A Sad Commentary on our Schools

This poster from The Jose Vilson Blog dramatizes the lock-step, rote education that is only being made worse by No Child Left Behind.

A third grade teacher from Oregon explains in detail why all the recent budget cuts, teach to test pressures, etc. have driven her to retire. This article, while long, explains clearly the evolution of her creative, learning-inspiring, classroom to the daily drudgery of rote learning and how are schools are becoming even worse, educationally speaking.

Are Blogs the New Zines?

Kerri_eLLe wrote an interesting post on this topic. Check it out. Do you agree that the feminist movement lost something in the move from zines to blogs?

Embed Flickr Photo with Proper Attribution

One can easily paste the URL of a photo at Flickr into the window provided when one clicks the Add Photo icon in Blogger.  But is that the best way to add a photo?  One should always provide information about the photographer and the Creative Commons license which allows one to use the photo legally.  And this simple copy/paste method does not.  It is better to use the Embed code provided by Flickr.

At Flickr.com on the main page displaying a photo, one can click the Share button and choose Grab the HTML code.  Then back in Blogger, where you are creating your post, switch to the Edit HTML view.  Then Paste in the code provided at Flickr. The resulting photo will provide some attribution.  One can hover one's mouse over the photo to get basic info.  One can also click to go to the original Flickr page to get more information about the exact Creative Commons license.  Below is a test with the same flower picture in previous post.

This result appears to be the same as if one had used the Add Photo icon when composing a post in Blogger and then just pasted in the URL of the small size display page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/24567741@N04/4784562251/sizes/s/).  But note that using the Share > Grab HTML method provides a link back to Flickr (as Flickr requests that one do) - by clicking on the photo.

If one does use the simple Copy URL and Paste into Add Photo window, one should at least provide some attribution and a link back to Flickr, for example,

      Photo courtesy of cronegeek at Flickr 
      under Creative Commons License 2.0

Note a similar formulation can be used for Photos from other sites.

Proper Attribution for Creative Commons Photos

It is easy to find photos with a Creative Commons license which allow one to legally use the photos in blogs and on Websites, etc.  But how does one give proper credit and document that one has legal permission to use?

After much research, it appears that at minimum, one should indicate the photographer, the Creative Commons license and link to page where found and/or photographer's profile page on Flickr.  So the minimum attribution for the photo below from Flickr would be   Photo used under Creative Commons license from cronegeek.  (Note Flickr wants one to provide a link back to Flickr. And many other web sites also want you to provide a link back to page where photo appears.)

Alternatively, when working with Flickr photos, one can use the app at Imagecodr.org to produce a photo with the attribution at the bottom as seen below.  [For this photo I displayed the small size at Flickr and then input the URL for the small size page into Imagecodr.org.]

"Stella d’Oro Daylilly - full size" (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) by cronegeek

On the Get Code page at Imagecodr.org there is a button that you can drag to the toolbar on your Web browser for instant access to Imagecodr..

To search for images with a Creative Commons license one can go to

• http://search.creativecommons.org/ where you can conduct searches from Google Images, Flickr, and other places and have your results limited to only images with Creative Commons license. You can also specify whether you want images that can be modified (legally) and/or used commercially (legally).
• http://compfight.com which also searches just Flickr, but tends to give more images than either of the sites above. 

Updated 1/26/17 to use newer, current ImageCodr attribution code.

RSS Widget in Blog Post?

Just testing here to see if possible to put an RSS Feed widget in a blog post.  I got this RSS feed widget from one of Suzie Vesper's educational technology wikis - the page where she talks about her blog and has a news feed widget.  I clicked "Get this Widget" at bottom and copied the Embed Code here.  I presume that I get to specify what blog to feed from - No, get feed of Suzie Vesper's blog.  I guess have to go someplace else on Web to get this form of Widget and be able to specify feed of blog of choice.  I note this is a Javascript widget.

Why Women Don't Write for Wikipedia, etc.

Last week's assignment on the Digital Divide focused on exploring alternative search engines by entering the same search term in each.  One student, using the search term  digital divide gender  at the social bookmarking site Delicious.com uncovered a Jan. 31, 2011 New York Times article "Wikipedia Ponders Its Gender-Skewed Contributions."  The article reported that less than 15% of the contributors to Wikipedia are women and explored possible explanations.  The author interviewed Jane Margolis (who has done wonderful work on institutional sexism and racism in computer science classes) who opined that women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. 

Little mention was made of WHY women might be less willing to assert their opinions in public.  The cartoonist Gabby fills in some of these blanks.  In the excerpt below from Gabby's much longer cartoon, we see the all-too-common reaction women experience when they do assert their opinions in a male dominated blogosphere.

See also the post "I’m a woman, and I’ve edited Wikipedia" on the Geek Feminism blog of 2/11/11 and the many comments by women who formerly contributed to Wikipedia but left in response to what they perceived as an unwelcoming environment.

A full size wall poster of Gabby's entire cartoon (6.75″ wide by 43″ long on rich matte cardstock) can be ordered here.  Gabby's comic books (written under the name Ken Dahl) can be purchased from Microcosm Publishing.

Boys are Like Microwaves

Need a good laugh?  Check out this video.  Based on actual lessons from an Abstinence Education course.  The video can be found on YouTube.

I showed in class on Feb. 16 as illustration of the Xtranormal.com free online tool which allows anyone to create a "movie" by choosing from small selection of characters (has some people as well as these bears) and typing in the dialog.  The website converts into a spoken "movie."