Media and Learning 2013

Slidemotion is an automated web service enabling users to create videos with music from users’ photos, with no skills and in a few clicks. The service has many features and offers various possibilities to personalise the videos. Users can make unlimited number of free videos during the 30-days trial period. This free temporary version comes with a limit, so videos can be created with 15 visuals. After 30 day trial finishes users will still be able to play and share all of their videos but will not be able to create new ones. It is also possible to try the premium version by spending free credits, so users can decide if they like premium features and continue by purchasing a plan.

Pixabay.com is a collaborative repository for quality public domain images. People can upload photographs or graphics to the website, and they will be screened to see if they are suitable for distribution. The images so uploaded will go under Creative Commons Deed CC0 into the public domain.
Although it is not possible to claim ownership of any image in its original state or license them granting exclusive rights as they are, it is possible to adapt and use the images also for commercial purposes without attributing the original author or source. For details about this, look the page of terms and conditions.

IrfanView is a fast, small, innovative freeware graphic viewer that can be also used for editing. It is intended as free only for private, non-commercial and/or educational use (schools, universities and libraries) and for use in charity or humanitarian organisations.
The software is currently supported and a list of recent changes can be seen on the website. A FAQ page quite rich of useful information is also provided on the website.
Some IrfanView features:
• Many supported file formats
• Multi language support
• Thumbnail/preview option
• Paint option - to draw lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.
• Toolbar skins option
• Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
• Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
• Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
• Fast directory view (moving through directory)
• Batch conversion (with advanced image processing)
• Multipage TIF editing
• File search
• Email option
• Multimedia player
• Print option
• Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF
• Change color depth
• Scan (batch scan) support
• Cut/crop
• Add overlay text/image (watermark)
• IPTC editing
• Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
• Screen Capturing
• Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
• Lossless JPG rotation
• Unicode support
• Hotkeys
• Command line options
• PlugIns

Language support can vary with the version. The current version supports the languages listed aside. English is anyway always supported.

The Digital Image Rights Computator (DIRC) program is intended to assist the user in assessing the intellectual property status of a specific image documenting a work of art, a designed object, or a portion of the built environment. Understanding the presence or absence of rights in the various aspects of a given image will allow the user to make informed decisions regarding the intended educational uses of that image.
The DIRC program functions through a series of query pages, each of which directs the user to provide input about one specific aspect of a given image’s rights profile. Each query sequence concludes by directing the user to a highlighted portion of a color-coded grid, which indicates an image's suitability for your desired use. Supplemental notes below the grid may draw your attention to other available options, or remind you of additional risk-assessment considerations.

Picsart, is a free photo editing app for iOS or Android powered phone or tablet. It allows editing pictures directly on the smartphone through its various tools. It can be used both on the pictures stored in the device memory and on the pictures uploaded to one’s social media accounts (Facebook, Flickr, etc.)
The app is available on Amazon, in the Google store and in the iPhone app store.
See the page http://picsart.com/terms about ownership and distribution rights.
For awards and topics related to Picsart content, also see the blog http://blog.picsart.com/

The French website 1jour1actu - Des outils pour mieux comprendre l'info contains hundreds of contents (articles, videos, activities, dossiers, games, interactive sheets) on many different topics, ranging from Art, Literature, History, Biology, Science, to media literacy, sport, actualities.
The contents are aimed at the use in primary education classrooms. Each content is composed by attractive images, clear and short texts and a list of related contents for further deepening.
The teacher section provides them with “The highlights of the week”, files to download for the use in the classroom and an overview of the news and activities of the week.

The Public Domain Review is a not-for-profit project dedicated to showcasing the most interesting and unusual out-of-copyright works available online.
All works eventually falling out of copyright (from classic works of art, music and literature, to abandoned drafts, tentative plans, and overlooked fragments)are in the public domain, a vast commons of material that everyone is free to enjoy, share and build upon without restriction.
The Public Domain Review aims to help its readers to explore this rich terrain.
On the website it is possible to find:
- articles from leading scholars, writers, archivists, and artists provide fresh reflections and new angles on old material;
- the possibility to subscribe to the newsletter;
- browse public domain material organised in collections (films, audio, images and texts),
- a guide to finding interesting public domain works.

BurningWell is a repository for public domain images. Basically, this means that it is allowed to use the images freely for any purpose, commercial or private. It is not necessary to pay or to acknowledge or give credit to the photographer or to the website. When recognizable people appear in any of the images, the photographers have obtained a "model release" and assigned all rights to the public domain. This allows the images to be used in any manner, including advertising.
Most of the images are donated by photographers (both professional and private) from around the world who believe that great images should be shared.
BurningWell started in 2006 and contains today more than 1400 images.
N.B.: the search engine redirects to another website containing many images (over 6000) but most of them are not for free.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net is a website to download free or purchased images. Condition to the free use of the photos is to publish an acknowledgement to FreeDigitalPhotos.net and the image creator. All images are available free-of-charge. In addition to the free images, all images are available to purchase in a variety of sizes. Purchased images can also be published without the acknowledgement.
Images can be manipulated, edited, have text overlayed, or be combined. For a detailed list of the permitted uses, see http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/terms.php.
No registration is required to download free images. The optional member registration gives access to some additional features.

Share My Lesson is a big web portal for high-quality teaching resources. Its database contains over 254.000 free teacher-created resources in a variety of formats (images, web pages, pdf’s, music, text files, etc.) for every level of education from kindergarten to high school and with a section for students with disabilities.
The portal provides an online community where teachers can collaborate with, encourage and inspire each other. The members of the community can download and share user-generated resources free of charge.