iPads, MakerEd and More in Education

These top image and clip art sites provide an extensive supply of moderate- to high-quality visuals for cost-conscious schools.

micro:mag Issue #6 out now!

Good news! Your free copy of micro:mag Issue Six is now available to download! We hope you like it!

Build a low-cost DIY micro:bit robot

This issue’s cover feature is “Build your own DIY Low Cost Robot”. One of the most common projects people build with the micro:bit is a robot. The micro:bit makes this super simple both on the hardware and software side of things. The majority go out and purchase a prebuilt robot that makes it super easy to get started with robotics and the micro:bit. However, most of the time, this can set you back £40+. For this special issue, we set Creative Technologist and regular micro:mag contributor Les Pounder the challenge of building the ultimate low-cost micro:bit powered robot that anyone can build, with just a few parts.

Plus!
4tronix’s new motor drive board, Girls into coding, Robot Showdown, Running workshops in fields, 3D printed Servo Magic 8 Ball. And many more!

Free Download: http://go.micromag.cc/issue6

Concussions are a serious public health concern. One in five Canadians report a sport-related concussion in their lifetime and an estimated one in 10 youth sustains a sport-related concussion each year. To improve concussion prevention, detection and management, the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary has developed a course for parents, coaches, teachers and administrators of school and sport environments, health-care professionals and those who have experienced a concussion. 

“This course demystifies concussion and explains how everyone can play a role to prevent, identify and manage this type of traumatic brain injury,” says Dr. Kathryn Schneider, PT, PhD, an assistant professor and clinician scientist (physiotherapist) in the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre in the kinesiology faculty. “This program also demonstrates how a concussion management protocol can be adapted to the characteristics and resources of different sports and settings.” A concussion management protocol is a detailed process that outlines how to prevent, detect and manage concussions in a specific context.  

Around this time five years ago I discovered that the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts free online art history texts. A recent Tweet from Open Culture reminded me of that collection. Today, I revisited that collection and discovered that it has expanded to 569 volumes. All of the books can be read online or downloaded as PDFs (warning, some of them are massive files). You can search through the catalog of books by thematic category, format, and publication type. And, of course, you can search through the books by title, author, and keyword.

I use a lot of visuals in my work. I prefer to use my own photographs and to draw my own illustrations. When it's not practical or possible to use my own work, I rely on a handful of websites that provide copyright friendly images. Those images are licensed as public domain or Creative Commons Attribution.

Images that are licensed as public domain do not require any citation. When a creator gives his or her image a public domain license, he or she waives all rights to the image, including the right to attribution. A Creative Commons Zero License (CC0) is another way to state that the work has been put into the public domain.

No matter if you enjoy taking or just watching images of space, NASA has a treat for you. They have made their entire collection of images, sounds, and video available and publicly searchable online. It’s 140,000 photos and other resources available for you to see, or even download and use it any way you like.

Mark it in your diaries love birds, February 14th is the day of love and romance across the globe. Celebrate Valentine's Day and romantic love, friendship and admiration with videos of decorated sweet treats or couples who pull at the heartstrings. All videos are free and ready to be used for any creative purpose under the Mixkit License.

Extraordinary HD videos - For you to use, completely free of charge.

Apple has released six exclusive audiobooks just for Apple Books users. Five are classic titles newly narrated by celebrities, while the sixth is a collection of Winnie the Pooh stories as told in the style of Disney. All of them are available for free.

Apple Books is Apple’s all-encompassing digital bookstore. You can add your existing eBooks, buy new eBooks, and also buy audiobooks to listen to on the go. Apple gave Apple Books a fresh lick of paint for iOS 12, and the company is now giving freebies away.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but it might also be worth a thousand dollars if your school gets hit with a copyright violation claim. This happens to schools every year as students or teachers inappropriately use an image that they do not have the rights to.

Thankfully this does not have to be the case as there are loads of high quality pictures that can be used in school projects without any licensing concerns. These can include images that are released under creative commons, or are in the public domain, or simply are copyright-free. Of course depending on the license, it may still be necessary to cite where the image came from to provide proper attribution (and it can be a good practice to do even if not required).

There are many sites and tools that can help educators and students find free photos, clipart, icons, and more. See below for a list of many of these, and be sure to share your suggestions for other resources to add to this collection.

Thinking about starting a coding class? Not sure if you know enough about computer science to host your own coding class? The folks at Pythonroom have created a fantastic online platform for teachers who want to bring coding into the classroom but… don’t know how to code. Hiring a computer science teacher or training teachers on computer science might be a challenge for your school. Pythonroom was designed for teachers with no prior coding experience and it’s easy to get started.

Google’s Nik Collection, a photo editing software package designed for professional photographers, once retailed for $149. Today it’s absolutely free to download, for both Windows and Mac users.

Here you can read Google’s announcement, which includes more information on the software package and its capabilities.

Today we’re making the Nik Collection available to everyone, for free.

Photo enthusiasts all over the world use the Nik Collection to get the best out of their images every day. As we continue to focus our long-term investments in building incredible photo editing tools for mobile, including Google Photos and Snapseed, we’ve decided to make the Nik Collection desktop suite available for free, so that now anyone can use it.