Google Photos

 

Google Photos

Why?

1. Unlimited storage (for GApps domains)
2. Support across all devices, mobile, laptop, desktop...
3. Mobile device/iPad friendly albums
4. Searchable photos, even without your naming them, Google can recognise the content in your photos, eg if you search for 'dog'. 
5. Media backup, using the desktop uploader you can now upload all (or as much as you want) of your media to Google Photos, and remove it from your hard drive to save space.

Google Photo Albums

You can easily find Google Photos, by using that link, or you can also find it by clicking on the app grid in GMail, then scroll down:

 

See this post for guidance on using Google Photo Albums, sharing them, adding collaborators to collate photos, creating animations, and collages, and even adding text ...

Picasa & iPhoto The Dynamic Duo

First, activate your Picasa account if you have not done so already, click here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/home

Yes you can ignore iPhoto and upload directly to Picasa/Google Photos (web address https://picasaweb.google.com/home) but this does not RESIZE the images, so you will eat up your storage limit very quickly... Fine for students, not so much for teachers.

Short and simple - the best way to do this is using iPhoto with the Picasa Web Album uploader, here, which bypasses iPhoto, and lets you drag and drop images for upload, all resizing options are available as above.

1. Import the images to iPhoto (drag and drop on the icon on the dock) 
2. Remove the photos that you don't want 
3. Select the photos you want to share (select individual images, a whole album, or event) 
4. Drag and drop to the uploader 
5. Choose 'Unlisted Album' (this is automatically 'anyone with the link' in Picasa = perfect for our purposes) 
6. Choose 'Faster Upload' 
7. Click Export 
8. When it's done, you'll get a 'View' option, click that 
9. Share the album via the Share button. 
10. Click the box "Let people I share with contribute photos" if you want that option, they will need a Google account to be able to contribute, comment or like images in your album. 

PS

Easily confused: Picasa Web Albums vs Picasa the application:


Images can can only be downloaded one by one from a Picasa album, unless you download and install Picasa the application (free) which basically does the same job as iPhoto (image management and editing) but will also allow you some other options, like downloading entire albums, and syncing your albums with Picasa (as opposed to just uploading to Picasa).


Your parents cannot download video, or an entire album from a Picasa web album, only view, unless they 'upgrade' to Google+ then they can. If you wish to share video that you want the recipients to be able to download, (without using Google+) then share it via Google Drive.

Back it up.

I often get asked what the best solution is for backing up your data - a question that is best asked BEFORE you lose all of your precious digital memories, but sadly is often asked afterwards.

These days it's not uncommon for a typical family with a couple of kids in Junior School or higher to easily have in excess of 20-30 hours of video footage (still waiting to be edited) and several 1000 images. By the time your kids are ready to graduate it's a safe bet that you can double that - and at that size, chances are it won't all fit on your computer/s hard drive/s - which means you need a way to back up those files AND get them off your computer hard drive.

But first things first.

For storage of images and video you need to use a local computer hard drive, most likely the hard drive of your Mac. And to back this up you should use an external hard drive with Dropbox or Google Drive for everyday files, and Time Machine for everything else.

The problem comes when your local Mac Hard Drive is FULL, and you need to move that media off your Mac, just dumping onto an external drive is not good enough, as if that drive fails, (quite likely in my experience) you lose everything.

You can buy ANY Hard drive, they can all be reformatted on a Mac, using the Disk Utility Application, which will erase the drive and make it Mac (Mac OS Journaled), if you want to use it with Time Machine, or FAT 32 if you don't want to use it with Time Machine, and want to be able to read and write to the drive from a Mac or PC.

If you plug a brand new drive into a Mac, you should get a prompt from Time Machine asking you to format the drive automatically, all you have to say is YES!

If you do use a separate hard drive, make sure that you always have the data in TWO locations, otherwise it's not backed up, just moved. So if your Mac is FULL and you need to make space, this is not a good solution.

The solution for moving data off your HDD completely is to use a 'Hard Drive Enclosure' With a couple of Hard Drives plugged in. This is a 'RAID' set up: a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (redundant meaning, you can afford to have one fail without it being a problem) a big black box ($200) with space for 4 drives to slot in, each drive can hold about 1 TB or more depending on what you buy...

Back in 2013 I bought the Probox 4 Bay for $195, at Sim Lim Square (Best Bargain and I bought two 1.5TB internal drives to slot into it ($100 each), so I still have two spare lots for later expansion...

I make one drive copy the other, so I don't have to keep it on my Mac - remember if the data is not in two places it's not backed up!


Mine looks like this:

And like this when it's open, you can see where the internal drives can be slotted in, just like Lego.

They come in all sorts of shaped and sizes, but they all work the same way, data on one of the drives is copied onto another drive in the same enclosure, so now it IS backed up, and you can free up that space on your Mac.

The process of copying that data from one drive to another can be done automatically (RAID), some of the more expensive solutions come with built in software that does this automatically, or you can just do it yourself, by copying data from one to the other manually, a bit tedious, but it gets the job done, this is known as JBOD.

Drobo is one well known brand, well known by geeks anyway, there are others.

If you're happy to spend a little more money (this media is priceless after all) Consider a hybrid solution like Amazon S3, mostly because the NAS has integration built in and can use an existing normal amazon store account to manage the storage as well. I'm sure there are others, ideally you want a local, cable connected (reliable) RAID backup, combined with a cloud back up, this might be integrated into the RAID box, or you might set this up separately, see below:


A cheap/easy option is to use Google Photos, unlimited backup is free, but resizes the media, or pay a reasonable amount to store all your media online, without resizing...

If you install the desktop and iOS apps, it will automatically upload ALL your media to your Google account.

https://photos.google.com/

https://photos.google.com/apps

Size?

If you're confused about sizes of hard-drives, see my other post here. But a guide would be that each internal drive needs to be at least 1 Terabyte, so if you buy 2 you effectively have one, as the second drive is just mirroring the first one.

Finally maybe there is stuff you can just remove?

For starters simply emptying the trash can make a big difference!

For example delete unused user accounts, sometimes there are several.

Annotate PDFs with Preview and more...

The Preview application on every Mac is probably one of the most powerful tools you can use, the only problem is many people have no idea how useful it is.

You can use Preview for editing all sorts of image and PDF files, whether you want to crop, resize, or even delete a colour or background, Preview can do it all, without the bother of having to import the image into iPhoto. 

A quick Google search for 'Preview Mac' will reveal several sites that do a great job of revealing some of Preview's secrets, here a few:

http://www.macworld.com/article/2010521/the-hidden-powers-of-mountain-lions-preview.html

http://mactips.info/2009/08/annotate-pdfs-with-apples-preview

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2506

What is particularly useful is using Preview with your students as a tool for saving and annotating web pages; here's how:

First 'Save' the web page as a PDF, this will vary slightly depending on the browser you use - in Chrome, one way is File > Print > Open PDF in Preview

Then if you open the thumbnail view (View > Thumbnails)

You can delete pages you don't want, and crop pages you do.

Then you can use the Annotate tools to do things like... 

• highlight text
• strike-through text
• add shapes, callouts, thought bubbles
• notes
• text

And more ... 

Seashore Digital Artwork in Grade 4

Seashore is a fantastic free application for Macs - basically a kids version of PhotoShop. The conventions and mechanics of it are identical to PhotoShop, which makes it ideal for developing the students' image manipulation skills in the Primary School.

Grade 4 with Caroline and Siân have been getting their students to make pixelated magic with Seashore, at the end of the unit, the students contributed their creations to a class album using Picasa to share them with each other.  The students learned how to:

1. use a digital camera to capture an image that is in focus and with good exposure.
2. critique their own work and that of others using an art vocabulary.
3. upload an image from the camera and into a Picasa album.
4. change an image into a different visual form using software, in a way that is very different to editing the photo.
5. produce a visually interesting image that still resembles the original photo.

View the album to see some of the results...

Simple Slideshows in Preview

Sure you can spend hours constructing a visual masterpiece in Keynote, Prezi, SlideRocket, or even, if you insist, PowerPoint... 

If you do want a slide show with images and video, import it all into iPhoto and run the slideshow from there. 

But what if you just want to create a slide show, no transitions, no titles, no fuss, no faff? 

What if this slideshow can contain all sorts of visual media, images of course, but also PDFs, text documents but ... not video. Well not yet. 



So, you have a folder stuffed full of the slide show content, (including content in sub folders) how does this magic work?

Easy, open Preview if it isn't open already - Grab the folder and drop it on the Preview icon in the dock.

Or, if you're drag and drop dysfunctional, go to Open, and browse to the folder you want to use, just click on the folder (not its contents) and click open.

Now all you do is choose View > Slide Show from the main menu.

If you have got something you want to include in the slideshow that Preview does not like, eg, an Excel spreadsheet - just 'print' it and save it as a PDF. Sorted.

To loop a slideshow, and include video. 

Dump all the media (video/image/pdf) in one folder (no sub folders)

Select it all, and press the spacebar to launch Quickview

Then go to full screen and press play.

Finally, make sure any media you want to use for a presentation is on your local hard drive (on your computer), not on a shared drive, unless you like the spinning beach ball of death that is.

Keynote simplicity

If you really want to use Keynote, this can be quite painless as well—not as quick as the methods outlined above, but maybe only few minutes longer...

Just select all the media (including PDFs, but it will only display the first page) and drag and drop it into the navigation panel on the site. Keynote will place each separate item on it's own slide, it will resize large images to fit, but smaller images will be left at original size.

Grade 3 Migration Presentations

As the title implies this unit centres around the idea of the students exploring the personal histories, and possible one of the most powerful situations for authentic integration of ICTs I have ever seen.

What is possibly most exciting is the way the use of technology has evolved so naturally - from a very simple premise to something which is now incredibly sophisticated, and yet the majority of Grade 3 students take it all in their stride.

In essence this unit is simply about using PowerPoint to create a slideshow that tells their family stories, with a particular emphasis on the key concepts of connection and change. This year the team decided to shift the tool away from PowerPoint to Google Presentations mainly because its web situated context opens up more options for home/school collaboration which is a powerful aspect of this unit, as the children's parent are, in effect, the primary source for most of the children's inquiries.


Very quickly other forms of ICT were utilised to contribute to this process, starting with the use of Picasa to facilitate the children's collection images of family and related images. Sure they could do this via email, or memory sticks, (and some did) but Picasa automatically takes care of resizing, they can be uploaded and accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. Then once a collection of images (and album) is formed, the children can easily insert those images into their Google Presentation by using the 'Copy Image Address' option, and pasting that in via the Insert > Image command.


Next it became apparent that the students would need to crop some of the images, eg, to isolate Grandad's portrait from within a family group photograph. So instead of fiddling about downloading and editing with Microsoft Picture Manager or Preview, all they had to do was edit and crop any image in IN Picasa, using Piknik, and then save it as a copy.

Next we utlised the Draw tool within Google Presentation within a Google Drawing (inserted into a Presentation slide). Students learned how to search Google images effectively in order to locate and insert a map of the region of the earth that is relevant to their family (his)story. then they were able to annotate and label the image to indicate the movement of their ancestors within the last few generations.

We were then able to capitalise on these skills by using a similar technique to build a family tree using another Google drawing, one that plots the family back to Grandparents, and in some cases great grandparents, using the same technique of image annotation within a Google drawing.

At this point the students were ready to use a time-line program, in this case Timeliner XL to take the results of their inquiry as evident in their family tree to plot a family tree that automatically organises events chronologically using years to mark important events. From that point they were able to develop the time-line in line with the ongoing enquiries, adding basic images from the program resource library, Google and of course their growing Picasa album of family images.


Next the students brought home iPod Touches to record an interview/s with their parents. This video was then transferred to a school drive, where the students could consult and review the footage to assist with the reminder of their presentations, where they independently created a series of slides to compete their individual family stories.

Once the time-line was complete students were guided through the process of exporting the time-line as an image and then inserting that image into their presentation.

Wow - this has come along way from being 'just' a PowerPoint Presentation.

Finally, as their presentations were already online, it was a relatively simple matter to share these with the peers, their teachers, their parents, and of course their grandparents!

Picasa Email Uploads

Picasa is an awesome image sharing tool which just gets better and better.

Upload by email is a great feature, which is perfect if you want to allow an undetermined audience/group to submit images to you simply and easily.

First lets look at two ways to manage this.

If you haven't yet activated your Picasa account you'll need to that first, just Google 'picasa web', or click here, picasaweb.google.com/home to activate it with your school password.

Once in there you have 2 options...

Option 1

This is great if you want to ask a class of students to contribute an image/s to one album, or maybe parents to contribute photos they took on a school trip etc.

Create  an album with a sample image in it, and share that with the students/parents who are participating, and tick the 'Let people I share with contribute photos' box, here:

Now they can just add images to that album themselves. This works better for a specific class, or grade or email group like Parents, not so much for a larger or undetermined audience, for that - you need option 2:

Option 2

This works well if the you don't know who the contributors are, or how many there are.

You can adjust the settings in your Picasa account to enable upload via email, this link explains it well, and I've included the text below to save you the stress of clicking:

Email upload

Use email upload to upload photos to Picasa Web Albums by sending them to a secret email address, especially useful from your mobile device. This allows you to stream and caption photos on-the-go. To get started, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your acount at http://picasaweb.google.com/.
2. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner and choose Photos settings.
3. On the General tab, in the "Upload photos by email" section, select the "Allow me to upload photos by email." checkbox.
4. Enter a "secret word," 6-15 characters long. As you enter this word, an email address appears.
5. Click the Save changes button.
6. To email upload your photos, just attach them to an email message and send it to the newly-created address.

Use the email "Subject" line to add captions or to include the photos in a specific album. If the email "Subject" line matches an existing online album title, your photos will be uploaded to that album. Otherwise the 'Subject' line will instead be added as a caption and the photos will be placed in the Drop Box album.

You can attach up to 20 MB of photos in JPG, GIF and PNG formats.

IMPORTANT! The participants will need to put their name in the SUBJECT of the email, if you want to know who sent the image... Or if you want the images to automatically go into an existing album.

I've set it up in my account so you can see how it works.

115729468016446857469.smcuwc@picasaweb.com

If you send an image to this email address it will automatically appear inside an album designated for that called 'Drop Box' nothing to do with THAT other web service. Or it will be added to an existing album if the subject matches the name of one of your existing albums.

If you want to move images out of the default 'Drop Box' album to another album, choose 'Organise' then 'Move' to move an image or 10 or so, to another album.

Sharing photos from iPhoto to a Picasa online gallery

Often there is a need to share a collection of photographs with students. The easiest way to do this is to use iPhoto and then export to a Picasa Gallery. You can upload images/photographs and even videos to Picasa, although your account will have a size limit of around 1GB.

1. From within iPhoto you need to click on an event and then select export from the File Menu.
2. Then choose to click on the Picasa Web Albums option
3. Add your school abc@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg email address and password
4. Then you can fiddle and change some options to make the album public or private and add tags.

The first month of the iLearn project at UWCSEA