Shellae’s Education Blog

I have not written much lately because I have been working on a very special project for my momaw.  A few months ago, momaw’s nephew found an old picture under a matress and it turned out to be a picture of my momaw when she was about a month old being held by her mother.  This was such a special find because my great-grandmother died when my momaw was just 2 years old and momaw did not have any pictures of her mother.  The picture was on a cardboard backing and it was badly decayed.  Over the years, people had tried to tape it together which made it even more deformed.  I didn’t think there was much that I could do but I took a picture of the picture and got a a friend to try to help me restore the picture using Photoshop.

We began by lightening the picture and using the patch tool to try to correct sone of the worse areas.  Then we put a soft overlay on the picture to add to the antique flare.  Some areas were too badly decayed to fix, such as one of the baby’s eyes and the mother’s pinkie finger, so we drew a closed eye and used a copied layer of the index finger and resized it to make a pinkie finger.  We then kept adjusting the levels, brightness, color balance, and contrast until we had finally created a picture that we were pleased with.  This project took massive amounts of tiral and error but in the end, it was well worth the effort.  I then printed a 16 x 20 picture on convas and framed it for Momaw.  Needless to say, she loved it and actually so did I.

This is what the picture finally looked like when we finished it.

I enjoyed the sense of accpmplishment that I got from this that I decided to start someing else for Momaw’s birthday (yesterday).  I went back through all the old photos that I could find and created a book for her.  By using Photoshop to edit the pictures and software that I downloaded from Mpix, I made a book that began with my great-great-grandparents and ended with pictures from now.  All total, there were six generations of our family in the book.  The thing that I like about the Mpix software is that you can also add text so the book turned out more like a story of her life with pictures as the added bonus.  The book is hard-bound and had 20 pages inside.  If you are interested in projects like this, I definitely recommend Mpix for the publishing.  Check it out.

I have played around with some pictures in the past and the contrast of color on black and white is a time consuming endeavor for me but it is well worth it.  When we visit different places, I love to exam the landscape.  The differnt trees and flowers are of particular interest to us so we take pictures of almost everything.   This particular picture was taken on our trip to Germany last summer.  The roses are everywhere there and it seemd that they were all different.  The most difficult part of taking a good picture of flowers is capturing the detail of each petal.

I used Photoshop to edit this picture.  First I opened the picture I wanted to use and created a new project.  Then I dragged my picture onto the new project background and set the mode to grayscale.  Then I adjusted the brightness and contrast to get the desired effect and flattened the image.  Next, I went back to my oritinal picture and outlined the section that I wanted to have in color and copied it as a new layer.  I drug this layer onto my project then erased any excess around the flower.  Finally, this project is complete.  Hope you enjoy!!! 

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

Well, I finally got my first pictures uploaded to Flickr and I am actually somewhat pleased. I found Dr. Lowell and a few of my classmates and added them as contacts. I am not really sure if we are supposed to be looking at each others pictures but if we are, we need to be able to add each other so that me something to do next (I am listed under shellaep). I like the fact that you can share pictures with friends and family as well as order prints from flickr but there are several other web applications that allow you to do the same thing. I commonly use shutterfly to share photos with my family and I like the way it lets me set up a weekly digest to share. I have all my family added as members so when I add something new, they receive a link via email.

I looked at some wonderful pictures that were posted on flickr and a few of the videos but there is still much more to learn. The video application on flickr is listed for pro only but it does not appear to be that difficult. That is the next avenue to explore.

I have used iTunes for quite some time to get my favorite podcasts. I always have something new to listen to on my daily commute and occasionally while I am working. Since I very rarely have time to turn on the television or read the newspaper, I always keep up to date with what is going on in the world thanks to my Anderson Cooper podcasts. I also enjoy listening to the inspirational messages from Joel Osteen which helps deliver my daily uplift. Some of the other podcasts that I keep on my iPod include Discovery News and the New York Times Book Review. Two of my newest, and quickly becoming some of my favorites are Hirshhorn Museum & Sculptures and The National Gallery Podcast (London). As you can probably see, I prefer the practical and educational versus pure entertainment but that is just my personality. I love the simple fact that I can listen to or watch what I want, when I want rather than being stuck with what my husband and kids are watching or listening to. Hello freedom!

I did not think that it would be that difficult to take pictures of things other than people and animals but I am finding that really hard. I am used to take pictures with significance so this is really out of the ordinary. I have taken about 50 pictures so far and I am not pleased with any of them. I know that it is supposed to be the picture that we should focus on and try to make it the best we can but without an underlying purpose, I am not pleased with any of them. Can we at least play it up a little and create mosaics or black and white or maybe sketches? Still don’t think I will like them though. I will upload some tomorrow on flickr to see what you think (my account is shellaep of course). Maybe with a little advice, they will get better.

Yea pictures!!! As I begin taking some pictures, I wonder if it would be alright to use some that I have taken recently?  (Say, from my recent trip to Italy & Greece)  As a personal preference, I prefer to use Photoshop for my picture editing and I love the CS4 version but unfortunately it is way out of my price range so I settled for some free trials.  Why is it that Adobe has some great software that could be really useful to people, businesses, and especially educators, but they charge a ridiculous amount for it?  It seems to me that it would be better to put a reasonable price on the software and sell a lot of it rather than selling a limited amount at a high price.  If you want people to use it then they have to be able to afford it, right?  Oh well, sorry about the ranting but this is a major aggravation of mine.

Tags: photos