Images

                              Owens, J. (2017). 269245. Retrieved from: http://unsplash.com.  CC0.

The jealousy that I feel for this pig is indescribable.  With three and a half days of school left (who's counting?), I'm so ready for summer vacation.  Part of the reason that I selected this photo was because, seriously, that's where my head is at right now.  However, I also loved the vibrant blue juxtaposed with the pale pink of the floating pig.

When I began setting up my blog last week, one of the challenges that I experienced was finding a source of photographs that looked professional and were also free to use.  I highly recommend checking out unsplash.com.  All photos are free to use however you'd like (personal or commercial use), and there are some incredibly beautiful images available.  None of the images have titles, so that posed a challenge with regard to giving credit - but each image does have an author.  Unsplash.com also provides a link to projects that people have created using images from the site.  There are some "remixes" on there that are truly awe-inspiring.  Seriously, if you have a minute, check them out here:
Made With Unsplash.

After finding Unsplash, I was excited to get started on this week's project.  My first attempt at manipulating images using the sandbox tools was a bit disappointing.  I tried to access PicMonkey, but was prompted to enable Flash.  No matter how many times I tried, I was unable to get anything to work (probably user error).  So, keeping in mind advice from the first lecture, I moved on before I started tearing my hair out.

I've used BigHugeLabs before, though only for assignments.  I decided to take a bit of time to really explore the platform, and was pretty impressed by what I found.  I love that BigHugeLabs is a free resource and, as a current English teacher, I could see so many different ways that my students could utilize this resource.  Students could use the Magazine Cover tool to introduce themselves in the beginning of the school year.  They could also use the Motivator tool to create Six Word Memoirs (a student favorite).  Students could use many of the tools to create promotional items for books that they enjoyed that could be displayed in the library.  I decided to use the BigHugeLabs Framer Tool to add a Polaroid frame to a photo that I took of my dog the other day.

                                   Davis, Z. (2017). Hazel. Modified by BigHugeLabs.  CC0.

Next, I checked out FoldPlay.  Of all of the websites, I found this one to be the most exciting.  The tools on FoldPlay could be used in a variety of educational settings, including science (creating foldable diagrams of different organs or ecosystems), math (maybe geometry with all the folding and shapes) and English classes (to create the foldable books).  I could really see students getting in to a MakerSpace project utilizing FoldPlay.

Finally, I tried Tuxpi.  This had many of the same applications as BigHugeLabs, and was just as easy to use.  I had a lot of fun with the different Recolor, Tone and FX tools.  Students could definitely use these tools in art, web design, and certainly photography classes to manipulate images.

I had a lot of fun messing around with different image editing tools this week, and a little less fun trying to figure out how to give credit to sources.

Updated Background Image:
Quinn, M. (2017).  Untitled. Retrieved from: https://unsplash.com. CC0.