Images

I learned that for PowerPoint presentations I should rely heavily on images rather than text. I should have a good understanding of the information--enough so that I can just look at a picture and know what I wanted to discuss on the slide. This goes along with teacher preparedness. This will be useful in my classroom because it will make presentations come alive if I am not reading off of the slide, or have too many words on it.

When putting images into presentations, to keep them proportional, press on the control button before grabbing the corner of the image. This will keep the dimensions of the image relative to when it gets re-sized. This is important because it will prevent the image from becoming distorted, thus keeping it more crisp and not pixelated. I could use this in my future classroom because when I make presentations and have graphics such as graphs or real life application pictures, I will want them to be as crisp and clear as possible, so this useful hint will assist with that.

It is crucial to always save the image's URL that you save, specifically the website that it came from. This is important so you can access the image at a later date, as well as the fact that you will need it for any work cited page or bibliography. Simply using the Google Image link will not do. It is essential to get the website that it actually came from! I will use this in my future classroom because my students will need to cite any pictures that they use for my projects, and I will need to do the same.

Wylio is a great resource to use when looking for images that are free to use and share. This saves some time instead of going to Google Images, going to the advanced search, and then selecting the search stipulation: "Free to use and share." With Wylio, I can just use the search box to find images immediately that I can use. I do not like the fact that they want you to agree to Wylio having access to your email, and that you need to be signed in to Google to use it.

Gimp is an awesome photo editing tool that I wish I would have discovered earlier! It is basically Photoshop, but free. It is going to take a little while to get acclimated with, although it is 10x better than the standard Paint that comes on Windows. I cannot wait to start working with more pictures and fiddling around with them.