Photo album and Photoshop Express

I have created photo albums before, more for my own personal use rather than sharing, but I found using photoshop to be quite easy. I added a few of my favorite pictures to my album. I enjoyed playing around with the various editing options that are offered and probably went through every single option before deciding on my final editing options. I originally wanted to edit one of our wedding photos and make the red on my dress and his uniform pop, but once I edited it, there didn't seem to be any change at all. Everything was already pretty much black and white. Instead I went with a picture of my husband that was part of my birthday present. The first new pictures I have seen of him in over 7 months. I used the draw feature to turn him into a cartoon like character. I think it's a little funny that the draw feature made him look like he has a mustache because of the shadow in the original picture.

Original Picture:

Edited Picture

I believe that I could use this application in my classroom, especially in having the students create their own graphics or editing pictures of their own. Photoshop would not only allow them to edit pictures, but also store them and share them with friends. By storing them online, they would also be able to access and edit them from home or any computer in the school.





****my photo album****

Crappy Graphics

I thought I would get ahead of things a bit last week when I had a little down time, but of course decided to just post about each assignment as it came due. That was a good idea until I forgot that the assignment was due last night.

When I first went to the crappy graphics website and explored a little, I was taken back by the graphs that some people had created. I guess I was expecting something a little more professional or educational. Some where funny though. Creating the graph was simple, deciding what I would make the graph about took a little thought though.

I thought that this site would be a great source for not only teaching kids about the graphs, but also to allow them to take what they have learned and create a graph themselves. My only concern would be that some of the graphs that can be seen on the site are not appropriate for the classroom. The more we get into this course the more I realize how much of this technology I can use in my classroom. I am going to start keeping a detailed list of all the technology we are using and any ideas I happen to come up with about how this technology can be used.

Kids Zone Graphics

Discovering Kids Zone was a wonderful thing. Making graphs and other items on this site was easier than using other desktop programs. It took only about ten minutes to create both graphs. I decided to create two different types of graphs so that I could explore how to use the different functions. For the first graph with theWest Virginia 4th grade NEAP scores compared to the national average I chose to use the line graph so as to be able to visually see how each progressed. Although West Virginia scores continuously fell below the national average, the scores did improve over the seven year, much as the national scores had.

In order to best compare the number of IEPs for each of the four states with the lowest per capita income, I chose to use a bar graph. Since each item that I was comparing only had one value, it seemed to be the most logical. Of the four states presented, West Virginia had the fewest number of IEPs. It also had the second lowest per capita income. All that can be concluded from this graph is that West Virginia, when compared to other low per capita income states has the lowest number of IEPs. The question remains though, does West Virginia have a low number of IEPs because students who need IEPs are being overlooked or a lack of funding for adequate resources? Or are there possibly fewer people in the Wild Wonderful state than there may be in states with a more dense population?

Image Capture

For the image capture I chose to capture the blogger dashboard and explain how to manage to use it's components. By using the Paint took, I was able to crop the needed portion of the screen as well as add in arrows and text boxes.

In order to actually capture the image on my laptop, I had to hold the "function" key while I selected the "Print Screen" fuction. From there it was simple to paste the object into the Paint screen. I chose to save the picture as a JPEG image which covered a space of 128 KB.

I know this function will be used quite often in my classroom. As I said in the previous post, I will be teaching business classes which will most likely include Word, Excell, PowerPoint, etc and by copying the screen I will more easily be able to express to the students where something is on the screen or how to perform a particular action.

Desktop Graphics

After reading a blog of someone elses desktop graphic assignment I decided to make a chart of sorts that displays the assignments that are due before Evaluation 2. She had done something similar and said that she thought it would make things easier with keep the assignments straight. I'll take any help I can get at keeping the assignments and their due dates straight. I've already confused myself several times as far as what I had to do and when, so hopefully this will keep me on track.

For each assignment I posted the name, embedded with a link to its assignment page, the due date, as well as the program in which I will need to perform the assignment. From there I have then linked each assignment to the appropriate location in which it needs to be saved. I found Google Docs to be a bit more easy to use and understand; therefore, the assignments that do not specifically state where they need to be saved have been designated as being saved in Google Docs.

At first, I considered using Microsoft Word and originally created the graphic there. However, when I saved the document and then attempted to open it as an outside user (through the internet link) I was still able to edit the graphic and information and it was fairly difficult to access the links. At that point I decided to put the graphic into Microsoft PowerPoint instead. I was able to copy and paste the graphic from Word to PowerPoint, but it did need some editing to reposition the date to fit the slide. Saving the presentation as a web page allowed me to share the document as a finished product. When someone clicks on the link, they will now be able to see the document in thier web browser and may also select a link to the assignment page without needing to do any further steps. I did have a problem however with initially opening the file in my browser. I was prompted that my browser did not support some of the informatoin and if I chose to continue anyway I would only be able to see the chart itself, without the informatoin. Once I chose to allow the blocked content by right clicking the yellow announcemant bar at the top of the page, everything came up perfectly.

The file is saved as an HTML document which allows it to be opened in a web browser when someone clicks on the link below and is 2.44 KB in size. I think that using graphics such as these to present assignments would be fairly useful in the classroom, especially if there were numberous assignments that are completed or saved in various locations such as in this course. Also, seeing as how I will be teaching business education and classes that will involve using programs such as Microsoft Office, I will need to teach students how to do these type of things themselves so incorporating student created graphics will play in important role.

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dkgb5sw_63wnb5wdn

Dale's Cone AGAIN!

Sorry I was a little confused with this assignment. From reading other people's blogs and not looking ahead at the next assignment I was a little off on what exactly needed to be done. So here's the real assignment.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dkgb5sw_2fgwfg2fd&hl=en

Dale's Cone

So, please disregard the previous post regarding Dale's Cone of Experience as my actual reading assignment. I didn't look ahead and see exactly what the next assignment was asking for. It does however give an opinion of what I thought about the article. A more adequate response will follow. Sorry for the confusion.

Price of Procrastination

I left doing the FTP assignment until after work last night. Of course that would also be the night my internet decides to give out on me. After two hours of trying I finally cracked and gave up. That's what I get for waiting. Hopefully this will teach me a lesson. Get done today what I could leave for tomorrow. Technology is never 100% reliable so either get things done early or have a backup plan. FTP seems useful, especially if you will be doing things in different locations; however, I found it to be a bit inconvenient. I am using Explorer 7 so I had several sets to go through in order to get to the location and it was a bit confusing. I think I would prefer to use Google Docs instead when possible.

Anyway, attached is my response to Dale's Cone. All I have to say right now is that it really makes you think about the information you are given. I seemed to be more impacted by the fact that this information has been passed on over the years with no substantiating sources to back it up.

ftp://studentsftp.fairmontstate.edu/users/mscammell/6305%20dales%20cone.doc


On another note, today was quite a day. I am visiting my parents this weekend so my mom and I were out and about this morning when, on our way home, we came upon this car that had flipped on it's roof less than a minute before. I immediately threw the car in park and jumped out. A woman came running out of the house across the street and yelled that she just called 911 and that there was someone still in the car. I ran over and found the woman laying on the roof of the car with her leg pinned between the steering wheel and door. I laid there on the street talking to her while a gentleman who pulled up behind us opened the drivers side door and got her leg out. (He was an off duty firefighter so he knew what he was doing, don't worry) Emergency services arrived only minutes later and the woman was fine. I was high on adrenaline for hours later, didn't even realize that I had cut my legs and hands from laying on the glass from the windows. I am just very thankful that she was okay and that there were so many wonderful people there to warn other drivers before they came flying around the turn and hitting the car on it's roof. In a way it seemed like a scene from a movie. Everyone just jumped into action and did what needed to be done in order to ensure the best outcome.

RESUME!!!

So I finally completed my resume. I had lost my past resume when we had a freak computer accident that erased all the files. It took me a little exploring, but I think I got the hang of uploading documents to Google. However, my question is, when we publish our resumes, should we be able to see each others on the GoogleDoc site?

Also, I've found out that you can attach a Link to the title of each post. So, you can view my resume by either clicking on the post heading or the link attached within the body of the post. I found that this was pretty convenient especially within this class where we will be posting numerous links to our work.