Shellae’s Education Blog

I really enjoyed this new facet of photo manipulation. I have been using Adobe for several years but this is something that i never thought about doing. When I looked at the cross with the beautiful background, Heaven is the only word that came to mind. Adding the contrasting background color with the mosaic filter made the picture stand out even more. This could be a useful tool in the class to add creativity and imagination to what could otherwise be boring more of the same. This type of application could used,for example, in my chemistry class to identify the elements with the element name in type and a picture of the element as the background picture. They could then be organized in a merged poster or printed to be organized on the wall in the shape of the periodic table.

I am actually glad that this class has gotten off to a slow start because of weather issues and personal sickness but I am hoping to gain a new perspective on tools that can be used in the classroom.  I really do not like the book thus far because it reminds me of reading a history book that was written by a high school student who is trying to follow the guidelines of writing an essay.  The first chapter was mostly a summation of what the book is going to tell you and who the intended audience is supposed to be.  Then the next chapter just discusses the use of multimedia and how documentaries and animation began.  I know that you need a background knowledge in anything to get a proper grasp on the present uses and the future so I hope that is where the author is going with this.  

I would really like to learn some applications that I can use in the classroom.  Things that I can create to improve the teaching of my classes and things that my students can use to create projects of their own.  I would love to delve deeper into animation and learn how to create my own animated projects.  I used to have my chemistry students create a comic strip hero based on one of the elements on the periodic table and I would love to take that a step further by letting them actually create the animated character.  

I think it is also important to have resources available that the teachers can pull from whien needed.  A “webliography” might be a good idea to create a list of useful websites with a detailed description of what is contained on that site.  This would help teachers by giving them resources to pull from to use with their students.  Teachers are usually not creators of technology but we do want to apply technology resources and this would give us a list of resources to pull from.

This week’s picture assignment, as I mentioned previously, was a little difficult for me because I like pictures with a meaning.  I started taking some pictures of my church and they turned out better than expected.  It was a clear, cold day and the sky was amazingly blue with large white clouds.  I liked all of the pictures because of their distinctive contrast in colors but this one has to be my favorite because it took me back to my childhood.  When I was little I had a vivid imagination and was an adiment observer.  My favorite thing to do was to lay on the ground and stare at the clouds.  It was amazing how many things I thought I saw.  I love the blue sky behind the white puffy clouds and the cross at the top of the steeple in the middle.  It almost looks like it is going into the clouds.  It was very simple but beautiful just the same.  I guess I noticed that meaning can be found all around us if we just take the time to stop and look.

Tags: pictures