NECC Aftermath: Fun with Photos on the 4th

It's 4th of July and I'm celebrating Independence Day in San Antonio, Texas. Since I'm officially off the clock and free to do as I please (I go back to my other, supposedly real job on Monday), I've decided to walk about the town and snap a few photographs. Although I'm not a professional photographer, I also know that digital cameras make it pretty easy for anyone to take a picture. This is true for educators and pupils, as well. I'm hoping that all of the teachers and students that I know will make an effort to integrate digital photography into their classroom practices. Toward that end, I'm going to practice what I preach. I'm going to collect digital images and make them available to those I teach. Doing so gives me an opportunity to demystify the process of capturing images, processing them, and uploading the results to an online account.

Any teacher or media specialist who is contemplating the purchase of a digital camera should construct a camera kit. Doing so is an investment in the efficient practice of digital photography. In order to be at the top of my game when photographing, I've assembled such a kit to help me do my work. My particular camera uses a rechargeable battery. That's a good thing because the flash feature on my camera can drain power from my battery in no time. I also have a battery charger and a spare battery. Initially, I was hesitant to purchase the charger and battery but have since come to appreciate my decision. I always make sure that both batteries are charged and carry them with me. When one eventually dies, I'm able to swap it out for the juiced up counterpart. In addition to the batteries and charger, I have spare SD cards. Nothing's more frustrating (aside from dead batteries) than a camera that can't take pictures because its memory card is full. Pack a spare.

With camera in hand, I'm going out to snap a few pictures.

Time passes.

Okay, I'm back. I've ambled around the Alamo, hustled down Houston Street, meandered about the Menger Hotel, rambled along the River Walk, lollygagged along La Villita, and milled about the Market. During that time, I've snapped pictures here, there, and virtually everywhere. Now, I'm ready to remove the images from my camera and upload them to the internet where I can share them.

I know that I'll be connecting my digital camera to my PC so, I round up the appropriate cable and get to work. Not all USB cables are equal. I know better than to plug any old USB cable into my digital camera. I could damage the camera. I make a point of keeping all of the cables that came with my camera close at hand.
After finding the appropriate cable, I locate the AV-Out port on my digital camera.
Next, I carefully open the AV-OUT cover to reveal the port where I'll be connecting the USB cable.
I plug the USB cable into the appropriate port.
Next, I locate one of the USB ports on my computer.
I plug the USB cable into my PC.
Now that everything is connected, I turn on my digital camera. Within a few moments, my computer pops up a dialogue box to let me know that the PC is aware that a camera has been linked with it. At this point, it's waiting for me to select the manner in which I intend to transfer my pictures.
After scrolling down through a list of applications, I choose Google's ever helpful and free photo-editing software, Picasa. Anyone who has a GMail account automatically has a Picasaweb account.In my opinion, Picasa is one of the simplest way to transfer images from a camera to my PC.
In a matter of seconds, Picasa cranks up and starts loading the images from my digital camera.
As the images being loaded into the program, Picasa tells me how many pictures are being acquired.
After all of the images have loaded, I decide to IMPORT ALL of them onto my PC.
The following dialogue box appears.
At this point I have to make a choice. I have to decide whether to delete the images from my camera or leave them there until another time. I know that if I'm unsure or frightened that I'll accidentally destroy them, I can always choose to do nothing (in fact, I do nothing a great deal of the time).
However, I've done this kind of thing before so I decide to wipe the card and remove the images from my camera. I also supply information in the dialogue box.
Since I've decided to wipe the card of images, I get a warning from Picasa asking me if I really want to deleting the pictures from my camera. I know I do so I choose YES.
Picasa is now populated with my recently captured pictures. I can begin editing them. I decide to double click on the very first image in the collection. I snapped the image while visiting the MadHatters, one of my favorite San Antonio eateries. If you're in town, drop by the historic King William District and check out this excellent culinary experience. MadHatters makes a tasty brunch and serves it with delightfully daffy style. I highly recommend the Dean Scram.
Back to photo editing. Since, I've singled out this particular image for editing, Picasa brings it to the forefront. I glance over at the tools on the left-hand side of the screen. Hmmm, that oddly placed orange cone detracts from the image so I decide to crop it out of the photograph.
I click on the CROP button. Doing so will allow me to trim the photo enabling me to select only the part of the image I want to see.
I'm able to select the part of the image I want others to see. Ah, yes, the orange cone is outside the boundaries of my cropped image now.
I decide I like the cropping and APPLY the changes by clicking on the appropriate button.
With the cone removed, the picture looks much more appealing. However, it's kind of dark. I decide to make it a little brighter.
To brighten the image, I click on TUNING tab. I'm in luck because I can use these sliders to tinker with level of brightness in the photograph. I adjust the FILL LIGHT and COLOR TEMPERATURE.
By the way, the EFFECTS tab allows users to do all kinds of amazing things to photos--more, I'm afraid, than I can explore here. The best way to learn about the effects is to play with Picasa. The only thing Picasa doesn't do is allow me to layer images. That's a Photoshop or GIMP kind of feature. Photoshop is expensive but GIMP is free. I'll explore the wonders of GIMP and layering in another post.

The results of my photoediting are pleasing to my eye. Compared to the original version of the image, the final photo is, in my opinion, more appealing.
In order to make this image easier to find in the future, I decide to tag it with a few terms. I go up to VIEW, scroll down and choose KEYWORDS.
I add all of the words I can think of that describe the image.
The thought occurs to me that I'd like to associate this image with the location where I snapped the photo. I know that Picasa will allow me to geotag my images. I go up to TOOLS, scroll down to GEOTAG, and choose GEOTAG WITH GOOGLE EARTH.
In a few moments, Google Earth opens and I type the street address where I snapped the photograph. I've successfully geotagged my image.
At this point, I decide to tweak the rest of my images. That is, I crop or tinker with the amount of brightness, warmth, or saturation of each photograph. When I've finished, I press CTRL A to select all of the images withing Picasa. I know they've been selected because each image has a blue band around it and a number of thumbnail images in my photo tray depict the amount of photos I've chosen to work with at this time.
I click the HOLD button to make sure that none of images is accidentally de-selected.
Now, I can upload the photographs to my Picasaweb account. Since I have a GMail account, I know that I have access to Picasaweb. I click the WEB ALBUM button.
I see the following dialog box. I supply my username and password.
At this point in the process, I have to decide whether or not to make my images viewable by any and everyone or keep them private.
Since I know better than to store any potentially embarrassing images on the internet (good rule of thumb: never post anything you wouldn't feel comfortable sharing on a billboard), I decide to make my images PUBLIC. Picasa even tells me the address of the album. It's http://picasaweb.google.com/preclectic.giddens
It takes a little while for the images to upload. Picasa gives me a running update of the process with a little status box.
When the process comes to an end, I can view the online album. As the owner of the album, I have permission to make changes to the images. Anyone who visits the album will only be able to view the pictures. I don't need to worry about any of my photographs being deleted.
Okay, faithful readers, try it yourself!

Related links:

• Here are my San Antonio photos.
• If you're intrigued with Photoshop but want to try out a free version, check out Photoshop Express.

NECC Aftermath: Fun with Fonts

NECC 2008 has come and gone. I suppose all the fine folks in San Antonio will breathe a collective sigh of relief now that all or most of the ISTE crowd has begun making tracks for the airport or interstate. The lovely River Walk area will calm down and the locals will finally have room for a tasty meal at the landmark Casa Rio restaurant, the mouth-watering Saltgrass Steakhouse, and the always inviting County Line. I intend to hang around the Alamo city for a day or two now that all of the famous edubloggers are gone.

I'm a blogger and have been for almost five years now. No, I'm not famous. I'm not hawking books or commanding big fees. I'm just doing what I like--sharing resources. That's what brought me to San Antonio in the first place, a chance to offer up what I hoped would be useful ideas. During the conference I had a pleasurable time presenting a workshop for a crowd of 28 kind people from all over the country and world. As promised, I'm going to be sharing the content with my workshop attendees here on the blog.

The first topic we'll explore is stylized fonts, in particular, why we'd want to use them, where to find them, and how to install them. Plenty of educators use PowerPoint to present concepts to learners in the form of slide shows. Despite the fact that they're using technology to reach out to their pupils, many slide shows are completely bland. The fonts being used are often ho-hum in terms of what a learner's brain will register. For example, let's say an instructor wants to share some information about the circulatory system. She makes a PowerPoint presentation and her introductory slide looks like this:



Perhaps our teacher decides to make the slide more noticeable. She makes the font bold and increases its size. The result is this:


Granted, the slide does command attention but to most students, it'll be a momentary pause before something else captures their interest. Our dedicated educator decides to add a little color. Her efforts result in this:


To be sure, the slide is more engaging. However, imagine what might happen if, in her desire to place more emphasis on the text by placing it in the proper context, our friend surfed over to UrbanFonts, clicked on the SCARY fonts.

After doing a little searching, the teacher might chance upon a font called Bleeding Freaks.


Yes, it's a little disquieting but the truth is that this font inspires visions of blood. Scary, you bet. Hmmm, this looks like just the thing to get a jaded, PowerPoint saturated student to stare at a screen for a few seconds longer. Our teacher clicks on the WIN link to download the Windows version of the font to her PC. If she happened to be a Mac user, she could locate a similar font and click on the MAC download link.


After downloading the font, the teacher notices that the file is zipped up. No problem. She knows she can right-mouse click the zipped folder icon and choose EXTRACT ALL or use a free unzipping program such as 7-Zip or IZArc to do the work. After the file has been unzipped, she can double-click on the file folder and see its contents. She'll see a True Type font waiting for her.

The teacher knows that she'll have to place the downloaded font in her sytem's font folder. She decides to open up the font folder and drop the new font in along with all of her other, regularly used fonts. She goes to the START MENU, and locates the CONTROL PANEL.

After locating and opening the CONTROL PANEL, she finds and opens the system's FONT FOLDER. It's a folder that contains all of the fonts the computer uses.
With the system font folder open, the teacher clicks one time on the downloaded font to select it, goes up to EDIT and choose COPY. She's copying the downloaded font to her PCs clipboard. In effect, the PC is memorizing the font.

Next, she returns to the FONT FOLDER, goes to EDIT, and chooses PASTE. The font is pasted into the system font folder where it will be waiting when the teacher needs it.

Our determined teacher goes back to PowerPoint, selects the boring text, chooses the newly installed Bleeding Freaks font, and the resulting slide looks like this:


With her newly augmented font, the teacher is on the way to making her content more memorable. This is just the beginning. She could manipulate the background color of the slide and make the presentation even more enticing.

In order to engage a student, teachers can make use of a wide selection of decorative fonts available via the internet. Doing so doesn't involve a great deal of money for new hardware or software. Finding and using new fonts requires a little searching, downloading, and creativity. It's doable. Just about any educator can follow the steps listed here. The results are rewarding. Pupils appreciate the effort and will pay attention. Why not give it a try?

Related links:

• In addition to UrbanFonts drop by 1001 Free Fonts. It's an excellent source of new fonts.
• FontFace has lots of funny, famous fonts. Just click on one of the letters of the alphabet when you arrive at the site.
  
• Feeling really creative? Build, share, and download your own fonts with FontStruct.

NECC 2008: The Post That Almost Wasn't

I'm attending the closing keynote speech here at NECC. It's being delivered by Dr. Idit Harel Caperton, PhD. I'm blogging away when I discover that my NECC net connection has just up and disappeared. Thank goodness I brought my own Verizon wireless internet access card.

I'm delighted that I can still blog because now I can brag on my friends from Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights in Birmingham, Alabama. I've had the great pleasure of working with Pam and Sharon for a couple of years now. Their school's international project was highlighted in the keynote speech. I was so proud of them! Sharon's class has been doing some amazing things. Her students have been working with students in Singapore at Canberra Primary School.

:-)

NECC 2008: From Trash to Treasure...Dell's Techknow Program

At one time, Dell implemented an innovative approach to dealing with its old PCs. It was a shrewd and elegant decision. With Dell's assistance, some schools took older Dell PCs that might have otherwise been heading toward surplus warehouses or junkyards and did something extremely creative. The schools turned the clunker computers over to middle school (and in some cases, elementary) pupils. What was the catch? Simple: if the students properly refurbished the old computers they got to keep them. Dell's taking a new approach at this point. The company is focusing its efforts on convincing older students (i.e., high school pupils) to get involved in a similar effort. Check out the details at the following site: Dell Techknow 2.0.

NECC 2008: Opening Up to Open Source

Too cool!

Here I am in San Antonio, Texas at the Gonzalez Convention Center sitting in the Open Source Lab session listening to Steve Hargadon discuss free resources. I've heard Steve present before and, as always, it's a pleasure to get access to his fresh ideas and opinions. This post--the one you're reading--is being written on an old, IBM ThinkPad that has no harddrive. It's a PC that's part of a thin client network. There's a room full of these normally useless, obsolete machines that are being used for blogging, word processing, multimedia, and other tasks. Imagine what might happen if a system or school decided to make better use of its old machines rather than tossing them out or surplusing them.