What applications do you see for customized maps in education? Post a comment with your ideas for how customized mapping can be utilized in education.

How to create a .zip file using Mac OS X:

How to create a .zip file using Windows:

So, what are some easy ways to add media to a blog posting? Perhaps the easiest is to take a screen capture of a particular screen of a technology or tool when describing the various features. There are many, MANY different ways in which to take screen shots and post them. I’ll share my favorites here, but I’d love to hear from others what are your favorites.

On my Windows machine, I personally use the free Howies’ Quick Screen Capture software available as a free download from howiesfunware.com. Below I’ve included a screen shot I took of the software open on my PC desktop, along with the available preferences available.

So why do I use “Howie’s” screen capture tool? A few reasons…

1. It’s FREE
2. I can specify a bunch of preferences, such as shortcut “grab” key to press when I want to take a screen shot, file format, quality, location to save the file to, etc.
3. I can choose to either take a screen shot of my entire screen or just the active window

On my computer, I create a “Captures” folder and then have Howie’s set to save all my screen shots to this folder so it doesn’t clutter my desktop. Then, when I’m ready to add the images to either a blog post or some other online communication, I have all the images at my fingertips!

On my Mac, which is my preferred computer system, there are several, even easier ways to take screen captures. Mac OS X has a built-in keystroke shortcuts to take a screenshot of the entire screen (Command+Shift+3) or (Command+Shift+4) to have cross-hairs to select a specific location on the screen to capture. Here’s a short video description of how to capture screen images using Mac OS X.

Once you have a screen shot captured, whether you do it on a Windows or Mac computer, you can then easily upload the image(s) to your blog and embed them in your blog posting. Perhaps someone in our class who has already done this would be willing to record a short screencast explaining the steps? I’m hoping someone will take me up on this challenge

If you’re a Mac user and you’re interested in going to the next level in you screen capture capabilities without spending $ for software, I’d recommend giving Skitch a try. Skitch is free Mac software bundled with a is a webservice that provides 1-click uploading of images for fast and fun image sharing. Here’s a 3 minute video introduction to Skitch.

So there you have it…hopefully, you have a few more ideas regarding adding media to your blog posts. If you are already using screen capture software, what software tool(s) are you using and why? If you have questions about screen capture or posting different types of media to your blog, make sure to bring those questions to an upcoming synchronous class session.

Perhaps the most difficult task in adding a images to a blog post is to upload the images to a server online so that they have a source URL and can then be inserted into the blog post. Images displayed in blog posts are actually just embedded, meaning that the files being displayed are housed on another server but just displayed within the blog post. Numerous free image sharing services are available, like Flickr or Picasa, that you can upload images to and then share with others.

I personally use Flickr and have my personal images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrhode. When I want to include a diagram or other image in a blog post, I upload the image to my Flickr account. Then, using the Firefox browser, I right-click on the medium sized image and then “Copy Image Location”. That is the URL that I need to add a photo as described in the previous tutorial.

If I want the reader to be able to view a larger version of the photo, I add a link to the photo I just inserted back to the original source image. Here’s an example of a diagram I created to explain RSS. Clicking on the image below, you can display a larger version of the image.

If you’d like to give Flickr a try for yourself, here’s a 2 minute video below to help you get started.

Leave comments with additional questions you may have about adding images or other media to blog posts or bring them to an upcoming synchronous class session and I’ll answer them there.

Here are links to each of the “5 minute session” tutorials that you may want to bookmark for future reference…

1. KompoZer intro
2. Downloading KompoZer
3. Unzip KompoZer
4. Website structure
5. Creating a Web folder
6. Creating links
7. Creating tables
8. Saving pages to a Web folder
9. Modifying pages
10. Modify page title
11. Changing cell colors
12. Inserting YouTube video to a Web page

Watch this 3 minute video that explains what online bookmarking, also referred to as “social bookmarking” is and why you should sign-up for a free account today!

I personally have a delicious account, available at delicious.com/jrhode and have found the activity of bookmarking my favorites to have totally revolutionized how I use the Internet. I encourage you to give delicious a try. If you already have a social bookmarking account, leave a comment sharing what service you use and why.

On a side note, a secondary bookmarking service that I use specifically for bookmarking academic research articles that I find is CiteULike. My CiteULike library is at citeulike.org/user/jrhode

I personally have a folder for our class where I’ve added everyone’s blog subscriptions, so I can easily focus on just the new contributions from our class. If you are a Google Reader user, give folders a try!

If you’ve never heard of Google Reader before, watch this brief video that explains Google Reader in Plain English.