Web Based Multimedia/Animation

The topic of this weeks blog is web based multimedia/animation. I found the topic very interesting and enjoyed reading about it. Animation is a graphical, artistic way of expression and it allows you to really use your imagination. The atricle talks about the advantages of animation in the classroom and about different techniques of animation. The article talks about how children these days spend most of their time in the company of moving pictures, whether it be the television or the computer, it is their main source of information and entertainment. The article states that pictures aren't only a form of entertainment anymore, they have become an international language. Animation includes students who are academically weak because it gives them an alternative way to see and express things. Some examples of animation techniques are; cut out, puppet animation, 2D, flash, and 3D.
Animation could be of great use to both educators and learners in that it gives educators a new method of teaching that is fun for their students and gets them involved, also, for the students it gets them interested and excited. It is a way for students to show their creativity and enjoy learning. Also, as I said before, animation even includes students who are academically weak because it gives them an alternative way to see and express things.
I am very interested in this topic and will definatly research it further in interest of using it in my own teaching career someday. I feel that it is a great tool for the classroom and a way to get all of the students involved even the ones who may be less academically advanced than others. The article was very informative however I would like to do further research on the techniques and the process of animation.

Link to article: http://www.animwork.dk/documents/Leonardo-teaching_with_animation.pdf

Digital Imagery

Digital imagery is one of those things that I've heard of before but never really had tons of knowledge about. This article taught me a lot about the history and uses of digital imagery. Digital image processing was developed in the 1960's at a few differet places including, MIT, the University of Maryland, and etc. At this time the cost of digital image processing was high due to the expensive computers in that era. However, as time went on, computers became more and more cost friendly, making digital image processing more and more affordable. Digital image processing is now the most common used form of image processing because it is the mose versitile as well as the cheapest. Digital image processing is practical technology for classification, feature extraction, pattern recognition, projection, and multi-scale signal analysis. Some techniques used for digital image processing include, self-organizing maps, hidden markov models, and independent component analysis.
I think that digital imagery could be useful in teaching and education in many ways. For example, children of all ages love to take pictures. My five year old cousin even has a fisher price kids digital camera that allows her to store twenty five pictures on it at one time. You could apply this technology in a classroom by possibly having kids take photos of things shaped differently such as stop signs (0ctagon) or a picture frame (square/rectangle) rather than just drawing them when they are taking a lesson on different shapes. Also, art class teachers could use digital imagery by taking a photo of something and having their students draw a replica of it.
I think that this article was very informative and I enjoyed reading it. It taught me a lot about digital image processing from its history to what can be done with it today. I learned that today, digital image processing is the cheapest form of image processing as well as the cheapest and most versitile. I use it in my everyday life when I use my digital camera and someday I will probably use it in my teaching career as well. I would like to further research digital imagery because although this article was good I do think that there is more to be learned about this specific technology. I would like to read another article explaining more about the technical aspects of digital imagery.

Link to article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_image_processing

Storyboards

The article I read this week was called creating and using storyboards. The article talks about how a storyboard is basically a breakdown of an entire production such as a movie or computer based software. A story board uses pictures and words to organize a model of the movie or computer based software from start to finish. Storyboards aid producers and designers to organize all of their material and information so that it is all easier to read and to find. The article talks about the basic form of a storyboard as well. Storyboards can help save time and money because they can prevent a producer or designer from leaving out important details in the production itself, if this happened it could cause the producers and designers to have to go back and make changes which would take time and money to do.

I think that storyboards could definatly be a good tool for teachers to use both on their own and in the classroom. They could use them on their own to map out lesson plans or even the lesson plans for the entire day or week so that they could ensure they didnt leave out any important information. Also, I think that they could be of good use in the classroom because they could teach kids organizarional skills as well as make learning a little bit more fun. Its good for teachers to introduce new methods or teaching and new tools into the classroom to keep things interesting to the students.

I think that the article was very informative and it taught me a lot about storyboards. I would definatly be interested in further exploring the idea of using story boards in my teaching career someday. I think they are a great tool for organization that you can use at low to no cost. I would definatly consider using storyboarding in my teaching career.

Link to article: http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Practices/Creating-and-Using-Storyboards/

Wikis

Up until reading this article I never really knew anything about wikis. Unlike most college students, I don't even use wikipedia to look things up, I have always just used google. This article was full of great information about wikis as well as tips for choosing them and how to use them. The article states that, "A wiki is a website where every page can be edited in a web browser, by whomever happens to be reading it. The article stresses that wikis are great to use for group projects because they make it much easier to keep them organized. Rather than everyone just writing notes individually you are able to post them online, all in the same place so that everyone can read them and stay on the same page. The article says that when using a wiki, we must be tech-savy because they can be complicated at times. Some criteria for choosing a wiki is that the wiki must be easy to install, it should have user accounts, have the capacity for attachments, you should be able to view page history, it must have page edit locking meaning no more than one person can edit at a time, and etc. The article also lists some wiki sharing tips, such as, don't share too much and be precise. Last but not least, the article lists some pros and cons of using a wiki. Some advantages are, that they are good for writing quick and long ideas, they are accessible from anywhere with a web connection, and everyone has a say. Some disadvantages to using a wiki are that you have to patrol them often if they are public, you have to be tech-savy, and its not a good content management system.

Link to article:http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2006/07/07/what-is-a-wiki.html