Digital Media

Audience: High School Students
Digital Design Class
Computer Lab includes digital cameras and Photoshop
Students have previous experience working with Photoshop

State Objectives:
Students will document school experiences using digital photography. Each student will be responsible for representing in school activities, academic studies, as well as extra curricular activities inside and outside of school. Using available programs, student will edit photos and text in relationship to their documentation. Students will produce a digital story using Photoshop and imovie (or comparable program) to document school life.

Select Instructional Method:
Students will begin by creating a time line of a typical school day noting activities and events that take place around their school. Students will then create a rough story board outlining the days events. Digital cameras will be used to document daily activities through out the week. Once the students have acquired sufficient documentation (at least ten events) they will begin to edit pictures in Photoshop and sequence events in imovie. Students will incorporate titles and supporting text.

Utilize Media and Materials:
Using Photoshop and imovie students will create a digital documentation, using pictures and captions to chronologically support events.

Require Learner Participation:
Through out the lesson students will participate in class discussions. A class critique will be held halfway into the project. Students will demonstrate understanding through in class projects and connections to the final project.
To conclude the project, students will present their digital story to the class. Classmates will be asked to give written feedback and suggestions.

Evaluate and Revise:
Students will be assessed on their ability to demonstrate knowledge of programs, editing skills, creating story boards, and completion of a final project. Students will need to show evidence of understanding to support the main objective. Students and Instructor will fill out rubric detailing knowledge and creativity.

Instructional review questions:
Were the expectations too high or too low?
Were the students engaged?
Were the objectives clear?
Was the assessment process accurate for this lesson?
What should be revised?

The Patch tool in Photoshop is amazing. This new tool allows you to remove unwanted blemishes in your photos. You can use this tool to remove wrinkles, clean up a picture, and so much more.

Using the Patch Tool.
1. Choose the Patch Tool (looks like a squiggly diamond) The tool is located on under the bandaid on the tool palatte.
2. Drag a marquee (the marching ants) around the area you want to repair.
3.Drag from inside the selection to the area you want to sample. When you release the mouse, imagery from the sampled area will appear within the original selection. (You want to select a similar color to apply the technique in a realistic fashion)
In three steps the mess is gone. It is magic!

“In each new vista the observer finds something new; first perhaps a solution to a problem which remained unsolved in the previous phase of observation, and second, a novel surprise: another problem motivating them to a deeper still reflection. Each phase of observation leads to more profound comprehension and thus increases the aesthetic value of learning.”

The Learning theories approach education as a motivation to deeper understanding. The further we look into something the more we question. (AKA The more you learn you realize the less you know) Hopefully this questioning promotes curiosity, which in turn encourages investigation. This type of self-motivated learning enriches our lives. We can relate the importance to our understanding and be awed what we know and what we don’t know.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was incredible and terrifying. Although we are becoming more and more vocal in society (especially by spreading the word digitally!) I have a hard time imagining such an experiment happening in the U.S. today. The press would be on it immediately and I would assume that the university would not allow these types of experiments to happen. This is disappointing because this type of direct research testing results in discoveries that cannot be found otherwise.

That said, I could not help but notice the correlation of the prison experiment to school classrooms. Instructors have been using similar behavioral tactics for years and have continued to do so today in order to gain control and maintain order. These tactics are psychological (i.e. calling out a student to make them embarrassed) and physical (i.e. running laps). Teachers have even resulted to taking away time, which is highly regarded these days! Like the guards, instructors sometimes use intimidations, humiliation, demasculization, and invent arbitrary rules. These approaches are used to confuse, instill fear, and command respect. But can one command respect? Is respect a behavioral response or a feeling? In this case, the guards and some teachers consider it a displayable verb. They might force a student to be quiet or stay in their seat but they cannot force learning.

The Stamford Prison Experiment also talked about the ways in which prisons and the military minimized individuality by shaving heads. This reminded me of school uniforms. Is it positive to take away a student’s physical identity and force them to conform? I never had to wear a uniform to school but I used to see it as a blessing. I felt it would save precious morning time by not having to figure out what to wear and blur the line of the external haves and the have nots. Are we really stealing identity or taking the focus off clothing and placing it on less physical characteristics?

The oppressive environment also made me think of school buildings. They both have a strange stale smell and cold sterile concrete walls. Very often school environments are less than welcoming. On the other hand, too much decoration could be a distraction.

Even the evidence regarding sleep cycles and inadequate diet play a role in psychological well-being. It has been proven that teenagers have different circadian rhythms that can influence the function of the body as much as nutrition. Feeding students sugary vending machine cuisine and getting them out of bed at 6 in the morning might not be the most suitable way to promote healthy learning.

As instructors, we cannot control what happens outside of the school day but to support learning we need to consider the physiological needs as well as regulation tactics we use.
…or be “perpetrators of evil” Oh, my!

Generally, I would say that I am a fan of the use of Power Point in presentations. I find them to be helpful in summarizing the important points of a lecture. It is particularly helpful when presenters begin to digress and you start to wonder where they are going. A look at the bullet points on the screen could help clarify some confusion. Yet, sometimes these presentations can hinder the presentation, causing even more confusion.
Tufte brought up many good points in opposition of the PP Presentation. He mentions that many PP presentations are entirely presenter oriented, and not content oriented or audience oriented. This is a good reminder for teachers/presenters to step back and look at the correlation between the slides and the content. Tufte suggests that anything wordy or consisting of a lot of information should be printed and distributed on paper handouts. I agree although I don’t find the paper PP slide print out with lines on the sides for notes to be of great help. The concept is great but the slides are way too small on the page and give the viewer too many things to look at. I get lost trying to correlate the right slide on the screen with the hand out and the confusion distracts me from listening. I find that the use of lines are distracting, too. Since the information in PP is given in bullets, the section for notes should be in bullet points as well. Maybe even bullet points as sub bullets for the bullet points. This is a subjective evaluation but pertinent in the dissecting of informational design!
Tufte also points out many grammatical and compositional points in his article. I became much more aware of the usage of passive voice, font size, bad use of pronouns, and even resolution. I am sure as students we all agree that these are very distracting. It was interesting to see how we each pulled apart distracting features of the PP presentations in class. I was amazed at how well the principle’s PP was rearranged. The altered slide really took into account the audience with the friendly use of clip art and text.
Tufte kept me in agreement about the downfalls of PP until he brought up the idea that the software companies creating PP are far removed from the people using the presentation tool. He describes the software companies as being structured, sequential, and vested unlike the marketing folks who are more interested in advocacy over analysis, slogans + branding, and market place ethics. I believe he is reaching at this point. Power Point can be used properly and used poorly but I believe it has to do with each presenter being able to communicate clearly, regardless of his or her profession.

These readings and lessons show us that we have to take a lot into consideration when creating informational design. It also presents even more questions. Are there specific structures we need to follow? Do art instructors view informational design differently?

Has anyone seen this site before? It is sort of a My Space for artists. I immediately scrolled down the main page for the terms and conditions for information on copyright. It is not as clear or detailed as the creative commons site (or as cute) but is simple to read. The site even has a spot for children to create work online and submit it to be posted. I like that it also has a random reshuffling once and awhile.

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery

The copyright discussion was very thought provoking. It brought up several topics I had not put much thought into before. Strangely enough, I have a friend of a friend that works with a legal team that does copyright/trademark protection for major companies. He is given specificmarks to put in his search engines ie: M&M’s, m and m’s, M&M’s and girls, M&M’s and drugs etc…… and commits internet searches looking for illegal product distribution, reproduction, and image misrepresentation (all web based). The legal team reviews his findings and take a variety of actions against the parties in question. This can be anywhere from shutting down an Ebay sale to taking out an entire website. The misuse of images is usually for humorous or pornographic purposes. In this case, the legal team would contact this person and demand that they take the image off of his site.

Isn’t it amazing what people do for a living!

I was not sure what to expect from the first class. I signed up for Digital Media for Educators expecting to learn more about the direction classrooms and teachers were taking in the field of technology. I was delighted to cover much of the basic language in the first few hours together. I was familiar with many of the terms but could not articulate the reasoning behind them. I was also surprised at the difficulty in finding simple definitions and explanations for internet terminology on the internet itself! Working as a group made it clear that we each have different ways of finding information as well. Prior knowledge was sometimes helpful but could also be misleading. The discussion at the conclusion of class was the most enlightening part of class. I learned about open source, formatting, audio + image files, urls, and gained a better & broader understanding of the internet and its capabilities.

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