The World of Video Making

 

        Welcome to the realm of cinematography! Last Friday, in my ED 270 class, I was brought into this exciting new world for the very first time. We were tasked with pairing up in groups and creating our own video to portray a message of your own choosing. I am really excited about the subject my team has decided to do; the r-word. For those of you who don't know, the r-word is retarded. The term retarded has been used as a derogatory term against people who are alter-abled mentally and physically. It has become more and more common for people to use the r-word in every day conversations when referencing something one thinks is stupid, bad, etc. This is unacceptable. Did you know that a bill was passed in 2010, called Rosa's Law, that stripped the term "mental retardation" from federal health, education and labor policy? Given this, my group has decided to create a montage of people saying words that a person could use other than the r-word. Hopefully, we can create an awesome, powerful video as we learn as a group how to navigate IMovie, video editing, and the world of cinematography.

Photoshop Blew My Mind

 

          Last Friday was the second class of my Technology in Education class, and it was a doozy. Mind = Blown. Literally non-stop learning from the moment I walked into the computer lab. Whatever were we learning? The amazing program that is Photoshop. We learned to identify between altered and real photographs and how to create our own blended pictures. It was a roller coaster of feeling like "Oh my god, this is AMAZING" one moment and "I'll never remember how to do all of this" the next. It was a Russian Doll where every minute you uncover another layer, another matryoshka doll, to this amazing program. The possibilities are endless, especially when you think about all of the applications in a classroom setting.

          Go simple with making pictures of animals in different habitats and having students identify if the habitats are correct for lower grade levels to having the older kids make there own marketing posters about hot topics and issues facing society today. An example of such a poster is the one I created and posted above this entry, depicting a glacier melting in a pair of cupped, into a bowl with a town in it. This poster is showing how humans have increased the effects of global warming and is calling for action. I created this poster by combining a picture of a fishbowl I had at home, pictures of cupped hands and glaciers from the internet, and scanning a picture of a castle. It was quite the learning curve with how to use Photoshop, but thanks to all the incredible people who make YouTube videos I got the hang of blending, deleting backgrounds, combing pictures and so much more that my brain hurts just thinking about it. Learning how to use Photoshop myself made me realize how important it would be to give such a diverse tool to my future students. It could be a wonderful tool to engage kids, especially those students who are more creative, who are hands on and/or visual learners, or for kids who are struggling or aren't the type who learn by reading, sitting at a desk, and listening to a lecture all class period.

         You could have your students make similar posters about a variety of topics like politics, gay rights, current laws, social media, women's rights, etc. Nothing is impossible as long as you can imagine it, for with Photoshop you can combine and create your dreams, hopes, and give your imagination life. I know I can't wait to continue learning about Photoshop and apply it in my own studies and my future classroom.

Note: For those of you who are students, Adobe is having a special for students where Lightroom and Photoshop are only 10 dollars a month. Or if you want all the Adobe products, students only have to pay 20 dollars a month. If you're a poor college student like me, and might not want to purchase your own and don't have access to Photoshop on a school computer, Adobe has a free Photoshop app that is very impressive and user friendly called Photoshop Mix. The app can do a lot of Photoshop applications with just a touch of your finger and is able to use internet, Facebook, or your personal photos and send any of your creations to your email, Adobe account, and/or to Photoshop on the computer for more advance editing. Try it o

The Tech Generation

           Forty years ago students were still using typewriters in schools. Today, it seems like every student has their own laptop. In fact, if you asked kids younger than thirteen what a typewriter is they wouldn't be able to tell you. We are the technology generation. Hand us any electronic device and we can probably figure it out in five minutes flat. In fact, the average kid spends over 53 hours on electronic devices every week. So, why shouldn't we use those devices to our advantage to help, inspire and encourage learning in and outside of the classroom? To accomplish this, current and future educators need to become fluent in the language of technology. As a future educator myself, I thought I was fluent enough and had enough tech tools at my disposal. I was proved wrong with one class period of my Technology in Education class. Within the span of three hours, the professor was able to greatly increase my repertoire. For instance, I learned about resources like Big Huge Labs. On this website you can take pictures and use them to create trading cards, puzzles, maps, games, etc. Just playing around with the site and all it could do was sparking ideas for future lesson plans; using puzzles to teach about animals and their biology, using a trading card game where the cards are generals and weapons so that students could re-play historic battles and wars, or using maps to teach about geography. The possibilities were endless, and that was only one website. I also learned about another site, Go2Web20, that lists hundreds of apps that can be used for a variety of things and could be utilized in the classroom. One app, in particular, I really was impressed by. It turned the book, The Odyssey, into a video game where students would read and progress through each chapter while completing adventures and challenges. I loved this as it would keep students who struggle with reading engaged and promote understanding of the material. It would also be a great tool to catch students up if they had been sick or if you received a new student during the unit. There were similar apps for a whole host of books and subjects, and it made me so excited to introduce these new tools to the students who I currently tutor and to my future students. It just goes to show you that despite growing up in the era of technology there is always something new to learn. I can't wait to see what this class will teach me next week.