Using Digital Content

Converting Raster Clipart to Vector

by Roy Winkelman | Oct 29, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Working with Graphics

The ClipArt ETC website includes over 70,000 images for classroom use. The majority of the images are scans of illustrations from 19th-century textbooks, but there are also many thousands of vector illustrations created by FCIT staff. I frequently receive questions...

Photo of the Month: Council House at Mission San Luis de Apalachee

by Roy Winkelman | Oct 25, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Photo of the Month

I took this photo about 20 years ago at Mission San Luis de Apalachee in Tallahassee, Florida. The structure on the left is a reconstruction of the Council House. The one on the right is a reconstruction of the Chief’s House. The Council House was the center of...

November is Native American Heritage Month

by Roy Winkelman | Oct 25, 2020 | Using Digital Content

For the past 30 years, November has been celebrated in the US as Native American Indian Heritage Month. We have assembled a variety of digital resources from FCIT’s collections to support classroom activities related to Native American Indian heritage. The...

39 Recorded Speeches and the Reasons To Use Them with Your Students

by Roy Winkelman | Sep 29, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Lit2Go Audiobooks

The Lit2Go free audiobook site contains over 5,000 audio passages including book chapters, poems, short stories, essays, fables, memoirs, and speeches. Most of these genres were originally created as the written word. Some, such as fables or folk tales started out as...

NASA Mobile Quarantine Facility

by Roy Winkelman | Sep 22, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Photo of the Month

This mobile quarantine facility (MQF) was one of four built by NASA for astronauts returning from the Moon. A converted Airstream trailer, the MQF contained living and sleeping quarters, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Quarantine was assured by keeping the air pressure...

Signs for the Times

by Roy Winkelman | Aug 29, 2020 | Hidden Gem, Using Digital Content, Working with Graphics

Normally in this space, I share a digital resource for students and teachers. Today, I’d like to share a resource collection that was originally created for students and teachers, but may prove even more useful for administrators and staff of schools and...

Reading Photos and Drawings

by Roy Winkelman | Aug 27, 2020 | Using Digital Content

At first glance, individual ClipPix ETC galleries of historic drawings or recent photographs of old buildings might not seem to have much application to school subjects. However, matching up architectural drawings and photos of the same location provides some very...

Photo of the Month: Espada Aqueduct

by Roy Winkelman | Aug 23, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Photo of the Month

The Espada Aqueduct is a part of the irrigation system that supplied water to the Spanish Mission Espada in San Antonio, Texas. The aqueduct was built in the mid-1700s to carry water over Piedras Creek. The Espada acequia fell into disuse in the 1880s, but was...

Photo or Illustration?

by Roy Winkelman | Jul 29, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Working with Graphics

FCIT provides over 100,000 copyright-friendly images for students and teachers to use in the classroom. The two largest collections are ClipPix ETC (our stock photography collection) and ClipArt ETC (our collection of illustrations—mostly black and white line...

Hidden Gem: 4,000 Drop Caps

by Roy Winkelman | Jul 21, 2020 | Hidden Gem, Using Digital Content, Working with Graphics

ONG BEFORE THE PRINTED BOOK and before our modern conventions of paragraphs, sentence punctuation, or even spacing between words, writers of manuscripts would mark the start of a new section with a large (and often embellished) initial letter. These decorative...

Photo of the Month: Sunflowers

by Roy Winkelman | Jul 20, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Photo of the Month

Sunflowers always fascinated me as a child. I’d try to trace a spiral of florets (or seeds if later in the summer) outward from the center, but then suddenly the spirals would all seem to go in the other direction. And then, for a moment, I could see both...

Photo of the Month: Skew Arch Bridge

by Roy Winkelman | Jun 29, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Photo of the Month

This bridge is less than 200 years old, but it isn’t substantially different from bridges built 2,000 years ago. The arch bridge is one of the earliest forms of bridges. I am fascinated by bridges because they often combine both engineering and aesthetics. The...

Lit2Go: The Soundtrack for Your Students’ Next Movie

by Roy Winkelman | Jun 28, 2020 | Using Digital Content, Lit2Go Audiobooks

We recently received a request from the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument to use our Lit2Go recording of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address in a video they were preparing about the Monument. Their finished video can be...