Mailbag – Answers to Questions from Readers

Every week I receive quite a few emails and Facebook messages from teachers looking for recommendations for sites and apps that solve a problem for them or their students. The questions that have broad appeal I like to include in my weekly-ish mailbag post. This week’s questions and answers are posted below.

Q1. Long time follower, first time corresponder. I have you to thank for making the transition to Google Drive easier after I participated in one of your small group webinars a few years back.
I am a big fan of Creative Commons and shortcuts. Do you know of any tools out there that would automatically include the Creative Commons license on the image?

Photosforclass.com is a Creative Commons image search tool that will include all of the attribution information in the bottom of the image when you download an image. A video tutorial on embedding Photosforclass.com into a blog can be seen here. (Disclosure: Photosforclass.com is owned by StoryboardThat.com which advertises on my blog).

Another option is Alan Levine’s Flickr CC Attribution helper. I have a video tutorial about that tool available here.

Finally, if your students are only using the images in presentations, Haiku Deck has an integrated CC image search. The attribution comes attached to the pictures found through the iPad and web versions of Haiku Deck. Click here for a video tutorial on Haiku Deck’s web app.

Q2. Thank you so much for responding so promptly to my e-mail. All of your comments are quite helpful. If you have time to reply again, I have a follow-up question: How does one submit and upload a Garage Band recording to any of the sites you suggest? I could not get the recording to upload out of DropBox. The file isn’t supported in GoogleDrive. Additionally, it will not upload into SoundCloud, AudioBoom, etc. I am not sure what I am missing.

I put together some screenshots that explain how to move a file from GarageBand to SoundCloud (the process is the same for other file hosts too). http://ipadapps4school.com/2015/04/02/how-to-move-a-garageband-recording-to-soundcloud/

Q3. Our students are about to begin a project creating videos through still images and perhaps some recorded video chunks on their phones. I would like to have them be able to do voice overs, but am unsure of a good web based video editor that I can use that 9th graders can navigate and store their information. Do you have any suggestions for me?



WeVideo is a good option. Your students can upload and store images in their accounts. Students would then drag-and-drop images into a timeline record a voice-over while looking at the images. WeVideo can also integrate into a Google Drive account.

If you have a question you can email me or message me through the FreeTech4Teachers Facebook page. I try to reply to every email.

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