Today, we worked with Photoshop. I've done a little work with Photoshop now and again since... 1998? I know the basics of the program, but not how to use any of the particularly fancy tools (unlike my wife, who is systematically going through our wedding photos and making everyone look ten pounds lighter). Thankfully, we didn't need any fancy tools today, just a basic knowledge of layers and resizing. I was inspired by a neat warning sign from a pamphlet in class, and decided to put me next to it. I was going to put it on a beach, but I couldn't find a good shot of a sign on a pole, so I needed to stick it directly on a wall. A quick internet search later, and I had a nice concrete wall to stick myself on. As a fun twist, the sign now looked intensely out-of-place, as I was now "threatened" by tidal waves in the middle of the city. If I had more time, perhaps I'd bring in an actual tidal wave looming over me.
A simple resizing put me at the right size for the wall. A crop cut off the ground that was at the bottom of the wall picture, so I could put the picture of me, that was only a torso shot, on the wall without revealing its deception. I stuck a simple drop shadow on myself so I look like I'm standing in front of the wall, and then I fiddled with the contrast and brightness on the warning sign. A (very small) drop shadow later, and the warning sign looks fairly authentically in the scene (despite being only a drawing, not a photograph). It's not perfect, but it's not bad for an hour and half's worth of work.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
On Web 2.0
Welcome to Edcrafting. You may wonder the meaning of the name. It's a bit of wordplay on my other blog, the semi-defunct Realmcrafting, an RPG design blog, but it also refers to this topic. The prefix Ed- is, here, short for education. -Crafting, of course, refers to the act of creation. Put together, I'm going to be dealing with creating educational techniques, or at least learn how to combine technological and educational techniques.
This first post is supposed to deal with Web 2.0. It's a broad and imprecise term, but it largely refers to more social aspects of the internet, where community is king. Since education is (or should be) all about community, it's an exciting idea on how to combine things. I deal a lot with Web 2.0, though more as a devourer of content rather than as a content creator.
The question is, of course, how to integrate these portions of the internet I use for my personal life in an educational context. Today we examined go2web2.0 and bighugelabs. Bighugelabs had a number of fun little toys, from trading card makers to calendars to sunrises and sunsets around the world, but they were hampered by awkward interface, bugs connecting to flickr and Facebook accounts (supposedly a big feature of the side), and making a number of things available only through purchase. I found it an ultimately disappointing site.
Go2web2.0 was a sort of aggregator for online tools of every sort. While I knew I could get lost with the multitude of apps and websites, I tried to stay focused on things I could use for education--and there, I also had some trouble. Finding something useful and applicable was difficult, and I had to go through a number of search terms before I found something at all interesting. I did stumble across Storyjumper, a site that allows you to create your own children's book, with virtual objects ready to create illustrations with. I thought it would be a fun site to get kids involved in creating their own stories, which might be less frustrating than doing the same thing by hand for students who have trouble drawing or handwriting.
This first post is supposed to deal with Web 2.0. It's a broad and imprecise term, but it largely refers to more social aspects of the internet, where community is king. Since education is (or should be) all about community, it's an exciting idea on how to combine things. I deal a lot with Web 2.0, though more as a devourer of content rather than as a content creator.
The question is, of course, how to integrate these portions of the internet I use for my personal life in an educational context. Today we examined go2web2.0 and bighugelabs. Bighugelabs had a number of fun little toys, from trading card makers to calendars to sunrises and sunsets around the world, but they were hampered by awkward interface, bugs connecting to flickr and Facebook accounts (supposedly a big feature of the side), and making a number of things available only through purchase. I found it an ultimately disappointing site.
Go2web2.0 was a sort of aggregator for online tools of every sort. While I knew I could get lost with the multitude of apps and websites, I tried to stay focused on things I could use for education--and there, I also had some trouble. Finding something useful and applicable was difficult, and I had to go through a number of search terms before I found something at all interesting. I did stumble across Storyjumper, a site that allows you to create your own children's book, with virtual objects ready to create illustrations with. I thought it would be a fun site to get kids involved in creating their own stories, which might be less frustrating than doing the same thing by hand for students who have trouble drawing or handwriting.
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