The thinking behind Guerrilla Graphics (and sound too) is to make the most of software programs you and your students already have easy access to and know how to use. And with the explosion of Web 2.0 applications, I try to point out sites you can visit for handy programs and services. The advantages are fairly simple: little or no learning curve, available to all and no cost. We'll explore some of the most common school programs here, list a couple of web sites, and mention a few inexpensive, but powerful programs.

Screen Capture Let's start with something that's built in to the operating systems. The "Print Screen" key on PC's and "Command-Shift-3" combination on a Mac save a picture file of the screen. "Command-Shift-4" on a Mac will let you outline a specific area. SnapzPro2 and Camtasia go a step further in allowing you to make QuickTime movies of screen activity - great for staff development. See AtomicLearning.com for the best example of this powerful tool. Web 2.0 Solutions: - Berio is a free program for Mac users that takes advantage of the power of OSX 10.5 to record a movie of your screen. - The JingProject will also record your screen but you have to watch the movie at their site. - Need to save that YouTube or TeacherTube movie to show in class but it's blocked at school? Try MediaConverter.org, Vixy.net or Zamzar. And Zamzar will change the format of local video files for you too. Programs like AppleWorks, Office, Print Shop, and Print Explosion are treasure chests of clip art that can be inserted/imported into other programs. However, with PrintShop for the Mac, you can't just reach into a clip art folder. You've got to extract the encoded pictures from the program's library files. "Exporter" is a program that is included with PrintShop. Just start Exporter, choose a library, choose a graphic, and then save the picture in an appropriate format. Of course, you can also use screen capture as a means of repurposing text and graphics.

Microsoft Word includes a number of drawing tools in addition to its clip art. Use the brightness and contrast tools to alter the picture, even isolating elements and changing their colors.

For Windows users, Paint is a handy program that's built in (you can find it in the Start menu). It can import pictures, let you manipulate them and then export them in a variety of formats. Copy your Word Art clips and graphic creations to Paint for export as JPEG's or GIF's.

AppleWorks (and Microsoft Works, too) has many of the same aspects with a few more tools and a little more flexibility with both a Draw and a Paint mode. The title graphic here was created by layering "AppleWorks" in three different textboxes, each in a different shade. Just type the text in a box in the Draw mode and then copy the box (not the text!) twice. The newest copy is in the top layer. Leave the original black, change the middle one to a dark gray and the last copy to a light gray. Stack them up and slightly to the left. Choose "Select All" from the menu and then use the "Group" option from the menu. That makes them one united graphic that can be copied or saved in a variety of formats. I like to call it a text sandwich. Newer versions of the Office suite may allow you to do similar things.

The graphic at the left is similar to the layered AppleWorks title above. In this case, it's just a text box placed on a graphic that is the tiled background of our Digital Multi Media Mania Workshop page. To make this graphic I copied a picture of all the programs we touch on in the workshop from their respective companies' homepages. Those images were then inserted into a Draw document, sized to the same dimensions, arranged and then grouped. That graphic was then pasted into a Paint document. In Paint, I used the Blend tool to soft focus the products and then used the Tint tool to put a light yellow wash over them. Using the Marquee tool, I cut the graphic and pasted it into a new Draw document. I then saved it as a JPEG for use by my web editing software. By choosing it as a background graphic in that editor, it's automatically tiled to fill the web page. You can see the finished product at work on the web at http://www.wisemantech.com/mm And this movie rating screen is also a fun way to start out a movie. Same idea - take a green or blue background in AppleWorks, Media Blender, PowerPoint, etc. and overlay it with white text and a one row, two column table with white border lines.

And speaking of manipulating pictures and slides the following programs allow you to do all sorts of things with your pictures including make a mosaic:

- Mosaickr.com lets you turn a set of pictures into a mosaic. See Steve Dembo's example here.
- Kerpoof.com move over KidPix!
- Picnik.com move over PhotoShop?
- VoiceThread.com for a slide show narrated by you (and your friends).
- SlideShare.net for putting your PowerPoint slides online.
- Slide.com for social networking sites.
- OneTrueMedia.com for social networking sites.
- Moonk.com for making slide shows.
- Animoto.com for making slide shows with music.

And for Makin' Movies...

- JumpCut.com
- EyeSpot.com
- FoxHiLites.com register and get your story on their local website or maybe even on television?

Version 5.0 is "just around the corner" for Macs. Early '08 for the PC! www.hyperstudio.com

This is a bit dated but could be more relevant with the release of the new version... I did a couple of workshops with Roger Wagner years ago and I'm convinced his old HyperStudio motto, "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing!" came not from the marketing folks, but from the programmers he pushed to make that program more than just a slide show generator. If you are still using HyperStudio, the following few paragraphs describe some uses of the program that go beyond slideshow presentations and tap a variety of graphics and video strengths of the program. First , the graphic on the left is an exported screen (something you can also do in PowerPoint). I filled the screen with the brick pattern and then outlined just inside the screen. Going to the Edit menu, I went down to Effects and chose the HyperStudio Beveler. I did the same thing with a different size rectangle to raise the area that the title is on. The text was painted on another card, lassoed and copied twice to the raised box. The first time I left it black to be a shadow. The second time I used the Effects menu to add the gradient. The four smaller text lines below are just the opposite: black on gradient text.

Morphing Pictures for free in Mac OS X http://www.norrkross.com/ and for free with HyperStudio. If you have HyperStudio 4, don't forget the Morph program that comes with it and directions: http://www.hyperstudio.com/showcase/smorph.html Of course you can always arrange two pictures in your movie editing software and do a slow cross dissolve. This can be a lot faster way to get a morph effect.

One of the neatest effects in HyperStudio lets you cut the pattern of any graphic or picture out as text. Choose a "fat" font, paint it on a blank card, lasso it, copy, paste onto any background, scroll down to Cookie Cutter from the Effects menu, and your text takes on the colors and shapes of the background. To make an interesting intro slide to a presentation or video about your school, Make a three card stack. Insert a picture of the school onto the first two cards. Use the Brightness/Contrast control in Effects to lighten up the first card. Write "Welcome to Our School" in big letters on the third. Lasso the text and copy it onto the second card. Highlight Cookie Cutter in the Effects menu and copy the text to the first card. Match the full color text to its washed out counterpart. The example text was cut from a stone wall pattern. Exported screens and colorful text from HyperStudio can make great web graphics and video title slides. Tech4Learning has a "Snack" for this at http://www.tech4learning.com/snacks, great step-by-step instructions. Click on "HyperStudio" and then on "Cookie Cutter Effect." While you are there, fill up on some of their other free snacks. PhotoShop can perform a similar effect.

iMovie You can export a high quality still picture from any frame of your video. Use the advanced mirror effect like this poor pooch or choose from sepia, black and white, sharpen, etc. You can insert a still from the beginning of a clip for x number of seconds and then have it "jump" into action when the video starts. Or roll the credits over a collection of still highlights. Let your video camera be your still camera, too. On the other hand, import good graphics slides from the other programs. Save them as PICT's in either 640x480 size or 7"x9".

Panoramic and 360 Degree Pictures

• For starters here's a digital camera tip (thanks to Fred Whitehouse). Most digital cameras have a built in feature that lets you see the previous picture while you're lining up the next shot. This helps you align your pictures as you go from one shot to the next (always left to right, clockwise!) On my Canon ELPH there's a little icon of two screens on the LCD screen. When I arrow over to it, the camera keeps the right edge of the first picture on the screen while I line up the second. Your camera may also have come with free software to stitch several pictures together (but not necessarily into a full 360 degree cylinder). See the box below for ideas on how to do it for free or consider Tech4Learning's inexpensive ($29.95 Mac or Windows) SimplyVR program.

Use QuickTime Pro (or any video editing software) to make 359 degree panoramas. You won't be able to go completely around the circle, but you get the same effect along with many other useful features for $29.95. The movie at left was created by standing in the middle of our Oakton Lobby and taking 12 digital pictures "around the clock." Then we open QuickTime Pro and go to "Open image sequence" under the file menu. We direct the program to the folder with the images in sequence and import them at a rate of two frames/second (actually, the time doesn't matter because the viewer will use the slide control to"play" the movie). Save as a movie and just insert it into any presentation or web page for a look around. Use the same technique with any set of scanned or drawn images to make still pictures move. You can even make an animated graphic for the web. The steps are similar for using any video editing programs. Just insert your still pictures in order and save out as a QuickTime or AVI movie with the controller visible.

Cubic VR with QuickTime 5: "inside" the Niles West gym I'm still feeling my way around Cubic VR, but here's a quick sample of what you can do for free. You'll need QuickTime 5 and the Cubic VR tool from http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/quicktimeintro/tools/index.html (scroll down to the "QTVR Tools" section). You need to draw or take six pictures (four walls, the ceiling, and the floor) and make them perfect squares. Number those pictures in sequence and drop them on the Cubic VR tool. Voilá, you're inside a room! My quick effort is pretty rough, so see http://www.apple.com/quicktime/gallery/cubicvr/ for what can be done with commercial software and professional equipment. Take a look around our main gym. If you don't have QT 5 all you'll be able to see is the four walls in the round. QT 5 actually squares them off and let's you mouse up to the ceiling and down to the floor.

Free Web Resources

• Free Office suites: OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice.org (Mac only)
• SchoolhouseVideo.org and Kitzu.org are offering free, copyright friendly "kits" that contain both graphics and sounds for still and video presentations. Find your area of interest and download.
  Boinx Mouseposé puts a spotlight on your Mac cursor: http://www.boinx.com/mousepose
• Audacity - free sound editor for all platforms. http://audacity.sourceforge.net
• Arthur Elementary School in Illinois has put together a great page of graphics for educators: http://arthur.k12.il.us/arthurgs/aesgrin.htm.
• Clip-Art.com: this name says it all: a portal to many, many, rated clipart sites.
• CoolText also has a lot of easy to make animated text and graphics services: http://www.cooltext.com/
• my original Web 2.0 example, has lots of clip art and fonts, but the real attraction here is building your own animated and styled text headers and banners. Type your text in and choose your styles. The "Guerrilla Graphics" banner at the top and this fiery button were done at this site in less than two minutes. The hardest part is choosing between all the styles, colors, fonts and effects.
  FONTS in General: Mrs. Meacham's and http://www.dafont.com.
  
• Morphing Pictures for free in Mac OS X http://www.norrkross.com
• And morphing for the PC http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph
• Flickr.com is a great source of high quality pictures and a good way to introduce students to the Creative Commons licenses. It also has an amazing number of services, including making a magazine cover from a picture.
• Photo Story 3 from Microsoft is a wonderful way to make still pictures come alive. It can even generate a customized soundtrack:
  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx
  

FREE EFFECTS AND TRANSITIONS

• The following vendors offer fully functional samplers of their commercial products: eZedia, GeeThree, Stupendous Software, and Virtix. And almost free ($1.99-3.50 each): http://www.imovieplugins.com. the newest version ('08) does not take plug-ins.
• Here is a page with a set of iMovie plug-ins that allows you to have a two line title where both lines are the SAME size: http://www.berga.nu/~usrlt/imovie

FREE MUSIC Would you like some copyright-free music to go with your presentation or video? Check out http://www.freeplaymusic.com. Mac iDisk users can also gain access through the "Extras" folder. Note this is only "free" IN the classroom.

FREE SOUNDS

• http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/cartoon.html
• http://wavcentral.com/effects.htm
• http://www.webplaces.com/html/sounds.htm
• From Bernajean Porter - http://www.digitales.us/resources/music_sound_sources.php
• Hall Davidson always has a great list of resources on his site: http://www.halldavidson.net/downloads.html

The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. www.gimp.org

RagTime Solo is a very powerful page layout program that is completely FREE if not used for commercial purposes. Mac and PC 50mb download, but you can send for a CD-ROM for S&H.

Tech4Learning is a site with copyright friendly clipart: http://pics.tech4learning.com/. There's also more resources, products and tips on their main page: www.tech4learning.com. Download the Blue Armadillo program. It's free for both the Mac and PC and it let's you convert images from one type to another. Also see ImageBlender below.

FREE EFFECTS, TRANSITIONS, BACKGROUNDS

Themes for iDVD from iDVD Theme Pak.

Keynote themes:
http://keynotehq.com/community/index.php
http://www.keynotethemepark.com/content/pages/t5.html
http://www.keynotegallery.com
http://www.keynoteuser.com/downloads

Inexpensive Programs that do a Lot
Adobe PhotoShop Elements is almost as powerful as its big brother, but a lot easier to use and only $49 (or less!) for education! Illinois people check with Educational Resources. Adobe Photo DeLuxe was its predecessor and came bundled free with many scanners. Not as powerful, but a great tool if you still have it. bundled with Premiere Elements for video editing for less that $100.

ComicLife for both platforms. Make comic books and graphic novels $25-30. Basic version comes free on most Macs.

Boinx iStopMotion for time lapse, stop motion, "Claymation" type animations. Mac only. http://www.istopmotion.com

Tech4Learning Products are robust, very easy to use for any age group, and affordable.
Image Blender is $35 from Tech4Learning. Lots of effects AND it can automatically build a list to cite where graphics came from. 30 day free trial. They've also just introduced MediaBlender which is a web-based, subscription "program." ALSO check out their Clay Animation Kit ($49.95). Included in the kit is Spin Photo Object which allows you to make 360 degree views of objects, animated GIF's, QuickTime and AVI movies. VideoBlender (PC and Mac) $59.95. The newest addition to the family is SimplyVR for making 360 degree panoramas or viewing an object from all sides. Nice features, great price, 30 day demo downloads! And for staff development and making instruction books for students, their Recipes 4 Learning subscription let's you make skill books and then combine them to create printable, PDF binders.

iMovie Plug-ins and Extras The following vendors offer an incredibly wide variety to expand the range of iMovie: eZedia, GeeThree, Stupendous Software, and Virtix. And almost free ($1.99-3.50 each): http://www.imovieplugins.com.

GraphicConverter is the Swiss Army knife of graphics manipulation. $35 Macintosh only shareware from http://www.lemkesoft.de/en/index.htm. Check www.windowstracker.com for a PC equivalent (www.versiontracker.com is a great site for updates, freeware and shareware).

QuickTime Pro is $29.95 (for both the Mac and PC). Create slide show "movies" and panoramas. Convert still, movie and sound formats. Add and extract sound. Save movies off the web. A very inexpensive, all-purpose program. My former distict uses Camtasia to make training videos right from the PC screen.

Screen capture programs
SnapzPro2 is $40 Macintosh shareware from Ambrosia, http://www.ambrosiasw.com. Again, check AtomicLearning.com to see the power of this program. A search of www.windowstracker.com with "screen capture" will turn up a number of PC programs.

The JingProject (http://www.jingproject.com) makes a movie of what was going on your computer and saves it to their server. It then puts a link into your clipboard that you can save and share with anyone who would be interested in seeing what you've captured.

Berio is a free screen capture program for Macs only. This will create a movie saved right on your own hard drive.

Common Picture Formats

BMP, "bitmapped", is the uncompressed standard for Windows computers. I assume PC video editing programs prefer this uncompressed format for imported stills just as Mac video editing programs do better with PICT. EPS is "encapsulated post script" format and is the biggest and the best. Because the graphic is described by an algorithm for its shapes, resizing doesn't ruin the quality. Too big for Internet use, though. GIF is the "graphical interchange format." It's a very effective compression method that only uses 256 colors. This makes it an Internet standard for display and animation.

JPEG is the other Internet standard from the Joint Photographic Experts Group. This is probably the best compromise between quality and size.

PICT is the uncompressed "picture" standard for the Macintosh platform. Use this format when inserting scanned stills into video.

PNG, "portable network graphic - ping" is apparently higher quality than GIF and takes less space than JPEG. MING (multiple image network graphic), is used like animated GIF's for web animation.

TIFF, "tagged image file format." They're high quality, uncompressed images. Way too big for the Internet, but another good choice for video.