Four Ways To Really Jazz Up Those Images

Tuxpi.com is an amazing image creation tool that allows a person to use their own personal photos and modify it in many different ways. You can add words, different color schemes, frames, border edits, and art fun. This tool can really help students get creative with the way they do certain projects. Instead of just making a powerpoint with images off the internet, they can take their own photos and create different themes with them. For example, a student working on a history project can use the image I used above and put historical figures within the picture and add their own words to it. Whether it is a biography or information facts, this would be a fun way to make the project different and unique. 

Imagechef.com is another fun photo editing website students can use. You use your own photos and add words to create cool, new pictures. You use different frames to create things like photos as a book cover, photo's within a coffee cup, photos in a necklace, and many more. One interesting frame that students could use in a foreign language class is the one called Vintage International Postcard. The background is very vintage with different famous sites around the world, and the main photo is set within a post card. Students can write facts and information about whatever language they are taking, such as foods, places to travel, people, and any other language related information they want to share. 

BigHugeLabs.com is a site where you can make photos into three dimensional cubes, puzzles, 

bead art, billboards, and many other designs. Students can use the 3-D cube editor to make geometrical math problems and print them, making them into cubes where they can quiz themselves. They can have the answers on some sides, and the questions on another, making this a much more creative way to go through math problems. 

With foldplay.com, you can take your photos and make them into an actual book. You can add your own text to literally make your own book. Students can create a science how to guide to a certain experiment with photos, their own photos of the experiment, and their own instructions. This can replace the boring page print out of how to do the experiment, and this how to guide can be used as a grade as well as the actual experiment. Students will enjoy adding their own texts and instructions, each student's being different and unique. 

 Tuxpi Photo Editor60 Photo Editing Tools. (n.d.). Retrieved May 28, 2016, from https://www.tuxpi.com/ 

I have to cite my great dystopian read of the week image?

OF COURSE!

One might think that images on the world wide web are free for use on social media, presentations, blogs, and much more, but think again! Just like music and movies, images belong to someone, somewhere in the world. It can be difficult to understand the many creative commons licenses, so teachers and librarians should check this link out.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Copyright and fair use information is great as well, so videos, books, and even blogs on the issue should be viewed by teachers, librarians, and even students! So many different media presentations are used in school these days: powerpoints, movies, online posters, websites, blogs. We have to be careful which images we are using since we do not know where they originated so I suggest (and this information comes from a very informative professor) using google images to search for licenses pictures an images. There is a button that allows one to search using usage rights so it makes it a lot easier!

Check out this example on this great dystopian read of the week. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a great YA book that appeals to adults as well. Set in a dystopian setting, young teenagers must fight for their lives to become the only victor. With death, destruction, action, and love, this great read is one that you must add your list.

Duncan, C. (April 30, 2012). The Hunger Games. CC-BY-NC 2.0

References: 

 Collins, S. (2010). The hunger games. London: Scholastic. 

 Kimmel, S. (n.d.). 2014-05-23_1001 - skimmel's library. Retrieved May 25, 2016, from http://www.screencast.com/t/FQ3kBaWhMeFC 

Those Great Dystopian Reads!

Tagxedo (2016). Dystopian Titles Word Cloud.  CC-BY-NC
Image created by K.Gibson with Tagxedo.

A Tale of Two Professions

Greetings!

My name is Krystal Gibson and I am pleased to be on the journey to becoming a school librarian. I spent many years in school, receiving my Bachelors of Arts in English from Virginia Commonwealth University, and my Masters of Teaching in Secondary Education from Liberty University. I am currently only in my second semester at Old Dominion University, but I am excited to receive my Masters of Education in School Librarianship.

I have a 6 year old daughter that I adore and love most of all. She inspires me to keep the path of education. She loves Tae Kwon Do, Ballet, and reading chapter books. She is really gotten into chapter books lately and we spend a lot of time at the local library just reading, picking out books, and playing on the computer.

I am currently a substitute teacher as I have not gotten that permanent position yet, having just received my teaching license in January 2016. I am looking for an English middle school position and hopefully I will receive one by the Fall. I have lived in Virginia all my life and most likely will never leave.

Becoming a school librarian was not my original career choice, but not because it wasn't appealing. I never thought about such a thing because it was not marketed well and not shown as a career that many people would choose. Becoming a teacher, however, was always said to be a great career with many benefits, so I decided to become just that. Deep down though, I knew being in the classroom, teaching day in and day out, was not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I wanted to work with books!! BOOKS! The path of librarianship came by seeing the youth around me flourish with books and seeing how much joy the books brought them, just like they brought me. I knew I wanted to create a place that was safe and honest for students to come and read, write, and learn through the use of technology and written text.

To be, or not to be.. A teacher of a librarian?

When it was said I would have to make a blog, I was not a happy person. I am certainly not creative enough to blog! But I understand the importance of such things when it comes to libraries. "When you approach a new challenge as a true beginner, you need not be saddled with fear of failure or of making mistakes, (Reynolds, 2014, "Start with the beginner's mind"). I will be presentation Zen! Reynolds also says I am creative so I know I can do this. I chose the font changing times because it was catchy looking and times are a changin! I also chose the pretty pink and bird background called Ethereal because I want my blog to be light and fun, not something that is strict and demanding. My bright colors of my font was chosen because Reynolds says we need to use colors to contrast one another so they stick out and stand out against the slides. All in all, I want people to enjoy what they see and read and the same goes for my library!  

Reynolds, G. (2014). Presentation Zen design: A simple visual approach to presenting in today's world (Second ed.). San Francisco: New Riders.