Picture2Life is an online photo editor that offers three sets of functions with an impressive ability to customize within each.

• image editing with an extensive range of both basic edits and photo effects
• creation of collages from sets of images
• creation of animations from sets of images

Photos may be uploaded from your computer or imported from online sites such as Flickr.  Because there are so many available editing choices, it takes a little time to become  familiar with the user interface.  Since it’s all intuitive, it isn’t difficult to figure out.

Uploaded and imported images, as well as edited work is stored in your own “Gallery” on Picture2Life.  You can also organize your work into collections.  Numerous sharing options are available.  The site is set up as a typical social network.  Work created on Picture2Life can be downloaded to your computer, or conveniently  embedded almost anywhere else on the net.  Images created in Picture2Life can even be auto-saved directly to Flickr, Facebook, or just anywhere else you might want.

I’ve embedded the results of my exploration below.  I made a simple animation with a set of photos I took of my 6 year old grandson Isaac as he followed instructions to build Lego on Christmas eve.  There’s a little basic editing I did on a portrait of myself.  The third example is a collage that I put together from some pictures I took at Niagara Falls during the last week of December.

Animation

Basic Editing with Photo Effect

Collage

The good news is that, with the technology available today, there is a plethora of tools available to provide numerous options for every learner. Because most of the emerging tools are free of monetary cost, because they are readily available to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, and because they are easy to use, there is no excuse for teachers who do not use these tools or make them available to the learners they support.

Flypaper is a versatile presentation tool with an infinite range of potential uses by learners and teachers–to engage, represent, and express. Flypaper is easy to learn and use. It is a downloadable program for the PC, so it can be used off line when an internet connection is unavailable. Still, you can easily share your work online in the Flypaper “community”, or embed it wherever else you want to. Flypaper has made it easy to turn your presentation into a flash file, and you can even upload it directly to Youtube from within the application.

In a Flypaper presentation, you can include virtually anything you choose–text, graphics, audio, video, action buttons, hyperlinks, etc. I particularly like the fact that it is convenient for the presenter to add voice narration. A presentation may be a single page, or it may contain multiple “chapters” with as many pages as you want.

Flypaper encourages you to download “models” created by other users, and to use these models as templates for your own work. Flypaper offers tutorials for new users, as well as user forums. There is also a well organized 114 page user manual in pdf format.

I’ve embedded an example of a Flypaper presentation here that merely hints at the potential of the application.

Freebyte’s Guide to Free Graphics Software offers an extensive collection of links to sites where free graphics-related software is available. This is free software for download and installation on your computer. (The site does not link to online applications.) The majority of programs listed run in Windows, but there are some for Mac and Linux.

The list of programs is organized helpfully by category, as illustrated in the screenshots below. The quality of the listed titles I am already familiar with is generally high, so I expect it will be worthwhile to explore more of the software listed here.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners.

I’m particularly fond of Web 2.0 applications that offer me the opportunity to express myself effectively with a variety of media. Prior to the advent of affordable digital technology, I was completely incapable of putting together anything presentable. I do not have the aptitude to be an original creative artist in any traditional medium. Now, however, if I put in some time and effort with readily available online tools, I can hold my head high when I share my graphic or multi-media work.

In my own k-12 years, I would have given my left arm to have access to digital options for creative expression and presentation that are now available. As educators, we need to ensure that ALL learners have ready access to the tools they need to be successful communicators. For many, success and a satisfying sense of accomplishment are achievable only with some of the new digital tools that are becoming available.

Glogster is an online option for presentation and for sharing creative effort. I believe this application has a wide range of potential classroom uses. Glogster’s slogan is “Poster Yourself”, and it has provided a platform for creating single page “posters” that can incorporate a variety of media–graphics, text, audio, and video. Although each “glog” is a single page, you can include links to other glogs.

Glogster encourages users to share their work “with friends all around the world”. Work can be shared in Glogster’s own gallery, via email, or embedded on other web pages. As long as there isn’t audio or video content, work can even be printed on paper to be put up on the wall at school or the kitchen fridge at home.

Glogster may be a bit busy and confusing at first glance, but it’s really delightfully easy to use. Image, audio, or video files can be uploaded and then dragged, dropped, positioned, sized and edited right on the glog. There is a substantial built-in library of “walls” for the background. There is also an extensive collection of graphics that can be added. Many of these graphics are animated.

The only glitch I encountered with Glogster was an embedding challenge. I wasn’t able to embed a glog in this Edublogs blog or in another WordPress blog. I was able to embed it on a PBWiki page, but I was unable to reduce the large format. Still, all the other usual Web 2.0 ways of sharing work are available. Glogster also encourages users to tag their work.

For an example of a well executed and creative piece of work on Glogster, please follow this link to the “tree of knowledge” The simple greeting below was created in Glogster, but I had to take a screenshot in order to include it here. Here’s the link to the full-size version on Glogster.


Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Today’s featured online resource has the potential to benefit almost everyone. Most of us have either Microsoft Office or Openoffice installed on our computers, but I suspect that relatively few of us are using any of the programs in these suites as effectively as we might. Although Inpics tutorials have been designed specifically for individuals with learning disabilities, they can be helpful for anyone using any of these programms designed for productivity.

[This is another resource I learned about from Kevin Jarrit at NCS-Tech! If you have any interest in using technology in education, his blog is definitely worth a look!]

Inpics.net (online resource) This is a set of completely free visual tutorials. Inpics systematically presents simple screen shots to teach and illustrate how to use of some of the most widely used software in the world today. This includes all the component programs of Microsoft Office 2003 (Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Word) and Openoffice.org 2.0 (Base, Calc, Impress, Writer). There are also tutorials for Dreamweaver 8, as well as html and css. The tutorials cover the basics as well as advanced applications.

In the research based design of their tutorials, the people at Inpics have had individuals with learning disabilities in mind. Potentially distracting clutter, colours, animation, and wordy explanations have been avoided. The focus is on tasks peformed by the programs rather than on features. Lessons are presented as mini-projects. Not surprisingly, these tutorials are also accessible and highly effective for people without learning disabilities.

Inpics says there will soon be tutorials for Office 2007, Photoshop, Fireworks, MySQL, and PHP.

The Screenshots below show the first steps in the tutorial on using templates in Word. (Click on the screenshot to enlarge and use your browser’s back button to return to this blog.)

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here’s an online tool with numerous potential educational applications. Visual learners and collaborators will see plenty of possiblities. This one is listed on the Productivity page.

Gliffy.com (online resource) This is a free online diagramming tool. Symbol sets are available for creating diagrams to represent flow charts, networks, user interfaces, and floor plans. Gliffy is simple to learn, with an intuitive user interface. Diagrams can be saved and printed. Or, they can be published and shared. This makes Gliffy an effective tool for collaboration.

At the website, a helpful video is available to demonstrate how Gliffy works and some of the potential applications. As of early October 2006, there is only a free version available. You must sign up for a free account. The developers say they intend to continue offering a free version, but eventually they will also offer a commercial version with a more extensive set of features.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Have you considered starting the new school year by having each student create his or her own photo calendar? Perhaps a collaboratively produced class calendar? Today’s free program from Germany is designed to facilitate the creation of photo calendars. This is a Productivity resource.

TKexe Kalender (downloadable program) Here’s a free program that is designed to facilitate the creation of custom photo calendars. TKexe offers considerable flexibility and provides several calendar formats or styles to choose from. Of course, you can substitute any image file if you prefer not to use photos. The set of Help files is somewhat limited, but the program is not too difficult to figure out. The program can be downloaded from http://www.tkexe.de/kalender/. Be sure to specify your preferred language. This program is available for download in 12 languages!

This program runs in Windows only.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here is another free image manipulation program that is worth looking at. It could prove to be a valuable Productivity tool for you.

Paint.net (downloadable program) This is powerful free open source image and photo manipulation software. It was originally intended as a replacement for the basic “Paint” program that is a standard component of the Windows operating system. This program has an intuitive user interface that was designed to be easy to learn by anyone familiar with Paint or Photoshop. Still, this program is complex enough to be challenging for the neophyte. Fortunately, extensive online help files are available. In Paint.net, you can layer images and apply special effects. Multiple formats are also supported: PNG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TGA, and TIFF. If you need a program to edit images, this may be what you are looking for. It is more than enough to get you started. For Paint.net, you need Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, and at least 128 MG of RAM. You can download the program from Paint.net. Before installing Paint.net, .NET Framework 2.0 must be installed on your computer. You can download this from the same site.

This program is designed to work in Windows only.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.Here is a program that comes from an open source community that is committed to refining and improving it. This is listed on the Productivity page, and if you need to edit images, this may well be all you need.

GIMP (downloadable program) “The GIMP” (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is powerful free open source software designed for editing images. You can use it as a simple paint program, to do serious photo retouching, or for a host of more sophisticated and specialized editing tasks. The user interface of the latest version of The GIMP has made the program relatively easy to work with, but it still requires either past experience with photo editing or a significant learning curve. Fortunately, there is an extensive online manual. There are also helpful tutorials available from the GIMP community as well, and these are designated by level as beginner, intermediate, expert, and beyond. To lean more, for the support materials as well as for instructions on downloading, go to http://www.gimp.org/

The Gimp is cross-platform: Windows, Mac, Linux.

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

Here is a clipart resource that stands head and shoulders above most clipart sites on the web. This one deserves to be bookmarked! It is currently at the very bottom of my Productivity page, but in terms of value it rates much higher.

WP Clipart (downloadable and online resource) This is a clipart site with some significant differences, and it offers the user considerable flexibility. You have the usual option of browsing online and then downloading an image. Or, you can download the entire collection, along with a very handy viewer, and have the whole collection available on your hard drive. WP Clipart contains an extensive collection, with more than 12,000 images, and the collection is updated regularly. Because all the images are in the public domain, they are truly free and may be used for any purpose, even for commercial purposes. All images have been optimized for use in word processors and for printing on inkjet printers. The collection has also been carefully designed for effective searching. Paul Sherman deserves kudos for maintaining a very practical site of exceptional quality. To download the collection, or to access it online, go to http://www.pcbypaul.com/wpclipart/index.html

The Clipart Viewer operates in Windows and Linux.