Up Close and Personal

Microsoft has developed a free application, Zoom.it,  that allows users to view graphics in detail.  It is ridiculously simply to use.

Go to the site.  Enter in the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) of an image, web page or PDF file.  Image formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF and SVG are supported.  Any size image can be referenced and loaded into this service.

Copy and paste the URL link into the space and click CREATE.  Your image now appears on the screen.  When the cursor is moved over the image four icons appear in the lower right hand corner.  These icons give the user the ability to zoom in, zoom out, go home or toggle full page.  At the bottom of the image there is a URL link to the image, or the code for embedding.  This can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Reddit.

The image below is a map of the Iditarod, The Last Great Race, a dog sledding event in Alaska beginning the first Saturday of March each year.  It becomes the focus of numerous educational projects across the grade levels in our library media center.


This is an image of Xena running out at Fisherman's Island State Park after a major snow storm.



Thanks to Richard Byrne of Free Technology For Teachers, for his post about Zoom.it on January 25, 2011.