Some Sources for Copyright-free Photos

Nice resource!

Digital Literacy Tools

Copyright Free Digital Photos I use a few of these depending on the photo I need - Great for PowerPoints Comp Fight http://www.compfight.com
-> This has an excellent Creative Commons search engine

Copyright Free http://www.copyrightfreephotos.com
-> The copyright (royalty) free photos available on this site have been made available, free of charge, for any application as you require - web design, graphics, backgrounds, printed images, desktop wallpaper & screensavers. The only exception is that images may NOT be added to other photo libraries (either online or offline) - without written permission from the site owner.

Copyright Free Photos http://www.dotgovwatch.com/index.php?/archives/8-The-Best-Copyright-Free-PhotoLibraries.html
-> Thousands of photos taken by U.S. Government employees as part of their official duty are free of copyright and free to use.

Copyright Friendly http://copyrightfriendly.wikispaces.com
-> Most of the media in the collections are attached to generous copyright licensing. Though you may not need to ask permission to use them when publishing on the Web for educational purposes, you should cite or attribute these images to their creators unless otherwise notified!

Free Foto http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
-> FreeFoto.com is made up of 127417 images with 168 sections organized into 3485 categories.
Non-commercial users may download our web size images to use off-line in school projects, church services, cards, leaflets, etc. Basically if your off-line use is not commercial you can download our web size images for free.

Ideas Wisconsin www.ideas.wisconsin.edu
-> All of the images in the imageide@s repository are free for educators to use within their classrooms.

Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
-> The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people. It does not charge permission fees for use of such material and generally does not grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute material in its collections.

Pics4Learning www.pics4learning.com
-> Pics4Learning is a copyright-friendly image library for teachers and students. The Pics4Learning collection consists of thousands of images that have been donated by students, teachers, and amateur photographers.

Public Domain Pictures http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
-> PublicDomainPictures.net is a repository for free public domain photos. You can upload your own pictures and share your work with others.

Teacher Tap http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic98.htm
-> This page provides links to some of the better copyright-free and public domain resources. Are intended for educators and librarians who wish to locate quality, copyright-friendly materials for educational, noncommercial, and nonprofit projects.

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Mobile in Education - You're Already Late

Another piece from an article I linked to earlier. Mobile is coming and it's coming quickly - our educational institutions need to begin moving now (actually a couple years ago) if they don't what to get caught flatfooted.

Need to make the case to your college administration? Consider sharing the quote below - with emphasis on the phrase "lost monetization opportunity" along with the following graphs.

Mobile devices overtake computers on Wi-Fi networks:

It’s also another reminder that content owners and publishers should be preparing for more people using mobile devices to consume their content. Right now, many sites are still not optimized for mobile, which can be a lost monetization opportunity. Make no mistake; the world is turning mobile, and it’s happening right now. Better to get with the program than get left behind.

Another Tipping Point for Mobile

A clear shift from desktop/laptop operating systems to mobile devices and OSs. In fact, Windows and Mac OS X dropped from 64% to 36%. That's more than just a shift, it's a disruption - an almost immediate upending of long standing and expected hierarchies. Will we this erosion of traditional OSs in favor of mobile continue? I think so. Consider the data consumption of the iPad - 4 times that of smartphones. Combine that with the fact that the tablet market is still in it's infancy; as that market grows, we should expect to see a corresponding growth in mobile data usage.
Mobile devices overtake computers on Wi-Fi networks:

Mobile devices, led by the iPad and Android phones and tablets, have overtaken computers on Wi-Fi networks, according to a new report from cloud networking provider Meraki. It’s another sign that mobile is increasingly the way people access the Internet, bypassing traditional computers in their hunt for information.

Meraki said that in 2010, Windows and Mac OS X accounted for 64 percent of devices that accessed Wi-Fi networks, while iOS (the iPhone and the iPod touch at the time) accounted for 32 percent and Android was just 1 percent. A year later, iOS — bolstered by the iPad — and Android now represent 58 percent of Wi-Fi devices, while Windows and Mac OS X account for 36 percent. The numbers have gone up since March, when Om got some Wi-Fi usage statistics from Meraki, which found that the iPhone accounted for 23.5 percent of connections, while Android had 5.2 percent and the iPad took 3.4 percent.

...

The iPhone was the most popular device on Wi-Fi networks, with a 32-percent share. Android now accounts for 11 percent of devices on Meraki’s networks, equal to the iPod touch alone. Those numbers will certainly increase for Android as its installed base grows. Meraki also found that the iPad was a power device, consuming almost 200 megabytes per month, about four times as much as the average for Android, iPhone and iPod touch devices.

Protecting Your Brand

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin in the first 10 minutes of their podcast Hypercritical discuss searching Google for a brief audio clip from The Simpsons. Instead of getting a useful result, Siracusa gets links to a bunch of static videos (just an image with audio) that link to SPAM. He points out that this is a case of Fox - the owners of The Simpsons - not protecting their brand. He suggests that Fox should be posting clips of the Simpsons - either on YouTube, a site they control, or somewhere else, rather than letting others post the content. Fox could limit the length of these clips and add links to paid content or alternatively use an ad supported model. In the end, it's important for Fox and The Simpsons - and for any small company or organization (even individuals) - to control their brand. When someone searches Google for your brand, the top hits should be your brand!

Play: http://audio.5by5.tv/broadcasts/hypercritical/2011/hypercritical-022.mp3

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The Digital Natives are Restless

Good stuff from Jessica Hagy

Quote of the Day

From Ben Brooks:
The Real Reason There Was No Email On The BlackBerry PlayBook — The Brooks Review:

Jay Yarow:

Turns out it had to skip native email support on the PlayBook because its architecture can’t support two devices with one person’s account, according to a source.

Man, you would think with two CEOs you would be able to foresee this kind of thing.

Everything is a Remix - Part 3

Earlier I posted Part 1 and Part 2 of Everything is a Remix - here Part 3. Brilliant stuff from Kirby Ferguson.

Everything is a Remix Part 3 | Everything Is a Remix:

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

The Nokia N9

The new Nokia N9. Not running Microsoft's Mango, but instead MeeGo. Very engaging, catchy video. Hope the phone is as engaging.

Another Half-Baked Tablet?

HP TouchPad rumored to lack document editing at launch:

The WebOS nuts at PreCentral have received an anonymous tip-off that HP's imminent slate won't be able to edit Office docs out of the box.

The Security Weak Link

Employees:

As companies like Sony and Citibank identify the causes of recent security breaches and try to remedy network weaknesses, area businesses are well aware of potential threats.

Yet, improving security is more than beefing up firewalls or installing better encryption technology. The weakest link remains the individual employee, who may be using less secure email services or carelessly leaves sensitive data unsecured, analysts say.

Skype Fires Executives, Avoiding Payouts After Microsoft Buyout - Businessweek

Classy!

Skype Technologies SA, the Internet- calling service being bought by Microsoft Corp., is firing senior executives before the deal closes, a move that reduces the value of their payout, according to three people familiar with the matter.

On the Failure of Nokia and RIM

Great thoughts on the downfall of Nokia and RIM from Horace Dediu. I encourage you to listen to this episode, subscribe to the podcast, and read Dediu's Asymco blog. Really smart guy!

http://audio.5by5.tv...calpath-002.mp3

Horace Dediu and Dan Benjamin discuss how smartphone pioneers Nokia and RIM falter while the market is booming.

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10 IT Skills Today's High School Kids Have?

10 IT Skills that Today's High School Kids Have - Do You?:

As IT Professionals, we've seen technology change very rapidly over the past 10 years. We've managed to keep pace and learn new skills on the job or through training courses. What might surprise you are the skills that high school kids possess today. Here is a look at some skills that many high school kid have - do you?

I give you each of the 10 below and my take:

1. Blogging? I don't see many high school kids blogging.
   
2. A surprising number of my students just out of high school are well-versed with Linux.
   
3. I don't have a lot of students focused on programming, but that's not surprising, as our networking program is not part of computer science.
   
4. Can't argue with Game Consoles and on-line games, but I'm not sure I would characterize this as an IT skill.
   
5. Computer hardware is the new car! Students are constantly tinkering with PCs, CPUs and other hardware.
   
6. Again you can't argue that students are much more versed in texting, but is this really IT? Maybe sending or receiving short troubleshooting questions?
   
7. In my experience, not many students are using Twitter yet.
   
8. Our kids are much more experienced in web design, multimedia and other digital content creation.
   
9. Facebook - duh! Although their use of facebook seems to be strictly social.
   
10. Students are surprisingly good at tech support - wether it's helping their peers or adults.
    

Teaching Kids Circuits Using Play Dough

Brilliant! Scroll down for videos...


Squishy Circuits

Squishy circuits are a project from the Thomas Lab at the University of St. Thomas. The goal of the project is to design tools and activities which allow kids of all ages to create circuits and explore electronics using play dough.

How to Make Conductive Dough

How to Make Insulating Dough

Squishy Circuits Demo


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Evernote Peek and iPad2

Very clever little app! Brilliant use of the iPad2 smart cover. I can see this becoming the go-to flashcard/study app.

Evernote Peek: The First Smart Cover App That Could Make You Smarter:

One of the best parts of the iPad 2 is the colorful, magical smart cover that comes as a peripheral. Lift the cover and your iPad turns on, drop it and it goes to sleep. It’s kind of addictive. But what if someone actually built an app around that fidgety behavior?

Well, Evernote just did. It’s called Evernote Peek, a free app for the iPad 2 that is designed around the smart cover. It is the first smart cover app, and it may even make you smarter.

Evernote Peek is a simple Q&A quiz app. You lift the cover a little and to see a question like “How fast does light travel?” or “Who was the fifth President of the United States”? Then lift the cover a little more to see the answer.

Steve Martin on Twitter

Steve Martin @SteveMartinToGo parodying his famous line from the movie The Jerk.


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WWDC Prediction

I have no inside information, this is just based on observation and intuition.


Last weeks release of universal versions of Keynote, Numbers, and Pages - versions that work on the iPhone and iPod touch, in addition to the iPad got me to thinking. It would be really useful if I opened Keynote on my iPhone and all of my presentations from my iPad were just there. Dropbox already does this and so does Apples' iBooks app.

So among the announcements I expect today at WWDC is support for syncing of Keynote, Numbers, and Pages documents among all my idevices through the iCloud service to be announced today. A bonus might be access through the desktop versions of the apps as well, but that might have to wait until OS X Lion.


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Jason Snell on the Windows 8 Tablet

Some very good insights!

Why Windows 8 fails to learn the iPad's lessons

The problem with the announcement is that Microsoft has failed to commit to the tablet as a unique type of device. The company that spent a decade trying to push Windows tablets on a market that just didn’t want them is still convinced that it’s a selling point that Windows 8 tablets will run Microsoft Excel for Windows and if you hook up a keyboard and mouse to them, you can get an arrow cursor and click to your heart’s content.
...

while it would be so easy to just write Microsoft off as a completely clueless company that’s just living off its former glory, the fact is that there’s some very interesting work going on at Microsoft. It just seems to be stuck inside a company that can’t let go of the past in order to embrace its own promising future.

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Linus Torvalds on the Origins of Linux

A little long (~1 hr and 25 minutes), but worth the time. The Origins Of Linux – Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds, the creator of the operating system phenomenon Linux, tells the story of how he went from writing code as a graduate student in Helsinki in the early 1990s to becoming an icon for open source software by the end of the decade.

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