BP11_2009103_Web_2.0_Technology_#4

Photoshop Express Icon - Copyright © 2009 with express permission from Adobe Systems Incorporated

photoshop.com/express – Photoshop Express (PSX), provides my photography students 2GB of online storage for free. If they need more room they can upgrade up to 250GB. It allows them to tag their picture with searchable words and create custom albums. There are four primary sections of Photoshop Express: Upload, Organize, Edit and Share. The online editing tools allow color tweaking, distorting, adding “decorations”, some basic filtering choices, crop & rotate, and exposure correction among others. Sharing tools allow you to export to Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and other photo gallery web hosting sites. You can even use this tool with mobile devices and they have an app specifically for the iPhone

This tool has a very different interface than the professional version of Photoshop and is not a replacement for it. However, the full version of Photoshop retails for around $600 and the student price is about $180 while PSX is free.

BP10_2009102_Reflective_Media_Asset

60 sec Commercial for RSS Feeds in Schools

blogger's video conversion squeezed the video funny and lost the audio/video sync so I've also posted the movie here http://web.me.com/crafts6100/FullSail/Commercial_RSS_Feed.html

BP9_2009102_Flickr

As a high school photography teacher there are many ways we could use Flickr in the classroom, if it were not blocked by our district firewalls.

A google search turned up http://www.jakesonline.org/flickrinclassroom.pdf, which suggested Single Image Analysis, Single Image Writing Prompt, Virtual Field Trips, Visual Documentation of Student Artwork, Creation of Digital Visual Portfolios, as possible lessons that I could use in class. But, since Flickr deals with images these are just some of the ideas that would relate to our class curriculum.

After creating an account students can even use their iPhoto to upload directly to Flickr. In our AP 2D Design Class, students could be uploading their Concentration works to Flickr and allow other students to log-in and comment on their technique, quality or direction. Students peer evaluating each others work in this and the Breadth and Quality sections tend to drive the quality of the artists growth and discipline. Evaluating others work also tends to improve the focus of the evaluators' work as they learn from the mistakes of their peers.

Currently we use class time to have these discussions, moving this discussion online to Flickr would allow the conversation to continue and constantly evolve throughout the school year rather than the times selected in class. Plus, Flickr supports RSS feeds so students can subscribe to each others Photostreams or to a group one and automatically get fed new photo's to be commenting on as they are posted.

BP7_2009102_Web_2.0_Technology_#3

RSS Feeds - The principal came into my room the other day and was asking what I knew about Twitter. Her main focus was on whether or not the audience could subscribe to the twitter or had to go looking for each post and whether or not the viewer could comment. I tried to explain to her what I knew about twitter when I realized what she really wanted was an RSS feed. She was looking for a way to broadcast information to parents and staff via the internet and web enabled devices for campus updates. She was looking for a newer technology than the autodialer we use now that calles parents home telephone numbers at night and plays a recorded message. But, she didn't want to get bogged down in technology and she wasn't excited about 3100 parents writing comments back that she would have to read. Now I have to put together a proposal for how she could use an RSS feed from the school's website to reach her audience. I'm actually excited about the prospect of several feeds for particular audiences. A Campus News for parents, Campus Update for staff, School Closure notice for both groups when we have a snow day, maybe even the department chairs could assemble information that was for staff students and parents interested in say art shows, musical performances, athletic could post game scores...

Image provided by http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/free-rss-feed-icons-the-ultimate-list/

BP6_2009102_Web_2.0_Technology_#2

Blogging - I've tried to blog what I do in class for a few years now but students weren't going to the website or signing up for the RSS feed so I was only keeping a record for myself. Because of this class I talked it up a bit at the beginning of the semester and have a few students who are using it. Basically to avoid questions like "What did I miss last class?" or "What was that website you said", I trey to put an outline of what I'm teaching that night into a blog in iWeb. Due to this semesters marginal success I'm going to try and advertise it a little more next term and start implementing the same system in my high school classes.

BP5_2009102_Web_2.0_Technology #1

MobileMe Gallery - iPhoto and Aperture, Apple software products, allow one to publish a web gallery of their images to the internet very easily. But, what is really cool is that visitors can not only view and download images but submit images to the gallery as well. So, as a photography teacher, I created galleries for each of the assignments we are going to do for the rest of the quarter and will ask students who have better images to submit them. This will give students an incentive to do better work, give them a place to publish their work and since it synchronizes to the library on my desktop, I get a copy for future classes to see as examples.

BP4_2009102_Social_Bookmarking

Bookmarking websites has been around for quite a while. The problem with bookmarking is you have to have your computer. Well, until services such as Apple's mac.com allowed you to sync your bookmarks. But maybe you do not want to register the computer you are using to the service, for instance a public terminal, then you could use your iPhone... if you have one. Along comes the service to store your bookmarks online. Hey wait a minute, since they are now online why not share your bookmarks with your family and friends, heck why not share them with the world. One thing is I may not care what your bookmarks are and you may not care about mine, but we do not have to look. A nice thing is if I like one thing you found on the internet and bookmarked, I may like more. From the point of view of an educator, I can publish a list of links to the websites I use to do my job effectively for colleagues to use as well. I can also publish a list of links that my students may find can come in handy when they are doing their research.

EducationWorld's Sites to See article on Social Bookmarking also notes that these sites allow you to tag your bookmarks with meta information that is then searchable. If you have a website address that could be in multiple categories you can tag it as such, a trick not possible in your computers bookmarks folders. An interesting idea from Educause's 7 Things you should know about social bookmarking is "It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to retrieve it using a framework created by and shared with peers and colleagues." One issue stemming from this is that someone needs to verify the sites authenticity, validity and reliability. A serious issue we face with anyone being able to publish anything on the web is the accuracy of the information. Of course if it is the teacher that is using the social bookmarking site to share resources with their students as CR 2.0 suggests “Lets students choose from a variety of acceptable links, making for productive research that still allows for variability.”

Resources

Educause Learning Initiative (2005, May) 7 Things you should know about social bookmarking. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

Classroom 2.0 (n.d.) Social Bookmarking Retrieved from http://wiki.classroom20.com/Social+Bookmarking

Jackson, L. (2009) Sites to see: Social bookmarking, Education World. Retrieved from http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml