21st Century Connections Web Site

I’ve discovered a web site that has some very useful links. The site is 21ST CENTURY CONNECTIONS: Innovative technologies to inspire digital creativity in 21st century classrooms (http://21centuryconnections.com/).

This web site is designed to provide resources for digital learning.
Technology & Learning (http://www.techlearning.com/) hosts the site.
Lenovo (http://www.lenovo.com),
Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/),
Intel (http://www.intel.com/), and
Futurekids (http://www.futurekids.com/) provide the information.


Here’s some of what I found:

• Photo Composition 101… instructions from Adobe for composing photos well
I’ve been taking more photos recently. I even entered two of them in a contest recently. However, my husband is the photography “pro” in our household. He recommended last week that I work on composition when I take photos. We had an interesting conversation as he shared some ideas with me. This short tutorial—Photo Composition 101—fits in perfectly with our discussion. It echoes some of my husband’s advice and adds a couple new ideas to keep in mind. One of the suggestions is that the point of interest in a photo be placed at one of the four points of intersection of lines which divide the photo into thirds horizontally and vertically rather than at the center of the photo.



The first photo is more interesting than the second one due to placing the statue at an intersection rather than in the center of the photo.



• Top 10 Tips for Digital Photography… also from Adobe
This article is worth several years of experience. You can learn the same ideas on your own, but it would be so much faster to learn by reading the article. One interesting technique I learned is that the camera may take pictures more quickly if the LCD screen preview is turned off.

• Nine Needs for Web Literacy… from TechLearning.com
Two of the suggested topics to include when teaching web literacy are web site spoofs and email spoofs. It is certainly very important to help both children and adults learn how to recognize these today.

• NECC Insights Offered in Podcasts… hosted on Apple’s Learning Interchange
Did you miss NECC? Or would you like to hear some of the speakers again? You can listen to Ian Jukes, Andrew Zolli, Doug Johnson, and others.

My only complaint about the site is that it’s difficult to discover some of the good information that’s available. Once you do discover it, though, you can use the Search function to find it again, if necessary.

I’ve shared some of the links on this web site that I find useful. I think you will find additional links that fit your interests.