Bookmarks for December 7th through December 9th

These are my Jumptags for December 7th through December 9th:

• 25+ Useful Infographics for Web Designers | Webdesigner Depot – Infographics can be a great way to quickly reference information. Instead of pouring over figures and long reports to decipher data, an infographic can
• Google Wave Explained In Two Minutes (CLIP) (GOOG) – In the spirit of The Common Craft Show, here's an explanation of Google Wave in plain English. It's good enough until Lee LeFever does one better.
• Free Icons | Icon Fever – Icon Fever is a new directory for icons. This is the link to the free icons.

Bookmarks for October 13th through October 15th

These are my Jumptags for October 13th through October 15th:

• Weebly – Create a free website and a free blog – Weebly has now added an education section. Weebly is perfect for creating classroom websites, student e-portfolios, and websites for assigned projects.
• Free Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorial | CSS Tutorial for Creating Layouts in Dreamweaver | Layers Magazine – This tutorial covers the process of building a CSS-based layout from scratch using Dreamweaver. Great beginner tutorial.
• Free Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorial | CSS Tutorial – Basics of Working with Cascading Style Sheets | Layers Magazine – This tutorial covers the basics of creating CSS in Dreamweaver using the CSS Rule dialog. Great intro.
• Adobe Flash Tutorial | Creating an interactive story in Adobe Flash part 2 – A simple tutorial for moving around Flash CS3. Part 2.
• Adobe Flash Tutorial | Creating an interactive story in Adobe Flash – A simple tutorial in two parts for moving around Flash CS3.
• Flash CS4 |Timeline Animation | Motion Editor | Layers Magazine – With Flash CS4 now has auto-keyframing, a full-featured motion editor, and—most importantly—the ability to animate each property of an object separately from one another.
• Open Access Educational Technology journals – George Veletsianos – One of the resources developed for my students is a listing of open access journals (name, url, and RSS feed) that publish papers on the nexus between technology and education (educational technology, instructional design, e-learning, online distance…
• Best Time-Tracking Application: Klok – Time management – Lifehacker – Earlier last week we asked you to share your favorite time-tracking applications and then we rounded them up for your review.
• The speed of information – The speed of information between neurons.
• 33 Websites For Vector Images Download | Pro Blog Design – Here is a list of free vector images for download, if you're designer and look for vector images for your design project, you can simply download this…
• 3 Ways To Find The Best Website Color Scheme – Learn how to pick a website color scheme that keeps visitors engaged. Includes a list of questions to ask clients and a color psychology cheat sheet.
• Using John Keller’s ARCS model to motivate online learners « Onlignment – ARCS provides a good summary of the issues to be considered when designing a learning intervention. In particular it makes sense to me when putting together a live online learning event.
• Live Online Learning – a facilitators guide « Onlignment – To download your free copy of “Live Online Learning – a facilitator’s guide” just sign up for the free newsletter.
• Healthcare Napkins wins World’s Best Presentation Contest 2009 | SlideShare Blog – Thousands of presentations are uploaded to SlideShare everyday. But some catch your eye from the moment they get uploaded. Tha's the case with the winning
• 5 Steps to Slide Design for Non-Designers by Ellen Finkelstein | SlideShare Blog – I’ve come up with 5 steps that you can take to create a presentation that will work, even if you’re not a designer.

Icon sets. I have just 4 words for you: Fab-u-lous and free.

Okay that’s 5 words.  Technically, 3.  But, I love collecting icons, and most of the time they come in sets.  I probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 50 sets of icons that have anywhere from 4 to 60 icons a piece.  So a rough estimate is somewhere around 800 to 1,000 icons. Admittedly, many of these are the same icon in 3 or 4 different sizes, such as 28 x 28 pixels up to 256 x 256 pixels.  I have bookmarked almost all of them, so check them out.

So what do I do with all of them?  Well, I’ve started using them a lot in presentations.  As I’ve moved to more Presentations 2.0 and emphasizing visual literacy for memory, I’ve begun to use a lot more images — in particular, Flickr Creative Commons and icons to demonstrate ideas.  I even created presentation for Clif Mims using almost all icons.  And since I create quite a few web sites and web pages for courses and professional development that I conduct, I tend to use the icons on these pages as well.

Here is a couple of examples of wiki pages where I used icons from Vistaicons.com and Pasquale D’Silva.  I find that often with a quick site, the icon sets work well because they are all in the same theme, or flavor, and they bring a visual unity to the site with both message and colors.  Plus, if you feel like you don’t have the graphic design know-how to produce quality images, then these high-quality images are a far better cry than screen beans in Office.

City icons on course website

Cute bird icons on course site

Three Tips for Icons

Free is better
I always look for free icons and icon sets.  Free is the new 99 cents.  Sites where I often receive notices about icons are SitePoint, Function, and Smashing Magazine.  I encourage you to subscribe to the RSS feeds/email alerts if for nothing other than the icon alerts.

PNG is where it’s at
I always look for PNG file format.  I’ve found that these have the most flexibility in use for digital presentations and online with web sites.  So the PNG files work with Word, Powerpoint, Dreamweaver, and in PBWorks, too.

Often when looking to download the icon sets they are especially designed for use with your operating systems.  So that you can change the icons for Firefox, Photoshop, and iTunes.  Therefore you will often see them in three flavors: Windows, Mac, and Linux.  Almost always the Linux pack is the PNG pack to download.  You can, of course, download the others for your operating system, but to get the most liberal use of the graphics, don’t overlook the Linux link.

U gotta Readme
Finally, when I download, I always, always, always, look at the Readme file and/or the release statement.  Inside these files are the licensing requirements for using the graphics.  In many cases, the licensing/copyright statement requires that you provide a link back to the distributing site.  In many cases, the statement does not allow you to redistribute the graphics in any manner other than linking to the download page.  In about 50% of the cases, the statement does not allow you to use the graphics for commercial applications.  However, in probably close to 50% of the downloads, the designer has also packaged the Illustrator or Photoshop original files, so that you can alter the images to your liking.  This is the case with the super cute Twitter birds.  Pasquale D’Silva licensed them out for use and derivations at will.

In fact, here’s an example of where I used the original Photoshop (.psd) file to change the icon to suit a blog post I was writing about retweeting and reposting.  (Actually, I used Fireworks, and it all worked fine, too.)

If that’s not enough to get you going on icons, then over the next few posts, I’m going to share some of my favorite icons and icons sets.  So stay tuned, clear out some space on your hard drive, and get ready to “Save image as…”  But if you can wait, then go ahead and download them now.

Are you collecting graphics, icons, or other media?  Share them (and the links) below.  I’m always looking for new media to share.

The power of stars

About a year ago, I found the following slideshow, creating a post about it on a previous —now somewhat defunct — blog. So, I’m reposting it here. It will be able to get archived and found easier. Plus, maybe it will resonate with you.

Consider this slide show on Slideshare: “Knowing.the.World.We.Live.in.” In this slideshow, review it at full screen so you can read the legends for each slide. Another site called this “The Power of Stars.” The message is powerful.  How do you think the message in the presentation is interpreted through visual literacy, graphic design and message design?

Paradox? Using verbal language to define visual literacy

Robert M. Branch

by Robert M. Branch

Visual literacy deserves a syntax and grammar distinct from the parameters that define verbal literacy, such as syntax and grammar. Ergo, a paradox occurs when we use verbal language to define visual literacy.

Verbal literacy is most commonly defined as the ability to read and write, and a means of interpreting data and information into knowledge and ideas. A verbally literate person understands spellings, grammar, and syntax for a chosen language. Educators tend to associate verbal literacy with the fundamental success of a student in the classroom, and the success of an ordinary citizen to function in society. However, visual literacy is also necessary for the success of an ordinary citizen to function in society.

There have been many published definitions of visual literacy since Debes (1970) defined visual literacy as “a group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing and at the same time having and integrating other sensory experiences” (p. 27). Rezabek (1999) noted that visual literacy could also be defined as the ability to accurately interpret and create messages (mostly in text form) that are transmitted through the sense of sight. I prefer my definition (Branch, 2000) of visual literacy as “the understanding of messages communicated through frames of space that utilize objects, images, and time, and their juxtaposition” (p. 383).

While there are similarities between verbal literacy and visual literacy, educational research suggests that visual literacy is informally introduced when an individual is becoming verbally literate. Thus, visual literacy has emerged as a domain of knowledge worthy of its own definition, independent of verbal literacy language, however, systematic inquiry about ways images can be formed to construct a common visual language, independent of verbal language, remains unformed. The challenge now is to reconcile the paradox of using verbal language to define visual literacy.

References
Branch, R.  (2000).  A taxonomy of visual literacy.  In A. W. Pailliotet, & P. B. Mosenthal (Eds.), Advances in reading/language research Volume 7: Reconceptualizing literacy in the media age.  (pp. 377-402).
Debes, J. L.  (1970).  The loom of visual literacy: An overview, 1970.  First National Conference on Visual Literacy (p. 16).  New York: Pitman.
Rezabek, L. L.  (2005).  Why visual literacy: Consciousness and convention.  TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 49, 19-20.

Guest blogger: Dr. Robert M. Branch currently serves as a Professor and Interim Department Head for the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at The University of Georgia. His teaching emphasizes student-centered learning while his research focuses on diagramming complex conceptual relations. He is a member of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), American Educational Research Association (AERA), International Visual Literacy Association (IVLA), International Society for Performance and Instruction (ISPI). Rob’s publications include the Educational Technology and Media Technology Yearbook, a Survey of Instructional Development Models, and Taxonomy of Visual Literacy.