I know. I promised to post more often. I’m trying to keep that promise. Here come the links.
1 – I saw this graphic and thought of the number of times I was searching for something like, “How to Write A Broadcast News Story.” Try it, you’ll be deep in the google results before you find something remotely useful.
Deep In The Googleplex
2 – YouTube has a fairly good resource called the Copyright Center. It is focused on video, but has some good videos about remix culture, educational use and fair use. And of course they have several good videos about copyright that would be useful in the classroom.
3 – Ever wanted to clean your lens the right way? Nikon has a lengthy video with a how to do it the right way.
4 – As a web designer, I find this funny.
Go Web Go!
5 – This is also true, and I tell my broadcast kids this all the time. No one else thinks your voice sounds weird.
Does my voice sound funny, or am I sucking down helium?
6 – I really like the Iconic Photos web site. It is a combination of my two favorite subjects History and Journalism. This photo of Pope John-Paul II’s assassination attempt affected billions of Catholics and others world wide. The site also provides great in-depth information about the photos, it is terrific.
Pope John Paul II
7 – Do your photographers want to make a living after they leave your classroom, then they must have all five of these key skills for a 21st Century photog – thanks dPs.
8 – Bill Mecca has a video that answers the question: How long should you leave graphics on the screen? My answer is usually long enough to read it out loud at a normal pace.
9 – HTML 5 is all the rage it seems. But why bother learning it, when HTML 4 works just fine. WDL has an entire post devoted to that answer, but here are the bullet points:
HTML5 will load much quicker than its older brother because it implements WebSockets.
Mobile phone applications will be much more accessible if written in HTML5 because you will not have to write applications for a specific brand of phone but rather can create universal applications for all phones.
You have more flexibility in creating your website.
Video, audio and images are all easily written right into the code, eliminating the need for any third party software.
This language is growing and will only result in more, new, better and faster features that will leave old websites looking outdated.
HTML5 simply builds on HTML4, so the old markup can stay in place as you develop the new features.
HTML5 and CSS3 together will give you some serious designer credibility.
10 – This is a great behind the scenes video of how they shoot the Super Bowl for Sports Illustrated.
11 – I love this quick way to teach sports photography “two faces and a ball.” It’s just that simple.
12 – How magical this must have been. Kids today don’t understand that we used to have to wait to get our pictures back. Not Polaroids.
You Don't Have To Wait
13 – How do you tell a story? Good question. Campfire Journalism has a post with three different answers. Thanks.
My son had strep throat and the Dr. wouldn’t let him go back to school until tomorrow. So today is my day for parent duty – so no school. The yearbook is finally done, except the supplement and I can finally get a post out. It has been more than a month since my last post. Wow, that’s bad. I do have a lot of links though.
2 – British photographer Horace Winters gives us a visual record of what the world of Charles Dickens was like. Courtesy of the blog Spitalfields Life, these photos could be used in history class, British Lit. or journalism. They are a great record of what most of us can only imagine from reading Nicolas Nicklesby or any other Dickens classic.
East End Nippers
3 – As a teacher of both journalism and history, I’ve always been fascinated by the stories from the US Civil War and WWI of the Christmas truces. Many times, these tales tell of swapping common, but well liked items from one side, for what seems like better items from the other side – southern tobacco for northern coffee, etc. But also of singing common hymns like Silent Night, and then on Dec. 26, a return to the shooting. Thanks to Iconic Photos for the picture.
Christmas Truce
4 – Make Use Of has a Simple Guide to How The Internet Works in PDF format. Great for teaching students the basics of the internet.
5 – Here’s a great way to do first time assignments for MMJs doing a one-man-band assignment, thanks Bob Kaplitz blog.
6 – I think I’ve featured this before – Cueprompter – it is a free online teleprompter that works pretty good.
7 – I’m excited about the upcoming film – The Bang Bang Club about a group of photographers, including Pulitzer winner Kevin Carter. Thanks PetaPixel blog.
8 – Now this is punny.
Punny
9 – Silber Studios have some super color photos from Frank Hurley, the photographer who accompanied Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica, but failed to reach the South Pole. The site discusses the difficulty in taking photos on the journey, never mind color ones.
Early Color Photos from Antarctica
10 – Here’s another iconic photo from the blog of the same name – The End of the Thousand Year Reich, taken by the incredible Margaret Bourke-White. She saw and took photos of so many incredible things during her career and this suicide photo was just one more to add to the list. Read the whole post for the rich details about the photo and the end of WWII and the many suicides of Nazi party faithful.
End of the German Reich
11 – No Cool Links would be complete without a post from the DPs, Digital Photography School. Every photojournalist needs to be able to shoot a decent portrait. Here are 10 Techniques for better portraits.
12 – Photographer Sean Armenta is a photoshop wizard and his tutorials on the Pen Tool and Healing Brush are great. Here’s his new one on the Clone Stamp Tool. Thanks PetaPixel and F/Stoppers.
13 – Pro Photographer Mike Olivella has a great YouTube channel where he shows off his techniques for shooting NCAA sports. Here’s his tips on Football.
15 – Here’s a little gem – a video about making a book using hot lead presses.
16 – What would happen if you used your camera for the first time? Funny video.
17 – The Lenslinger really says it all in this “open letter.” You can’t just be a writer or reporter or a photographer any more. You really must be able to do it all and do it well. You can’t be lazy and you better be good at what you do – or you will be gone.
In education right now, it is not the end of the world. But we can see it from here. In Texas, they are talking about cuts to everything, even football if you can believe it. That’s how you know it’s the end of the world. If it is education, then they are looking to cut it back – cost wise, yet “provide the same high level of quality.” As P.T. Barnum once said (or didn’t) “There’s a sucker born every minute.” OK, enough soap boxing – let’s move on to the links.
Education Cuts
1 – Thanks to PetaPixel for this video about an animal photography close encounter.
2 – PetaPixel was full of great stuff this last week or so, I love this shot. Cameras that are well used. Thank goodness our cameras are usually not in this bad of shape.
Dirty Cameras
3 – And finally from PP again, an interesting mashup of computing power and photography – the “average” face of a woman in 40 countries. Not sure how they did this, but it is interesting.
4 – Former Guardian editor Tim Radford has 25 commandments for journalist. They are superb – my favortite: 10. So here is a rule. A story will only ever say one big thing. AND 20. English is better than Latin. You don’t exterminate, you kill. You don’t salivate, you drool. You don’t conflagrate, you burn.
7 – Gizmodo is a tech blog, so it is interesting when they have an article about photography and sports photography at that – how to shoot football. Good stuff.
10 – I discovered a great blog called Everything is Remix. There are two great videos on the site, Part 1 and Part 2 about the Remix Culture and why it is a good thing.
11 – I have to agree in principle with The Innovative Educator, except that it is a Race To the Bottom.
I haven’t done a links post in so long I think people have aged since then. Sorry, but all you yearbook teachers out there understand – this is the crazy season. Lots of deadlines from now until we finish. The walking dead are yearbook teachers without enough coffee – real zombies. So here are some links…
1 – This one is super cool, data – journalism – education – interactive all rolled into one. The interactive map of ROI on education. Just check it out, my school district was actually lime green.
2 – The terrific Bob Kaplitz blog has a graphic with the four levels of story-telling. Very useful, I’m going to share it with my broadcast journalism kids. Maybe we can move past level 2.
4 - The Daily Grind has a response from the trenches to President Obama’s remarks in the SOTU about education. Worth reading.
5 - This is funny, and yet true in its own way. Follows the baffle ‘em with BS theory.
6 – Some of us are old enough to remember black screens with green letters and punch cards. Our smart phones and iPads are nearly proof that we live in the future. Ars Technica has a lengthy, but good article about the evolution of computer screens.
7 – Thanks to PetaPixel – this is really cool. They found someone who still shoots old fashioned Ambrosetypes (similar to Daguerrotypes).
9 – OK, I’ve never heard of useit.com before, but I’ve heard of nearly all the ideas in this article before. They just packaged it all together in one spot. They restate what I’ve heard of people who read on the web and what is known about scanning. This is why journalists must get back to basics on the inverted pyramid and headline writing.
12 – We have to stop forcing boys (and some girls) into the box of the “good student.” I learned so much from my own son and two former students from my broadcast journalism class. All of these students are the get up and go kind of people. They can’t stand to be sitting down – unless they are playing a video game, musical instrument, etc. They have to be active. We can’t keep forcing passive learning on them.
13 – I still think this kind of photo-retouching is wrong. People used to smoke – everyone knows that. I don’t think Churchill will make a kid want to take up the cigar.
14 – My students do this all the time…
Stop Printing
15 – These kids from Quebec have no idea what a record player is for, or an 8-track. How long until iPods are obsolete?
16 – Maybe if more journalists acted like this, there’d be more readers/viewers/visitors – see Overheard in the Newsroom.
I think I may post again tomorrow. Getting sleepy – still got lots of links in the hopper.
I have not been able or had enough energy to post a links post in more than a month. My bad, as the kids say. I think, with football season over, they will come out with more regularity. Here’s the backlog of links.
1 – This photo must have hit with the emotional punch of the 9/11 Towers. Sure England was a nation already at war when the Blitz hit, but the bombing of their capitol had to come as a surprise to most Londoners.
The Blitz
2 – The Newsosaur says that Deadlines Don’t Matter, and for a print product I would agree. But you must own local and you must be online first and more importantly you better get it right.
3 – Here’s a tool that you can use for a lesson, LIFE Magazine’s Timeline creator. I think you could come up with topics for students to create timelines of famous photos from the archives. (Thanks to FreeTech4Teachers)
4 – This is a great graphic of movies about high school. It is however, missing Never Been Kissed – best high school movie about journalism.
6 – I’m pretty sure I first saw this on the Principal’s Page blog, but it is a great comic about this movie that makes it look so easy to turn around schools by just turning them over to the “supermen” at charter schools.
7 – Photojojo has a few tools for telling if a photo has been faked. Worth checking out.
8 – Petapixel blog has a copy of the first ever digital photo – not from a digital camera, but from a scanner in 1975.
10 – I know a lot of video shooters don’t know a monopod from a broken tripod leg, but I think as many shooters become one-man-bands, they are going to get to know the value of a good monopod.
11 – I am a big Mac fanboy, but I do know how to use a Windows PC. But I still wouldn’t trade the ease of use and tight integration of my Mac for desktop publishing, video editing or web design. Windows 7 is pretty good, but you are still at the mercy of the hardware makers. I still think Mac hardware is still the best, Natania Barron does not agree.
12 – OMG, I have already shared this video with my photojournalism class. Next year, it will be day one. They were very quiet. Thanks to the Reynolds Institute.
16 – Most of the famous photos I’ve shared are US centric, but this is also an important moment for journalism – L’Affaire Dreyfus and journalist Emile Zola. He stood up for a Jewish army officer in the French army accused of treason. Anti-Semitism was just as bad in France as in Germany. There is a great movie with Richard Dreyfus in it called Prisoner of Honor.
I know it seems like I haven’t had a links post in a long time. And that is because I haven’t. I haven’t had a free Saturday since school started. Every week has been a blur, football games, pep rallies, family events and more. So, here are the much awaited links.
1 – I like the fact that the new Twitter web site design uses the Golden Ratio.
2 – This is just an absolutely incredible photo. I am always telling my students that they have to find a new way to look at the same old thing. And who hasn’t seen the space shuttle being pulled out to a launch? But, have you seen it this way?
Space Shuttle New Way
3 – This took a lot of guts. The valedictorian of this school chose to criticize the quality of the education she received, even though nearly everyone would agree she got the very best.
4 – Here is a list of web sites all web designers should be looking into.
As the song says, “Relax, don’t do it.” Today is the beginning of the long march to Thanksgiving. Holidays are few and far between for the next three months. So, we must take today and relax as much as possible. I smell a nap later, so here’s the links -
1 – Templates for TV graphics save time and effort, plus make your show’s look have some consistency, but inevitably someone forgets to complete the graphic before air time.
3 – The KRG blog has a list of 12 essential skills for aspiring journalists. It is a good list, but it is missing one important skill – the ability to monetize your content. Take some business classes.
4 – I can’t remember if I have mentioned this resource before. He does not have any journalism courses, but his story is inspiring. Khan Academy is a super resource for students struggling with math or science. His free youtube channel has taught thousands.
5 – FORA.tv has a conversation with Bill Gates that focuses mainly on education. Like so many others who have never taught, they think they can solve all the ills of education. Gates’ magic wand is charter schools. He forgets that unlike charters, many students in public schools do NOT want to be there, there is a deficit of parental support and we can not negotiate our way out of special education mandates. He also doesn’t acknowledge the high burnout rate and lower pay for teachers in charter schools. He also thinks that a third year teacher is better than a veteran teacher, because they work harder. Working harder is not always working smarter. I work plenty hard now, I know I’m a better teacher after 15 years, than after only two. And finally, he wants to record every minute of the classroom day with a web cam. How many parents would agree to having their children recorded? He should stick to software that crashes and leave the classrooms of America alone.
6 – Just for TV Teachers has struck a nerve, or had his struck. He wonders if all the time, money and attention devoted to high school football is worth it? There are times where I wonder the same thing. Don’t get me wrong, I played high school football and in the band. I enjoy going to games and I love the game itself. But in many states the insane amounts of money that are diverted to sports at the secondary level could be used to improve the quality and number of teachers, or purchase equipment and instructional materials that are sorely needed. In a time where many states are slashing education budgets, how many have seriously thought about cutting sports or even cutting their budgets? When times are good and there is more than enough money for all, sports are a luxury we can afford – but when belt tightening is required, why does the athletic department so often get a pass?
7 – This next post is just for fun – cardboard cameras. Too bad they don’t work.
Cardboard Camera
8 – News hits home, film at eleven.
News hits home
9 – The clone stamp tool can be very useful when doing artistic or touch up work on a portrait – never for journalism. All Web Design Info offers this tutorial.
11 – My local newspaper here in Houston is closing it’s doors for good. The last issue was tossed on my driveway last week. It was published for 70 years. I knew the editor pretty well and I know that the ever shrinking metro the Houston Chronicle never covered our area well before, they won’t be doing a better job with a smaller staff.
12 – Etaoin Shrdlu thinks that newspapers started dying when they stopped offering something of value. He compares it to Starbucks. You can get a cup of coffee for way less than $1 almost anywhere, but coffee at Starbucks is usually more than $3 and people line up to pay. They do so, because Starbucks also offers both customization and a place to drink the coffee in a nice atmosphere. Newspapers missed out in the past by keeping their price artificially low – this encouraged customers to see news as virtually free, even before the internet. Since the internet, newspapers have missed the boat on customization. They should have been creating systems for people to make their own custom news feed/page. And finally, they also could have been a part of creating atmosphere – they should have found a way to get their newspaper in every coffee house in their readership area.
13 – Random Mumblings blog says that newspapers need to stop thinking about the paper edition. They should focus on the web, because that is where people get their news today.
14 – If you ever wanted to know how to light a subject for a photoshoot – DIY photography has 13 video tutorials on how to set up lighting.
‘Twas the night before school and all through the house, the kids were sad, and so were the teachers. Not really, but it makes a good scene. Both children and teachers in this house are ready to go back – mostly. So, here’s a few last minute links to bide you over the first day back. Mine is tomorrow.
[Editor's note: I started this post last Sunday, the night before the first day of school. I'm finishing it seven days later. It was a long week - can you tell?]
1 – Journalists in the 21st Century really MUST be jacks-of-all-trades, so says the hiring practices of most media organizations. Honestly, I was getting this advice back in 1988 – so, really is this a surprise?
3 – More than any other mathematical concept, the Golden Ratio has my attention. I love the many ways that the ratio is represented in art, music, architecture, nature and more. It is a divine concept.
4 – The Beaumont, Texas office of Taylor Publishing (Balfor now?) has a cool resource site – check it out!
5 – Tamron video wants to help you use your Flash better in Episode 12 of their continuing series of photography videos.
6 – Free Tech 4 Teachers has a list of 140 user generated ideas for things that teachers are going to try in their classrooms this year. I’m in the slideshow (yea me!) and I’m going to try Moodle. My district has started it’s own Moodle site. I really like it so far.
7 – I stumbled upon DigitalRev after watching a great stress test video that pitted a Nikon vs. a Canon camera. DigitalRev has a Youtube channel and a great blog too. I’ve added them to my RSS and Youtube subs.
11 – After the Exposure Triangle – dPs wants us to get a little more advanced with our thinking about the exposure triangle = meaning aperture is more than just more light.
12 – The Internet gets news out faster and better right? Not when Twitter punks the news. Rumors can run rampant and then CNN and others actually report fake news stories. Oh Dang, can you say retraction. And in a related post, The Chive, punked us all with Dry Erase girl. Supposedly she quit her job with a series of photos posted on a photo sharing site, telling all about her boss. But alas, it was just a hoax – it did come from the Onion-like Chive site. Duh.
14 – The folks over at 2¢Worth are trying to create an innovative online/DVD yearbook mashup. No printed copy or only as a print on demand product. I’m interested in seeing how this might work.
15 – Thanks to the Principal’s Page blog for reminding us all of this. As the year goes by, things get busy and they often get hard. It’s the hard that makes it great.
I’ve been busy. It seems that summer too can be a busy season. I’ve had meetings and phone calls and my son’s football camp. Lots to do, lots to do. So, cool links haven’t bubbled to the top of the to do list until now – nearly a week late. And to add insult to injury, my read it later password expired and I didn’t notice for several days that items were not being added to my read it list. So, some cool links have been lost forever. Sad face. Here’s the links I’ve been able to add, re-add or just plain found by brute force search.
1 – Teachers At Risk has a top notch post – Nine Things My Students Have Taught Me. If only it were just nine, but a great list. Best take away -1. I’ve learned that students need me to be a teacher and not their friend.
3 – Common Craft has several helpful videos on YouTube for those that teach anything to do with the Web.
4 – The Digital Photography School should be in every media teacher’s RSS reader – because of nuggets like How To Work With Locked Pixels.
5 – Seems like this is a favorite topic right now – extending the school year or eliminating summer vacation. Time magazine has a long article that goes around the topic, but never really decides what to think. I see both sides to the argument. Summer would be very expensive in the south – A/C would run non-stop. The travel industry would be hurt badly and the traditional vacation plan would have to be rethought. But there are upsides to changing the summer schedule. More days in the calendar might take some pressure off and allow more in-depth teaching. Fewer days off would lessen the effects of lost retention. But most teachers would want more compensation for more days and it would only be fair. Plus, as it happened in Texas, you really can’t have just some of the schools go to a year-round schedule and others stay on a traditional one. It won’t work. It has to be all or nothing.
6 – Copyright Office says that jailbreaking and re-mixing are OK! And they said that teachers and students can remix and reuse with few if any restrictions. Read about it at Free Tech 4 Teachers. Fair Use Win!
7 – I’ve been looking for a good online “text” for Web Design for a while, and the Web Styleguide is it. It’s 12 chapters seem to cover all the basic areas that a designer needs to know. I only wish it were available in a PDF format.
8 – Tamron lenses posted their second video about Photo Composition – give it a look.
9 – I just had to share this – the long weekend theory of summer vacation from An Untenured Teacher. I’m still hanging on to Saturday, but Sunday morning is just days away.
11 – This has to be one of the best ideas that has ever been on MTV, since they stopped playing actual music. If You Really Knew Me is a show about a program that focuses on character education in high schools around the country. I’ve only watch the first episode, but I can see the power that this program could have in almost any school. Make sure to start with episode 101.
12 – If you are a journalism or media teacher and your students are not publishing online, then you definitely need to read the Innovative Educator’s post about Sticking It To the Man and Publish Online.
13 – OK, be honest – how many of you have had a broadcast, newspaper issue or yearbook that ended up like this?
Insert Image Title Here
14 – Peta Pixel blog has a great post about a music video made for $500 done in one take. Not only is the video cool, but they also have a behind the scenes video too.
16 – Worried that photos you post to the internet will end up on a billboard, or in an ad somewhere and you didn’t get paid or even a photo credit? Google is releasing a new service called TinEye – a reverse image search, so you can find out if your photos are being used somewhere else.
17 – Want some advanced InDesign and Photoshop Tips for Yearbook – The Yearbook Connection has a great resource page. Check it out.
18 – If you are from Texas and you don’t know Hal Schmidt, then you need to meet him. He works in Houston for the office of Taylor Publishing, and he knows his tech. His page has all kinds of great resources and teaching tips. Hal is your Pal.
20 – Is solo reporting too much for reporters, with the always on deadline 24/7/365 news cycle? The Journalism Classroom Notebook thinks that today’s journalists are likely to face lots of burnout and possibly change to other careers more quickly.
Wow, I guess I had more links than I thought – of course now I won’t have anything for Sunday! lol. I hope you are still enjoying your time off – I start back at school on Aug. 16 (no students until Aug. 23). Hoping to enjoy my last few weeks off.
About two months before school ended for me, I got a comment on my blog. It said that Windows users could not access my Power Point presentations (.ppt files) because the embedded images were broken. She asked me if I could post my photo lessons as PDF files. I made a half-hearted promise to try to do so this summer. Well, it’s summer…
And I’m trying to make good on my promise. I have redone and reposted both the PPT and PDF files for about 15 of my lessons so far in the photojournalism syllabus. But I am also trying to revamp my broadcasting and yearbook syllabi too. So keep checking back, because I hope to post a few lessons every week until the summer is gone. Now, the links…
1 – I have a lesson I teach about Paparazzi each year and one of the most famous is Ron Galella and most notoriously for this photo of Jackie Kennedy Onasis. I’m definitely adding this to my Photos That Changed Journalism. I’m also adding the blog – iconicphotos to my RSS reader.
Windblown Jackie by Ron Galella
2 – Photojojo has a list of the Top 50 Movies about Photographers. I think it is a good list, but it is missing The Killing Fields – a great movie.
4 – I have seen this site listed on several blogs lately. So, I had to see Who Do I Write Like? Well, I am not surprised to find out that…
I Write Like Stephen King
5 – Free Tech 4 Teachers strikes gold again this week with not one, but two PDF photography texts. They are not school textbooks, but they could be. There is not a state adopted text for photojournalism and so I don’t have one, but I really like The Absolut Beginngers Guide To Photography.
