Crowded Wisdom

Your exam will be held tomorrow, in class.  Try to be there for it.  If you are unable to make it to school, could you email me or leave a comment here and I’ll give you the password so you can do it at home.

http://www.quia.com/quiz/902320.html

The World Wide Web was created in the early 1990s and was primarily designed as a way for people to get information. Content creators made the content and the average web user simply consumed that content. Unless you were the geeky type who could work out how to publish your own webpage, you really had no easy way of creating your own content.

Web 2.0 changed all that. The term “Web 2.0″ is different to the original web of the 1990s, and refers to those websites that provide an opportunity for average users to contribute content, connect to others and collaborate together using nothing more than a web browser. It’s about social networking, uploading as well as downloading, making friends and connecting to others. It’s sometimes known as the read/write web, the collaborative web, or the browser-based web. It has turned the web into a two way medium where people participate actively in the creation of content. It’s about not just being a consumer, but becoming a contributor.

Some of the more well known Web 2.0 applications include MySpace, Blogger, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, Wordpress, Del.icio.us, Flickr and many more… the thing that all these sites have in common is the way they invite people to easily contribute and share content on the Web.

For your culminating task, you need to investigate and report on two different Web 2.0 applications.

You will find a fairly comprehensive listing of W2 websites at http://www.go2web20.net/

Pick two and spend time playing with them, reading their websites and learning what they try to do. Experiment. Play. Explore. Discover. Share.

Once you have spent time finding your two favourite Web 2.0 apps, write a report which highlights at least the following points.

• Name of the site?
• What does it do?
• How does it work?
• Who would use it?
• How does it promote the ideas of communication, collaboration, sharing and social networking?
• What problems do you image it will solve?
• What problems do you imagine it will create?
• Why do you like it?
• Any other information that you think may be relevant.

This is not an exhaustive list, but should be a reasonable starting point. Feel free to add other points that you think might be important to include.

Publish your reviews as two separate posts on your school blog. I’d like you to really make an effort to write a logical, well constructed post, using examples and your own observations. The post can be as long as you like, in fact I wouldn’t expect you to be able to do justice to this task in a couple of paragraphs. I want to see your writing, and to see how well you can use words to communicate an idea and clarify your thoughts. And remember, you are publishing to the web, where anyone can see your work, so make it count.  Spelling, grammar, structure…  it all makes a difference to the way you communicate.

Due by Monday January 15th (no extensions possible sorry!)

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below.

Yes, your final exam is here soon. In fact, here is the link to it. You will need a special “secret word” to get into it, and I’ll tell you what it is when the time is right.

Till then, I’m leaving a link here so I don’t forget where I put it!

http://www.quia.com/quiz/902320.html

Thanks to everyone who sent me their Flash files by the deadline I asked for. There is some wonderful work there…

I saw that some of them were not finished and I think that after all the work you’ve put into them so far you should finish them off. So, if yours is not complete, please take the extra time to complete it, add the music, and sound effects, etc, and resend it to me when it’s done.

Also, I’d like you to publish the finished product to Imageshack so we can link to it. You can upload the file as a Flash .swf file and it works great! No need to even create an account! Thanks Mac for this tip.

Once you’ve finished it and imported it into Imageshack, can you please post a link to the file both on your own blog and also in the comments below…

Here’s a sample… http://img259.imageshack.us/my.php?image=alexjfb3.swf

This is the marking rubric for the Flash cartoon. Take a look at it and make sure you’ve demonstrated your ability in each of the four basic areas, according to the criteria I’ve given you.

Just a note about how I’d like you to submit your finished Flash cartoon.

Once you’re finished the whole thing, you need to make sure it’s saved as a FLA file and safely saved to your personal drive on the school network.  This is your own copy of your work.

What I want you to give me is a finished SWF file that has been exported out of Flash.  Save the file using your own name as the filename, in the format firstnamelastname.swf, using all lowercase characters.

Submit the file to me as an email attachment and send it to betcherc@hcdsb.org with “Flash Cartoon” in the subject line.

Add a copy of the finished cartoon to your blogpage.

Don’t forget the original blog about your thoughts on communication.  It counts!

Ok, here it is, your next assessment task… I’ve tried to keep it simple.

1. Do some browsing around the web (some teachers might call it research, but I like to call it browsing) and check out as many ideas as you can about the concept of “Communication“.

2. Write a substantial blog post that explores some of these ideas, especially your response to what you’ve found. I don’t want you to tell me what you found… I want you to tell me what you think about what you found. Give me some viewpoints on what it means to you and how you relate to the idea of Communication.

(If it helps, just imagine I’ve asked you to write a short essay titled “What Communication means to me”, and back up your opinions with a bit of research) 

3. Create a Flash animated cartoon based on the theme of Communication as you interpret it.

4. The Flash cartoon can be anything you like, but it needs to be between 30-90 seconds long, to be original and engaging, and to include some sound (either music or sound effects). It can be funny or serious, but it should definitely be engaging.

Due by midnight, Friday November 3, 2006.

Well your Internet advertisements for Prince Edward Island’s hypothetical tourism campaign are coming along nicely!  Plenty of good original ideas there, and considering you had some fairly tight restrictions, you’ve all been quite clever about developing these graphics.

BUT…

The hypothetical tourism office just rang and said they’ve been so impressed with your work that they’d like you to develop an extra piece for them.  Here’s the brief…

Tourism PEI want you to also create a fullpage magazine advertisement for the next issue of Maritimes Monthly.  The purpose of the ad will again be to promote tourism on the island.  Like the banner ads, the magazine advert also needs to include the text “Prince Edward Island” and your slogan in readable text somewhere in the ad.  This time, because you have more space to work with, you can add extra text of your own if you think it will help deliver your message.

You can resuse the photos provided to you in the original web banner brief, or acquire more images if you wish.  They must however be of high quality.

The size of the print advert will be 210mm x 297mm (A4).  Because you are creating a design prototype for print you must work at 150dpi resolution.  Please check you use the correct settings for these files!

It is suggested that you use a combination of photographs, imagery, text and also “whitespace” to design an eyecatching and creative advertisement.

Save the finished image as a full size TIFF file in your H: drive.  Also, save a reduced size JPG copy of the file at 450 pixels high, 75dpi and upload it to your blog in a new post, along with a personal evaluation of the image outlining it’s main design features.

Task 1

You’ve all seen those advertising banners on the Internet… they can be found on most webpages and they advertise all manner of products. What you may not have realised is that these banners are standardised to a handful of recommended sizes. These sizes - measured in pixels - are specified by the Internet Advertising Bureau, who publish the official size list.
The most common sizes for Internet advertising banners can be seen in the graphic below (click to enlarge).

• You have been asked to design a series of internet advertisements to promote general tourism to Prince Edward Island. The client has provided you with a series of photographs taken around the island, which you will use as a basis of the artwork for your advertisements. You may change, modify, adapt, blend, mix, slice, layer, or use these photographs in any way you see fit. These images will be available on the school Y: drive.

• You will also need to come up with a slogan or catchphrase to promote the Island, and this slogan, along with the words “Prince Edward Island” must be included somewhere in your advertisement. You may add any other text you wish, so long as the above minimum criteria is met.

• You must create at least 10 different graphics, using at least 3 different standard banner sizes. Your graphics need to be visually related to each other (ie, so they form a “set”, with common identifiable features that tie them together as part of the same advertising campaign.) You may create more than one “set” of graphics providing that you meet the above criteria. (ie, you might have two sets of 5 graphics, or three sets made of 3+ graphics, etc)

• The advertisements should be designed to encourage general tourism. Both the island name and your slogan should be clearly communicated in each advertisement. The client is looking for creativity in design, strong communication of the island as a tourism destination, and a consistent visual look and feel for each ad set.

• Finished images are to be created at 75 pixels/inch and saved as jpg or gif files. Upload the finished images to your blogspace, combining each set into a different post.

• The finished work must be posted by midnight on Friday September 29.

Any questions, please ask in the comment section below. Good luck.

Mr B

Hi everyone.

I forgot to mention to your yesterday that I wouldn’t be here this morning… I have to attend a workshop for one of the other business classes I teach, so I won’t be in all day.

I’ve left a note for your substitute teacher, asking you to check this blog post (oh, and here you are! The system works!) Read on, I have a few suggestions for you to work on this lesson.

Basically I’d like you to continue to explore Photoshop and develop a feel for how to approach different image editing tasks. By now you’ve doctored up a few photos, and in that process learnt to work with layers, selected and cut images, resized using the transform tool, and you’ve worked with some of the other basic editing tools like eraser, magic wand and the move tool. Yesterday you looked at creating text, applying layer effects, rasterizing type into a graphic, applying filters and so on.

For today, take a look at this tutorial on making a tennis ball. You can try to make a ball like this yourself - it might seems a bit mundane, but it contains lots of useful Photoshop techniques! Don’t forget you can pause and rewind the video if you need to. Give it a go!

If you have any spare time, I recommend you take a look at the actual website for more free tutorials… http://www.good-tutorials.com/author/WatchAndLearnPhotoshop.com

It has a bunch of very interesting video lessons which show you step-by-step some of the “hidden secrets” of good Photoshop work. Worth watching, you’ll pick up lots of ideas, even if
some of them look a bit complicated just now.

Good luck. Have fun. Be good.

First real inclass task!

Using Photoshop, create at least 3 collage images of yourself somewhere in the world. Use 600 pixels as the largest dimension. Use Google Images (or some other image finding tool) to collect some background images which you can place yourself in front of. To keep reasonable quality, make sure you use only large images.

Next, use a digital camera to take photos of yourself that can be edited, cut, resized, etc, into a new layer, and place them over the bacjground to make it look like you are actually in the picture. Take note of lighting, position, etc, to make it look as real as you can.

Post your best 3 images to your blog when you’re done. Remember to save them as a JPG image first before you post them… don’t upload a native Photoshop PSD file.

Have fun with it.