Farr-Out Links to Learning » Free

A Dozen Flickr Fun Favorites!

Jen — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:15:20 +0000

There are a number of Flickr mashups that are fun and in many instances useful. In web development, a mashup is a web page or application that combines data or functionality from two or more external sources to create a new service. Today I am sharing a few of my favorites.

Big Huge Labs – 40 fun ways you can manipulate Flickr images…my favorite Flickr mashups to date! (see my previous post: Big Huge Labs = Fun + Easy Integration).
Animal Photos! – Images on this site are under creative commons and are free to use on web sites and other projects.
Birds of the World – This service allows you to browse through list of all the birds of the world categorized by continent, country. Photos of the birds are fetched from Flickr service, shown along is a link to Wikipedia, with more information about the selected bird.
Bookr- a tool to create photobooks using Flickr images. Photobooks may be e-mailed or embedded in blogs. View my sample below…
Bubblr- fun flickr mashup that lets you add cartoon bubbles to photos. View my sample below…
Clockr – random digit images from Flickr to display the current time. Click on a number to change the image, doubleclick it to view the full image. Use the mouse wheel to cycle through.
Color Fields Colr Pickr – Great way to find Flickr photos by color. Select colors diretly or use the slider to adjust lightness and darkness.
Compfind – Find images for comps, research or inspiration. You can search using Creative Commons settings as well as safe settings.
Digipoem – generates visual representations of poetry and other text sources using folksonomic image tagging on Flickr.
Text sources are also converted into an XML Poem format available to the user (DTD/Schema coming soon).
fastr – a fun Flickr game in which you view a set of ten images and try to guess the common tag. Time based scoring.
Flash Gallery – a free application that allows you to create a slideshow on your website easy and fast. You don’t need any programming skills to install or use it. Just embed it into your website and script will automatically form a slideshow from a specified folder or from Flickr photostream.
FlickIt! – a simple yet extremely useful web service for dynamically generating thumbnails of anything.

Look for more Flickr Fun recommendations in the future!

Collage Magic with Photovisi

Jen — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:24:03 +0000

If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I enjoy working with photographs. I recently came across a new Web 2.0 Collage generator, Photovisi, and took a few minutes out of my day to play. I found Photovisi intuitive and especially liked the fact that you do not have to set up an account to generate some excellent collages. The application offers numerous options and could be used by students to display photographs as a compliment to their “what did I do over the summer” essay. The college application could also be used to display art work, photos from a field trip, family photos for a family tree, etc. The product makes it simple to upload multiple photographs and offers the option to download collages using various resolutions. You can also crop and layer images. I have posted some of my favorite samples below. I hope you and your students enjoy using this new collage generator!

If you enjoyed this post you might enjoy the following archived posts:

Honor the Memory of Dr. Seuss: Free Resources & Books

Jen — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:27:15 +0000

What kind of book-lover/mother/educator would I be if I did not acknowledge Dr. Seuss’s birthday today? I dedicate this post to the memory of the man who made so many children and adults happy, successful readers.

Click on the screenshot image (found at the top of this post) to access the Happy Birthday Dr Seuss portal site I researched and developed as we celebrated Dr. Seuss day in our school. The site includes information about Dr. Seuss, his books, quotes (with buttons that students can use to have the phrases read to them), and links to games and online activities that feature the characters and imagination of the beloved Seuss. Explore the orange circles found at the top of the site to access the numerous links and resources I put together.

You can also gain access to four free digital Seuss books when you download and open a free kidthing account (you do need to download and install the program on your classroom or home computer). Use the code KTCODE-NEA5RAA to receive free books that you can project from your computer. The offer is good through March 30th, do don’t wait too long! I have pasted a copy of the offer I received below. I know it sounds too good to be true, but believe me these books are free! Click on the image below to go to the site and register for your free account. And, yes, they are trying to sell books, but I have to tell you I was impressed with kidthing. Let us know what you think by using the comment link found at the bottom of this post.

In addition to being a Dr. Seuss fan, I have been a long-time fan of the International Children’s Digital Library site. Whenever I share this site with librarians, foreign language teachers, general education teachers, and of course students we are all in awe at the number, quality, and diversity of books found on this site. Registration is optional, but if you register you can…

select the language you prefer to use
return to the last page you were reading
save your favorite books in a personal bookshelf
access these features from any computer

Enjoy the books and resources I have shared today and send happy thoughts upward (and around you) as you think of all the wonderful men and women who have shared their writing talent over the years. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!