Post for the Week of May 25, 2015

I realize that this is somewhat late, but it has been a rather busy week for me at school with SOL testing and senior projects. However, I have enjoyed the readings as well as trying to understand the concept of creative commons licensing. I have even enjoyed playing around with the creation of an avatar of myself, although I don't really need it now since I have posted a picture of myself and family. 

I found the the video by Dr. Kimmel very informative. As you will be able to see on my blog, I went back to try to properly cite my personal photos and I am unsure as to whether I did it correctly. Although I comprehend the different types of licenses available, I am somewhat confused about the noncommercial - sharealike and noncommercial-noderivs. For example, when using your own personal photos should you cite it as CC BY NC, CC BY-NC-SA or CC BY-NC-ND?

Using Google images and the directions provided in the video I decided to keep my search for an image practical, simple and applicable to my work as a social studies teacher. To this end, I followed the instructions and searched for a map of Mesopotamia. I teach about Mesopotamia in World History I. Below you will find a map I found with the citation to follow.  

Kostovski, A. (2010). Mesopotamia Map. [Map] Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMesopotamiaMap.gif 
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Using Tuxpi Photo Editor I was able to add the names of two early civilizations - Sumer and Babylon to my map of Mesopotamia. 

In addition to using Tuxpi which has very good uses for helping students identify and label on a smart board various civilizations under study, I also played around with Big Huge Labs. I was very interested in the Map Maker program which I intend to use next year to help students create maps of civilizations we study in world history. I was also fond of the Jigsaw Puzzle which I can use to help students identify key architectural monuments of the regions studied - i.e. The Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, Buddha, the Forum etc. I also had an opportunity to explore the Newspaper Clipping Generator. This program would work perfect for an activity I have students perform writing postcards to family members about their journey and experiences visiting one of the ancient civilizations. Instead of the postcards the students would be news reports and write about their experiences using the newspaper clipping generator. Of course this would work well only with civilizations that used paper Egypt, Rome, Greece, China etc. Lastly, I played around with PicMonkey. I was not sure how I could use this photo editing program with my students but I was interested because of my reading of chapter 3. I explored creating a few canvasses using the different hues of various colors.