EDLD 5366 Week 3 Animation

It's been about 6 years since I've worked with animation. I was trained how to use Adobe Director. It introduced me to the terms "sprites", "scripts" and "stage" as they apply to animation. I tried to load Director on my new computer and it wouldn't load. I don't know if I recorded the serial number incorrectly or if it isn't compatible.

I downloaded Stykz first, played with moving the stick figure around and eventually added several more figures to move in a "dancing" sceen. I stopped playing with that before I watched some of the videos showing how a background can be added and figures can be flown through the air and crashed into things such as mountains.
I tried using Google SketchUp and watched a couple of YouTube videos. I wasn't very impressed with that program and kept looking for others.
At this point, I moved on to Scratch. I was impressed with how user friendly it is and was able to create a short, three-sprite animation in a short time after watching only two YouTube "how-to" videos. I did begin remembering some of the actions that I used in Director when I began playing with Scratch. Programs like this take practice to get good with and I could sit for hours and play with it. I hope to gain a lot more knowledge about it after my students and I start an animation unit using Stykz and Scratch.

Here is the URL for the Scratch animation website because the embedded applet sometimes gets hung loading in Blogger so I've provided both.


http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/scopeland30/1421364

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EDLD 5366 Week 5 Reflections

I’m beginning this reflection before Week 1 even begins. I’ve been excited about this course because it’s been 6 years since I’ve taken a design course. I’m not very good at design and don’t have an “eye” for it so I really have to work hard to get something that looks remotely “professional”. I do feel that I’ve gotten better over the years, but nowhere like I would like to be. I drug out my old copy of PageMaker and am about to embark on a long tedious mission with it. I hope my teaching friend who retired last year can help me. She was in charge of the school yearbook for longer than I can remember. (11/12/10 3:30pm)

I gave up on PageMaker in about an hour. It was taking too long to do anything and I don’t have the skill to make it do anything professional-looking.
I’ve started experimenting with the free logo maker sites and have found that I have to design something simple and then open it in PhotoShop to really apply any effects to the logos.
In order to add drop shadows, texture and stroke, I’ve had to use additional programs. I’ve used Paint.net in the past as a free facsimile to “Photoshop”. (11/12/10 5:27pm)

I couldn’t begin Week 1 Assignment 1.1 because the items we need for the assignment aren’t in the resource folder. Creighton said that he couldn’t find them either, but that he would keep us posted. In the meantime, I read Week 1 Readings 1 and 2 and began Assignments 1.2 and 1.3. Cindy Cummings uploaded the document we needed for Assignment 1.1 into the discussion board and I used the newspaper, Presentation Zen cover and the David Foster CD cover provided to identify CRAP in each one. The newspaper was easy due to the examples given in Week 1 Readings. The Zen cover is a beautiful, calming design that reminded me of the ocean. Foster's CD cover gave a number of examples of each design principle and Ididn't have any trouble with this assignment.

Assignment 1.2 was a great adventure into ancient art. An average person who hasn’t been a “student of the arts” their entire lives can’t begin to wrap their mind around all the ancient forms and examples of art in the world. I settled on the Book of Kells for my assignment. I read about the Book of Kells in Wikipedia first and then navigated to the website provided in the assignment. We were only allowed 50 -100 words to describe the 4 design principles in artwork we chose. That was NOT enough words. My analysis was over 700 words, so I slashed and burned over 600 words and then posted both versions here.

"The Book of Kells is the most famous, and one of the finest of a group of manuscripts in what is known as the Insular style, produced from the late 6th through the early 9th centuries in monasteries in Ireland."(Wikipedia)

My feelings looking at the many plates are that people with a complex and detailed eye for design created this beautiful work. To have the ability to create works of intricate, detailed art such as the Book of Kells required geniuses throughout the centuries. Prior to learning about design principles, a viewer would just comment on how beautiful a piece of art is without understanding or "seeing" the 4 design principles. Once a person knows what to look for or what elements are at work in a work, it makes the art more interesting to gaze upon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/bok/index.htm (11/13/2010 1:30pm)


The completion of Week 1 Assignment 1.2 led me to Assignment 1.3. This is my “teaching tool” business card.
I began work on my Week 1 "Teaching Tool" today. I chose a MS Publisher business card template and combined that with logos I created using the same color scheme. I see all 4 required elements in this project. I spent most of the day working with www.logosnap.com and PhotoShop to produce a business card for Week 1 Assignment 1.3. I used contrast in the color scheme, as well as, the serif and sanserif fonts. Repetition was used in the colors and in the repetitive use of font. I aligned the logos in the middle third of the card and I aligned the address, phone number and email lines with each other and I aligned my business, name and title. Proximity of important information is shown by having my name and all information in the middle third of the card so the reader doesn’t have to hunt for any needed facts. (11/13/2010 5:00pm)


Personal Branding Week 2

Although it's just the first week of class, I've been thinking about design. I don't really have an "eye" for design, but I can recognize the four principles of design. This isn't the first DTP course I've taken that discussed design. I've learned to create things in PhotoShop and like working on our website. It takes me a long time to create something that I like; I wish I was faster and more adept at design.
I watched the video about personal branding, read the first 3 readings detailing branding and found a website that recommended guidelines for teaching teens about personal branding.
http://www.radicalparenting.com/2009/05/11/personal-branding-for-teens-7-steps-to-teach-and-learn-it/

My students did the Week 2 assignment concerning writing things about themselves and their goals for creating a personal logo. They used logomaker, logosnap and PhotoShop to create personal logos. After all the students created their personal logos, I had them make a business card using their logo. They had a good time with the business card, creating mostly fake, but some real, businesses. A few of my students have side businesses and hobbies that they based their cards on.

Week 3 ANIMATION
It's been about 6 years since I've worked with animation. I was trained how to use Adobe Director. It introduced me to the terms "sprites", "scripts" and "stage" as they apply to animation. I tried to load Director on my new computer and it wouldn't load. I don't know if I recorded the serial number incorrectly or if it isn't compatible.

I downloaded Stykz first, played with moving the stick figure around and eventually added several more figures to move in a "dancing" sceen. I stopped playing with that before I watched some of the videos showing how a background can be added and figures can be flown through the air and crashed into things such as mountains.
I tried using Google SketchUp and watched a couple of YouTube videos. I wasn't very impressed with that program and kept looking for others.
At this point, I moved on to Scratch. I was impressed with how user friendly it is and was able to create a short, three-sprite animation in a short time after watching only two YouTube "how-to" videos. I did begin remembering some of the actions that I used in Director when I began playing with Scratch. Programs like this take practice to get good with and I could sit for hours and play with it. I hope to gain a lot more knowledge about it after my students and I start an animation unit using Stykz and Scratch.


During Week 3 my students and I began watching Scratch animation tutorials. They are really excited to start working with the animation software. We've been learning a lot together this year. I downloaded Google SketchUp, Pivot, Stykz and Scratch. We're going to begin working on animation next week. I know that I'll learn more from working with them than from sitting by myself trying to figure it out.
I created a very simple animation with 3 sprites and 25-35 lines of script for them to interact with each other. Here is my animation:

Learn more about this project
Here is the website if the applet gives trouble: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/scopeland30/1421364

Week 4 began the newsletter. I created a functional newsletter that I will use at school. We've had many changes this year at school and I had more than enough stories to fill a 4 page newsletter. I informed everyone about our new Promethean boards and document cameras on the first page and caught everyone up on the basketball tournament, sale of a school house and the elementary fall festival on page 2. Interviews with the new HS principal and supt. were on page 3. On page 4, I included a self-interview on what my students are doing in class including the URL of my animation. I also added information about internet safety and cyberbullies on page 4. I enjoyed making the newsletter. That may be because I'm had so many topics to write about. Newsletters become a chore when I have to beg people to submit articles later in the year.

This is page 1 of my Newsletter:

EDLD 5366 Week 1 Assignment 1.2 (100 words)

This is the post for my assignment. I left my original 700 word post in a separate blog entry.

I feel the plates are creations by people with a complex, detailed eye for design. Prior to knowing design principles, viewers could only comment on how beautiful a piece of art is without understanding.

The Book of Kells has illustrations with decorated outside borders, many quartered symmetrical rectangles and uses repeating decorative shapes and symbols. The images are neat, tidy and have aligned contrasting colors repeated throughout the illustrations.

Book of Kells creators used vellum to create these works and the fact that they were painstakingly created using time-consuming detail helps the viewer understand just how important the scriptures were to people from these eras.

EDLD 5366 DigGrap/DTP Week 1 Assignment 1.2

In this assignment, you will investigate ancient manuscripts and books that give you insight into the history of graphic communication and how the principles of design were used in these early manuscripts. You will write a 50-100 word reflection in your blog that addresses the following:

1. Describe your first impression of these ancient works in respect to design
2. Identify examples of each of the four principles of design
3. What techniques did the authors/artists employ to help us understand the importance of
those manuscripts/books?


"The Book of Kells is the most famous, and one of the finest of a group of manuscripts in what is known as the Insular style, produced from the late 6th through the early 9th centuries in monasteries in Ireland."(Wikipedia)

My feelings looking at the many plates are that people with a complex and detailed eye for design created this beautiful work. To have the ability to create works of intricate, detailed art such as the Book of Kells required geniuses throughout the centuries. Prior to learning about design principles, a viewer would just comment on how beautiful a piece of art is without understanding or "seeing" the 4 design principles. Once a person knows what to look for or what elements are at work in a work, it makes the art more interesting to gaze upon.


The Book of Kells has many illustrations that have decorated outside borders and many rectangles divided into quarters. The use of repeating decorative shapes and symbols is seen throughout the plates. The images are very neat and tidy looking and have aligned contrasting colors repeated throughout an illustration. The illustrations are set on an old parchment (vellum) background with extremely detailed elements close up. The plates also appear very balanced and aligned looking from farther away. There are lots of symmetrical shapes containing scriptures written in black, red, purple and yellow ink, and have contrasting colors used repetitively. Inside the rectangular borders are repeating designs of varying colors showing both contrasting and repetitive styles concurrently.

The creators of the Book of Kells used vellum as the medium on which to create these works. Also, the fact that they were painstakingly created using such intricate, beautiful and time-consuming detail helps the viewer understand just how important the scripture and books of the bible were to people from this and other eras. The topic also helps us understand just how important the work was to its creators. They lived their lives serving God and showed His glory to others in these beautiful works, many of which have been destroyed over the centuries. That makes the remaining plates so precious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/bok/index.htm

EDLD 5366 DigGrap/DTP Week 1 Assignment 1.1

This assignment involved identifying CRAP in 3 examples. A newspaper, Presentation Zen book cover and a Foster CD cover.

Newspaper:
Contrast:
1. White text on red background
2. Black text on blue background
3. Black text on white background
4. Contrasting text sizes
5. Contrasting font types
6. Contrasting serif/sanserif fonts
Repetition:
1. Many repetitive uses of headline fonts
2. Repeating 3 column stories on page 1
3. Repetitive use of contrasting fonts for clear reading
4. All the headline and story texts are black
5. The "Quickread" section has all the page numbers in red.
Alignment:
1. The "Quickread" is aligned in the far left column separated with a vertical line.
2. The stories long enough to be in columns are precisely aligned.
3. The column margins in the "Index" are aligned.
4. The bar code in the bottom left corner is centered in the middle of its column.
5. The entire gray textbox titled "Driving During Thanksgiving" is aligned with columns 2 and 3 of the story.
Proximity:
1. The images are all surrounded by the story they are depicting.
2. The page numbers directly follow the "blurb" in the "Quickread" section.
3. The headlines are immediately above the stories they introduce.
4. The captions are directly under the images they describe.
5. The phone number and department name are directly under the words "To subscribe".

Presentation Zen: I realize this is not an ocean and sky, but that's the "feel" I get about it.
Contrast:
1. There is contrast between the words "Presentation" and "Zen"
2. There is contrast in the horizon.
3. There is contrast between the stacked stones and the ocean and sky.
Repetition:
1. There is repetition in the sky and ocean "blue hues".
2. There is repetition in the sanserif fonts using throughout the cover.
3. There is repetition in the smooth flat stones.
Alignment:
1. All of the text is left justified and aligned.
2. The point where each stone seems to be balanced is in a straight line.
3. The "a" and the tip of the top stone seem to be aligned in the middle of the cover.
Proximity:
1. The main title of the book and the brief descriptive title are close to each other on the cover.
2. The title has no space between "presentation and zen" indicating that they are closely related. If you have good presentation, you will have perfection in life.

Foster CD Cover:
Contrast:
1. There is contrast between the two different color fonts making the title stand out.
2. There is contrast between the serif and sanserif fonts making the title stand out.
3. There is contrast between the light background and the black suit and piano
4. There is contrast between the font sizes.
5. There is contrast between the text on the light and dark backgrounds.
Repetition:
1. The color of the suit, tie, piano and hair is repetitive.
2. The placement of "bullets" between the friends names is repetitive.
3. The names of friend after friend is repetitive.
Alignment:
1. The text is all aligned on the left side of the page.
2. The lean of the body is aligned with the lean of the piano brace.
3. The lines of friends' names are aligned with each other.
Proximity:
1. The title of the CD is in close proximity to the head of David Foster thereby identifying him as the "Hit Man".
2. The artist's name is close to the title of the CD.
3. The contributing artists names are close to the word "friends".
4. The contributing artists names are close to each other.
5. David Foster is in close proximity to a piano suggesting that that is his instrument of choice.

EDLD 5366 Dig.Graphics/DTP Week 1 Assignment 1.3

I began work on my Week 1 "Teaching Tool" today. I chose a MS Publisher business card template and combined that with logos I created using the same color scheme. I see all 4 required elements in this project.

Contrast is seen in the contrasting colors used in the color scheme and in both serif and sanserif fonts. I used a color scheme provided by MS Publisher and after choosing the desired color scheme, I went to http://www.logosnap.com/ and created my business card logo with the same colors. I imported my logosnap logo into PhotoShop and added drop shadow, stroke and inner shadow, all using colors from the original color scheme. However, I showed contrast in the logos by using the same colors but in opposite sites on the logo (Gold "A" and blue "nton ISD" in one logo and blue "B" and gold "ulldogs" in the other logo) Also, one logo has a blue inner shadow while the other has a gold inner shadow.

Repetition is displayed by using the same style of logos and by using sanserif fonts on all information except my name. The address and phone numbers use the same font and font size. There is also repetition in using the same contrasting colors throughout the business card.

Alignment is achieved by aligning all the address and phone numbers and by aligning all the personal information. Also, the two school logos are aligned in the middle third of the card with the personal information. The right margin of the Anton ISD logo is aligned with the left margin of the personal information and with the address and phone numbers.

Proximity is shown by ensuring the logos are in the same third of the card while the important information that a client would need is very clear and close on the card. The eye is drawn to the company, name and title in the center of the card between the two logos and them the viewer simple has to look up for address and down for email and phone numbers. There is no "searching around" the card for needed information.These are the logos I created and the business card showing the four design elements.

School Law

I wasn't especially happy about School Law. I learned a lot about search and seizure, contracts, students/teacher rights, cyber law and several other subjects. I didn't, however, think that Ed. Tech. students should be so mired in special education law and teacher evaluations.

EDLD 5344 School Law Week 5 Reflections

Student Management and Technology
· Which of the student-management issues as they relate to the topic of Cyber Law discussed in this course and in your Cyber Law text is most relevant to you as a school technology leader?
· How have your views changed about the proper policies and procedures to employ regarding student management?
· How will the knowledge gained on this topic help you become an effective school technology leader?How will it help your staff and your students?
I would say that currently a good comprehensive AUP is my main priority. The AUP we have is definitely dated and doesn’t cover the newer internet aspects such as social networking, open source materials and cyber bullying. I’ve gathered numerous materials to create our new AUP and internet safety plans. the Cyber Law text did a good job of providing additional resources.
My views have changed regarding free speech and student expression after reading Chapter 2: Student Use of the Internet. “…legal claims… These claims arise when students post… harmful information … in personal blogs, on social networking sites…” (Bissonette, 2009) As an educator, I need to know when students inappropriate use of the internet must be tolerated as protected under the First Amendment.
The knowledge I’ve gained will help me assist in creating and enforcing policies that are just and appropriate. I’ve already used some knowledge to educate teacher that internet content is not free and that just because your own son is facebook friends with someone who hasn’t given you the needed photos for the school slideshow, you can’t just hack into your son’s facebook and copy/paste them into your powerpoint. The photos are intellectual property and not public domain.

Personnel Management
· What have you learned about teacher evaluation and remediation that you did not know before taking this class?
· How will the information presented in this course help you become a better leader with school employees?
· What aspect of school personnel management do you feel you need to learn more about?
· How do you plan to gain this knowledge?
I wasn’t aware of just how useless most principals think teacher evaluations are. I’ve heard from prior principals how much they detest doing 45-50 evaluations of teachers. It has been my experience, as a teacher, that the later a teacher waits to schedule the evaluation, the shorter amount of time the principal actually stays in the classroom. I’ve even had to reschedule evaluations when principals forget about their appointment with me. “Two drop-in visits with a pre-made checklist are no longer considered acceptable practice.” (Kersten, & Israel, 2005)
This statement is ironic to me since our principals only do one in-class “sit-down” evaluation per year. They may also only actually walk in for 3 to 5 minutes once or twice a year. I guess I’ve never thought about whether or not they do more walk-throughs for non-veteran teachers or not; probably not. That is one question I plan to ask my principal.
I find it especially interesting that the new walk-through software we’re using is recommended for use on an iPad. Sometimes I just wonder if the people who design new innovative programs purposely design it to run on the newest “gadget” just so superintendents and principals will push to buy that software so they can have the school buy the newest, greatest electronic device for them to use as personal property. The information in this course will help me better manage personnel by providing me with exposure to the knowledge of where to search and who to ask when questions about free speech, search and seizure, cyberbullying, teacher evaluations, or deliberate indifference arises.

Improving Professional Practice
· Select another legal topic covered in the Cyber Law textbook that you feel affects you as a school technology leader.
· What have you learned about this topic, and how will this new knowledge affect your decision-making as a technology leader?
· What professional development opportunities can you spearhead in your school to inform teachers about this issue?
Chapter Three of the Cyber Law text was especially interesting to me due to its “outside-of-school” nature. The three scenarios presented were good choices. The second case, involving the teacher who made every effort to keep his private business anonymous, made me really think about how easy it is for a school to become involved in an employee’s personal business based on the nature of teachers’ jobs. We probably wouldn’t see a construction company or a department store even consider releasing an employee for maintaining a personal “Web site he created to display and sell his nude art.” (Bissonette, 2009)
This line drawn between teachers’ public and private lives is bound to become even bolder the more and more prevalent the internet becomes. We’ve already had on incident in our school involving a teacher who has an online sex toy business. The administration became aware of it about six months ago and was cautioned by the school attorney that unless she conducts business on a school computer there is nothing the school can do to curtail it.
This new knowledge has helped me to understand that we need to add some professional development even if it’s just short presentations during staff meetings reminding everyone that they must understand student/teacher online contact; whether through facebook, MySpace, email or cell phone texting could get them in serious trouble. “Teacher associations and legal counsel for school districts are warning to be more careful about what they post online.” (Bissonette, 2009)

Kersten, T.A., & Israel, M.S. (2005). Teacher evaluation: principal's insights and suggestions for improvement. Planning and Changing, 36(182), 47-67.

Bissonette, A.M. (2009). Cyber law: maximizing safety and minimizing risk in classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Pr