This striking image was created using “Tag Galaxy“, a fun tool that allows the user to create their own global collage using photos from Flickr using tags. Just type in a starter word - nature in this case- and a spinning sphere appears with other related terms orbiting around it. Narrow your search terms, choosing related words that appeal to you. You click on the sphere when you are happy with the number of images.

I think this would be a good tool for students to use to add images to blog pages, poetry, stories and projects. More creative than cut-and-paste, but effective and simple to use. it could be time consuming though - so save it until after the hard work is done!

“Animoto” is another tool for uploading images and adding audio - this time with a range of tunes to create funky short videos. You can create 30 second videos and choose a music style to match, or register as an educator and have three months unlimited use.
Here’s one I did with my Year 9 Off Campus Program. On Tuesday 6th May, 21 students travelled to Mailor’s Flat to assist in a revegetation project to save the critically endangered Orange Bellied Parrot. There are less than two hundred individual birds left in the wild and they are endemic to south-eastern Australia, migrating from Tasmania to the Victorian and South Australian coast each winter. Part of the program to build numbers of these pretty birds is a revegetation program to provide roosting and feeding plants, which will increase their chances of survival. Students were able to separate seedlings of woolly tea tree and messmate plants and re-pot 3,000 plants.Takes a little while to load, but worth the wait!