Thing 14 Media Skills

Generally, I have been good with technology that I need to know, but not when it comes to screenshots.  It is important to be able to do this and after a little playing around, I have got it!  First, I reintroduced myself to a screenshot generator that a friend downloaded onto my computer for creating maps for my bike group.  It is not on the list to try from CTFS, but it is really good and should be added - Greenshot!  Here is a little screen clip about this application from the internet:

I saved this to a file in my documents called "Screenshots", but you can save your screenshot to many programs or simply the clipboard.

I also played around with the Windows snipping tool, which took a few tries to understand, but here is a snipped image of a book cover - I tried the drawing tool, but it is hard to control:

Now that I have a few options for screenshots, I moved onto a fun photo editor called Fotojet.  I created a postcard with multiple pictures into a template from a vacation:

And I have also created Mock magazine cover with pictures from the NYC Five Boro Bike Tour that I participated in a few years ago.  I could have a lot of fun with this:

I would use these two photo collage applications for creating posters to put up for different library related themes and events.  I just need to have a nice collection of library related images in my photos folder, then I can piece together something fun to attract my students.

The last media item that I know I would use (also for my bulletin board is the quote graphics and word clouds applications.  I love finding inspirational quotes to motivate students to read!!  I also like to make books more meaningful by sharing passages or quotes that will resonate with readers (or anyone). I have used Recite in the past, but I also liked Quozio - it's definitely nice to have a few options with different backgrounds to highlight the text.  This is one from Quozio:

Here is one from Recite:

These sites could have been used with social studies teachers and their students while they were studying philosophers from the Scientific Revolution;  some well-known famous quotes originated with Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Francis Bacon, etc.  The quotes could have been posted on the classroom walls, in Google Classroom and in research papers.  I would love to create some nice graphic representations of different quotes and pin them into a Pinterest board.  It would be the first time I pinned an image of my own creation!!

Introduction

Hi Readers, I am creating this blog as part of the Cool Tools for Schools professional development program for teachers and librarians. I happen to be a high school librarian in the Rochester, NY area. Digital technology is everywhere and it is important to know how to use all the tools available for learning, communication, networking, and fun. At the high school level, I hope to help staff and students with technology in the classroom, so this will be a great mind expanding and highly relevant experience for me. Actually, it is my second year in the program, but I decided to switch over to Blogger as WordPress is using advertising to support their free blogs - Boo! Anyway, I chose the name "Digital Jewelry Box" because I happen to love jewelry and would never go anywhere without wearing something from my jewelry box - which is kind of the same way I feel about technology in education...you need to have it, use it, and show it off! Am I right? So, although this is a late start, I have used Blogger before (three blogs to my name) and do not anticipate having any trouble using it. Here we go...