Links to free images

OK, so you've probably seen these before because I tell everyone I know about them. The point of including this is to try out something that I need to present at a forthcoming workshop. This new version of Blogger has some cool features that make customising the template - that's the bit that controls how everything appears on your screen - very simple. I guess I ought to do some instructions for that - maybe in the next few entries. Anyway, for now, you'll see a bundle of links to free image resources included in the panel to the left. If I've got them right, you can just click on them to go to the various galleries and, provided you don't do silly things with the images that offend the pretty generous usage terms, and you tell visitors or readers where you got them, you should find some brilliant images to meet even the most odd requirements.

For the workshop, my idea is that people can slide one of the LSN Q Project DVDs into their computer, find something they want to use and copy the links into a web log like this. This addition and posting took about 10 minutes and it could be a nice addition to any lesson concerning something like where to find images.

Obviously, for other subjects, you might not have as many links immediately to hand in the materials but even a couple of useful links in a place like this can be useful. Especially when you remember that your web log has an RSS feed that can create an automatic addition of headlines or 'news' to a course page in Moodle or Pageflakes (and no doubt several other sites you can edit yourself).

All I need to do now is add a picture to this entry to make it look a bit more interesting and, 12 minutes later, we're there.

How can I do a list like this?

There's a good question to start this off. I used to gaze in wonder as students merrily added a bundle of code to otherwise usually poorly designed web sites and created these lists of headings, some moving too. No idea how they did it then. Anyway, a couple of new web tools do it all for you - the smart bit is linking them together.

First create a web log like this. In Blogger there is an automatic production of what is called an RSS Feed. You don't need to know what that is but you can impress some friends by explaining that RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Somehow all your headings and entries, or part of them, get bundled into some code that lurks at an address like http://faqica.blogspot.com/atom.xml - the faqica bit will change for your own list but the rest will be the same.

Now go to http://www.rss-to-javascript.com and, after a suitable title, there's a box where you can enter that 'atom.xml' address. You can leave all the other settings as they are, or experiment with changes if you're brave / know what you're doing. Click on Generate . . . and there'll be a small box of code that you need to highlight and copy.

Paste the code into a web page where you want the list to appear. In Dreamweaver you'll need to use code view to do this. In Moodle it could go into an html box, or you can even enter the atom.xml address directly into an 'Insert newsfeed' resource but that won't scroll.

Save the page and publish it. Now I'll see if I can follow my own instructions!