YOUR LEARNING ACTIVITY:

• Take/find a photo, use pixlr or another editor to transform it in some way.
• Create a collage from photos or screenshots using beFunky, a phone app of your choice or any other tool that you have access to.
• Make a quote graphic with Quozio, GetStencil. Pablo or one of many other tools. (examples)
• Make an animated GIF:  5 Ways To Make An Animated GIF (Without Photoshop!) (my example)
• Create a ‘Past & Present’ photo
• Create an Instagram display for your library.
• Learn how to use pixlr to remove a background from a photo or image so you can reuse it elsewhere.
• Or anything else that takes your fancy!

*TURNING IN YOUR ASSIGNMENT

• Write & publish your blog post.
• Copy the URL (webpage address) for your post.
• Return to your Google Classroom, find the assignment page for the lesson you just completed and follow the directions for turning in and sharing your work.

*Only for students participating in the workshop for PD credit hours through the Google Classroom.

TIPS, TOOLS & RESOURCES

SCREENSHOTS

Knowing how to take a screenshot is so useful.  Use screenshots to share tips on how to use a website, create a custom image to upload to Pinterest, capture an image for a presentation slidedeck, create posters, add images to web-based projects and much much more.

Windows Screenshot Tips

Take screenshots of your desktop, an application running on your desktop or in your browser.

• Printscreen key on keyboard – creates an image of the whole screen and puts it in your clipboard, from there you can paste it into any software that will let you paste from the clipboard.
• Alt-Printscreen – Takes a screenshot of the active window.
• Snipping tool – Free tool built into windows, outline a freeform area, select a rectangular or freeform area, various options for saving.
• Snagit from Techsmith – ($) Lots of features not available in free tools. Mac & PC desktop application. Free trial. Educational & individual pricing.

Macintosh Screenshot Tips

Take screenshots of your desktop, an application running on your desktop or in your browser.

• Command-shift-3 – whole screen is copied to your clipboard
• Command-shift-4 -portion of the screen is copied to the clipboard
• Grab App – more options – one handy feature is a timer so you can set up what you want to show before the shot is captured.
• Snagit from Techsmith – ($) Lots of features not available in free tools. Mac & PC desktop application. Free trial. Educational & individual pricing.

Browser Extensions – These tools capture screenshots of what you see in your browser screen. Some are specific to a particular browser and/or operating system.

• Awesome Screenshot – Chrome, Safari, Firefox browser add-on. Options capturing whole web page, visible part or selected part. Includes cropping, editing, markup. Save online, in your Diigo account, Google Drive or to the desktop.
• Lightshot – Another browser add on, with similar editing, markup and cropping option. Most unusual feature is option to search Google for similar images right from the screenshot editing window. Handy.

Mobile Devices and tablets

• How to take a screenshot of your iPhone or iPad  – Push the Power and Home buttons at the same time. The screenshot will appear in your iPad photostream.
• Taking a screenshot on Android devices varies from device to device. Do a web search for help on this one.

Misc Screenshot Tips

• Saving an image – don’t forget the simple trick of using your mouse “right click’ to to download an image or save it to your clipboard when your on a desktop or laptop computer.
• Snaggy – Copy an image, then paste to a box on the Snaggy page. Snaggy uploads the image to the web and gives you a URL to share the image. Very handy. (Web based only, not an iOS or Android app.)

EDITORS & IMAGE CREATION TOOLS

Who needs fancy, expensive editing software when there are some great, free tools available, both online editors and desktop editors.

• Pixlr – An amazing tool! If you’re familiar with desktop photo editors like PaintShopPro or Photoshop Elements, this free online editor will likely impress you with all it’s features. Also available for Android and iOS. (Pixlr also offers an Express version of its editor.)
• Photoshop Express Editor – Free, iOS, Android & Windows editing app. And also available as a web tool.
• Fotojet – Create collages, social media posts, graphics, Pinterest pins and more, simply and quickly. Start from over 700 provided templates.
• Canva – Another tool for creating all sorts of graphics, posters, slides, Instagram images, Pinterest pins and more. More options than Fotojet.
  • For help, try these Canva Design Tutorials
  • 13 Ways to Use Canva in Your Classroom
• The Noun Project – Fabulous repository of icons for anything and everything. Trust me, take a look, it’s an amazing collection. Free to use images if you give credit to creator. Also has a good discount price for educators. The paid account makes it much easier to recolor and download images. No credit needs to be given to images if you buy the paid account. I finally bought access and use the icons on web pages, documents and in Google Drawing projects.
  • Colorful Communication: How to Recolor Icons from The Noun Project – The Noun project icons are black and white. Follow this tutorial from Tony Vincent to recolor them with Method Draw.
• Clipping Magic – Upload image, easy to use selection tools let you edit out the background of an image and save it as a transparent gif. (no longer free, but still a great tool.)
• Background Burner – Similar to Clipping Magic, not quite as precise, but still free!
• Some popular apps – Ripl, Prisma, Waterlogue
• Snapchat and Instagram both have ways to share a selection of images and short videos to create a cohesive story.
  • What Is a Snapchat Story?
  • Instagram Stories

QUOTE GRAPHICS & WORD CLOUDS

Powerpoint and Google Slides are handy tools for making a bunch of photo/quote images quickly. Paste a photo into a slide & use the title area to write a quote over top. “Save As JPEG” will export each slide as separate image.

These online tools for creating quote graphics and word clouds benefit from having access to thousands of Creative Commons 0 licensed photos and lots of fonts.

• Quozio – Bookmarklet on browser toolbar turns text into a colorful graphic in a few seconds. Handy.
• Stencil & Pablo –  Handy tools for creating social media images. Add text, select backgrounds. Search feature to find the right background image. Includes choices of shape and size optimized for Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. (Stencil link is a referral link)
• 23 Tools and Resources to Create Images for Social Media
• Word Clouds with Tagxedo, Wordle or WordArt (Tagul)

SCANNING

Need an image digitized, use a scanner. Don’t have one? Use a smartphone or tablet app like CamScanner or the scanner built into the Evernote app. Check your app store, there are lots of scanning apps.  And take a look at the tips here: Free Range Scanning – tips from Joyce Valenza

ANIMATED GIFS

The internet world is once again in love these animated images. They were hot in the mid-90′s when the web was new. And now they’re everywhere again. They’re made by either snipping out a short section of a video or by stringing together some still images and having them loop over and over.

Animated GIFs can be used to create a quick demo of how to do something as Kasey Bell demonstrates in How to Create Screencast GIFs.  They can also be used to create short digital stories. Upload a series of hand drawn and scanned sketches to make a little animated cartoon. Create PowerPoint slides with quotes and images, save them as individual images to create a short slide show.  How to Make an Animated GIF, explains how to create them with a free tool called Giphy. (my Giphy example)

There are lots of tools for creating gifs. Check the app store for your mobile device to see what is available.

• Using GIFS for Learning – Some clever ideas from Meredith Akers for using gifs with your students.
• Animate Learning with GIFS – tips and tools from Tony Vincent.
• How to Make a GIF – Short video tutorial on creating your own gifs with Photoshop. From Mike McFadden.
• Brush Ninja – Make Animated GIFs on Your Desktop or Mobile Device – Brush ninja is so easy and so much fun. Give it a try.
• 5 Free GIF Apps for Students and Teachers
• How to Create Screencast GIFs
• Best Apps to Make Animated GIFS – Web, desktop and apps.
• The Easiest Way to Make an Animated GIF
• How to Make Animated GIFS with Photoshop
• How to Create a GIF from a Video
• Look at These 10 GIFs and You Might Actually Learn Something – Some examples of GIFs that are educational. I now know how a lock and key work, who knew?

VIDEO

This is a huge topic in itself. There are so many ways to take video now, with our smartphones, regular cameras, fancy video cams or perhaps a GoPro camera attached to your ski helmet or drone. This section lists a few tools and resources to experiment with. There are tons more!

Video Tools

• Adobe Spark – This isn’t a video-recording tool. It lets you pull together images, video clips, music, voice-over and text to create a great video. Very easy to use and free! One of my favorite creation tools, so versatile.
  • My example with photos, text and music. Could just as easily be a series of video clips strung together.
  • How to Use Adobe Spark to Create a Video – short video by Richard Byrne covers everything you need to know.
• Instagram – Video option built in for posting short videos. (iOS & Android app)
• Magisto – I’m intrigued by this one and haven’t tried it yet. Apps, web and PC. “Magisto turns your everyday videos and photos into exciting, memorable movies you’ll want to watch again and again.”
• 1 Second Everyday – Chronicle your year with 1 second of video every day. Strangely fascinating. (iOS & Android app)
• Check out the iPad and Android app stores for more video apps.

Online storage

• YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube

Editing, etc.

• Microsoft MovieMaker – PC – no longer included as of Windows 10. Though if you have it, you can still use it.
• How to edit videos using the free Microsoft Windows 10 Photos app – Windows 10 has incorporated the MovieMaker features into the new Photos app.
• The best free alternatives to Windows Movie Maker 2017
• The Best Free Video Editors For Windows – MakeUseOf recommends these video editors.
• The 7 Best Video Editors for Chromebook – Covers WeVideo, Magisto and more.
• iMovie – Macintosh
• YouTube Video Editor – YouTube’s simple video editor may be all you need.
• How to Edit YouTube Videos – clearly presented, step by step instructions.
• Three Good and Free Options for Mobile Video Editing
• TubeChop – Save sections of YouTube videos. Handy for classes. Paste in a YouTube URL, adjust sliders to select section you want to save and chop it!
• 7 Ways To Access @YouTube Videos Even If They’re Blocked at School – When YouTube is blocked in your school, it’s handy to have a downloaded video for playback offline. Be cautious though, downloading someone else’s video may be infringing on their copyright and may violate terms of service for video storage sites like YouTube.

MORE RESOURCES

• A Simple Guide To Free Images, Copyright, And Creative Commons For Students And Teachers
• Can I Use that Image: How to legally use copyrighted images   – a terrific infographic that steps you through determining if an image can be used legally.
• USING DIGITAL IMAGES – AN EDUCATOR’S GUIDE – General principles in law which apply to using and re-using digital images.
• Can I Use That Picture – another great infographic stepping you through whether you can use an image or not.
• Digital Image File Types Explained
• Video in the Classroom
• Copyright Friendly Toolkit – Lots of tips about making sure content is being used appropriately.

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