Saturday, October 9, 2010
Homecoming day and 3rd class session
This morning, Oct 9, 2010, I seen red shirt,red pants,red hats,red body parts and red hair, all evidence of the badge homecoming game day here at Madison, Wisconsin. While that was going on outside, inside the computer science building it's the 2014 freshmen vs Photoshop. The 2010 freshmen stepped up to their computers with their game face on ready to face Photoshop in the Mac computers. The 2014 freshmen has bright minds and a can-do attitude on their side while Photoshop has a challenge of composition on its side. The freshmen need to figure out Photoshop's composition by using the tools and layers to take control of game ball (images). In order to make it even on both sides Chris allows the 2014 freshmen to take images (gameball) of themselves or any other images they wanted of the hallway and stairs. After the 2010 freshmen had their images, it was game time. Both sides were reminded of the rules of the thirds and the game was underway. The 2014 freshmen team started out the game by eliminating the background of their own image then replaced it with another background. It was half time when brake time came around and Photoshop had time to catch it's breath and get reorganized. But the freshmen had a new plan of action using more tools to create some awesome images (gameball) actions that Photoshop had not seen before and by the time the class was over the score was 2010 freshmen 20 and photoshop 10. The score would have been higher but the 2014 freshmen had to take time for their blog and that's where the 2014 freshmen shares some of their secrets since most of them were not able finish they can't tell all of their secrets but they will have time later. That will be another game day. :)
Ai III: A Different Perspective, Anyone?
The day started off with the first small class of the year - four people were missing. Nevertheless, those who did show up were quite tentative to Marc today. Marc lead the beginning of the class with a lesson on gradient mesh.
Prior to this lesson, Roxy was the only one who had learned anything about gradient... Her, what Cristina calls, "Aurora Borealis" image incorporated the gradient star, shown below.
Next, Marc covered gradients with the blend tool and gradient mesh. After the gradients, Cristina ran through a review of the Rule of Thirds and touched base with using hues/the same color palette. After running through the review, the perspective tool was introduced to the class.
When asked if the students had done anything like this before in art class, many nodded in confirmation, so like Brianna stated, "It will just be easier!"
With that said, the students were let loose to explore Illustrator on their own, with the guidance of the instructors, of course. As they started their cities, Alejandra pouted and exclaimed, "If I failed in art class, I'm going to obviously fail at this!" ... To solve this problem, Cristina walked her around the room like the Ghost of Illustrator's Present. As she walked around to get a sense of what a city would look like, she began to see what the grids were about, "Ohh, the grids make sense now..."
As the students were working, Kevin walks into the class. He had missed everything that was taught today, but rest assure, Marc brought him back up to speed as fast as he could, which was pretty quick.
After a couple of minutes, the students were on break.
During this time, Chou set up what was needed to continue today's lesson. He introduced the students to a new love for the internet: things you can get for free!
Before letting the students loose again, Chou showed them how to install brushes.
As some students spent time on finding brushes, others went ahead and completed their cities.
Prior to this lesson, Roxy was the only one who had learned anything about gradient... Her, what Cristina calls, "Aurora Borealis" image incorporated the gradient star, shown below.
Next, Marc covered gradients with the blend tool and gradient mesh. After the gradients, Cristina ran through a review of the Rule of Thirds and touched base with using hues/the same color palette. After running through the review, the perspective tool was introduced to the class.When asked if the students had done anything like this before in art class, many nodded in confirmation, so like Brianna stated, "It will just be easier!"
With that said, the students were let loose to explore Illustrator on their own, with the guidance of the instructors, of course. As they started their cities, Alejandra pouted and exclaimed, "If I failed in art class, I'm going to obviously fail at this!" ... To solve this problem, Cristina walked her around the room like the Ghost of Illustrator's Present. As she walked around to get a sense of what a city would look like, she began to see what the grids were about, "Ohh, the grids make sense now..."
As the students were working, Kevin walks into the class. He had missed everything that was taught today, but rest assure, Marc brought him back up to speed as fast as he could, which was pretty quick.
After a couple of minutes, the students were on break.
During this time, Chou set up what was needed to continue today's lesson. He introduced the students to a new love for the internet: things you can get for free!
Before letting the students loose again, Chou showed them how to install brushes.
As some students spent time on finding brushes, others went ahead and completed their cities.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
2nd session of Fall 2010
Today the Badgers are at home playing against Austin Peay and the day is traditional feeling like a fall football day. The tail gaters are cooking up some breakfast outside with their grills. For the student’s 2nd session of the fall they received a Photoshop breakfast from Chris. Chris starts out with Lit Wayne image from last class session and they added a tattoo to Lit Wayne’s body and finished up removing the tats he already has. Then Chris topped off the Photoshop eggs with a photography equivalent lesson so that the students know they have some control over the outcome of an image before a picture is taken by a camera. The student’s coffee was the sweet smell of a quick quiz which they performed well in. The toast of the day was their posting of the image they modified and the original image with a few comments. Their bacon was the idea of taking pictures using their own digital camera. My omelet will be seeing the images they produce through their camera to see what they see.
Ai II: A Colorful Day in Illustrator
The day started off with a foot in color theory... which most of the students already had previous knowledge about. As the class went through The Basics of Color Theory slides, it was pointed out that the "complementary" colors mean they are compatible with each other, like green and red whereas "complimentary" colors mean... you're liking something, and that something is... color? -- Just a little spell check in case the students decide to use this in their blog today ;)
Anyways, to get back to the main lesson in class, the color theory went -for the most part- pretty okay. The students were lost when it was time to talk about RGB -- which isn't exactly the primary colors that we had told them just earlier in the slide -- RYB. But with physics, light's primary colors and CYMK were explained... but left the students a little confused. But rest assure! Chou informed the students that "it will get easier as we keep doing this" which led to the next portion of the day: Spiderman! Nah, it's live paint and live trace =)
As Chou began his lesson plan, he explained the difference between rastor and vector images... Which led to Chou bringing an image into Illustrator to live trace it (bitmaps into vectors) and taking it back old school, Chou explained how live paint is just like the programs that they used in elementary school...
After Live Trace and Paint was over and done with, Chou grabbed the pen tool and started tracing... which looked pretty easy, but from my experience, it's not! Nevertheless, now the students know how to bring bitmaps into Illustrator and vectorize it! And if not vectorization... They now know how to manually trace things.
After the lecture, the students were let loose to trace and paint their own cartoon images.
But... wait! What about colored bitmaps?!
Rest assure, tracing options are now explained: Simple trace is just for black and white. Color 6 limits the number of colors Illustrator can produce when "tracing."
Ok. Now back to the student's projects.
As the students spent time on their seasons, they focused on the background a lot more so than the last year's group did. The quickness of finding the symbols and making backgrounds seemed to be easier for the students now. No one had questions about how to add symbols and live trace and paint came easy for them so everything seems to be on the right path!
The rest of the class consisted of the students saved their work, discovered the wall, did their own thing, and headed out to lunch.
Anyways, to get back to the main lesson in class, the color theory went -for the most part- pretty okay. The students were lost when it was time to talk about RGB -- which isn't exactly the primary colors that we had told them just earlier in the slide -- RYB. But with physics, light's primary colors and CYMK were explained... but left the students a little confused. But rest assure! Chou informed the students that "it will get easier as we keep doing this" which led to the next portion of the day: Spiderman! Nah, it's live paint and live trace =)
As Chou began his lesson plan, he explained the difference between rastor and vector images... Which led to Chou bringing an image into Illustrator to live trace it (bitmaps into vectors) and taking it back old school, Chou explained how live paint is just like the programs that they used in elementary school...
After Live Trace and Paint was over and done with, Chou grabbed the pen tool and started tracing... which looked pretty easy, but from my experience, it's not! Nevertheless, now the students know how to bring bitmaps into Illustrator and vectorize it! And if not vectorization... They now know how to manually trace things.
After the lecture, the students were let loose to trace and paint their own cartoon images.
But... wait! What about colored bitmaps?!
Rest assure, tracing options are now explained: Simple trace is just for black and white. Color 6 limits the number of colors Illustrator can produce when "tracing."
Ok. Now back to the student's projects.
As the students spent time on their seasons, they focused on the background a lot more so than the last year's group did. The quickness of finding the symbols and making backgrounds seemed to be easier for the students now. No one had questions about how to add symbols and live trace and paint came easy for them so everything seems to be on the right path!
The rest of the class consisted of the students saved their work, discovered the wall, did their own thing, and headed out to lunch.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
First of class Fall of 2010
During the time America was remembering the 9/11 attack on the twin towers the day was a little wet in Madison but the students attending their first ITA fall class seemed be excited. After AJ’s introduction of their schedule for the fall and spring the student were divided into lab or homeroom.
Chris led the freshmen pack into the world of Photoshop by giving them a quick review from summer camp’s Photoshop class. To start the class off they were questioned about what they knew about Photoshop and if any of them used Photoshop since the summer. It was nice to see many of class were making use of their new knowledge in Photoshop outside of class. Also, I notice the lack of assistance needed by the majority of students and I think I can hazard a guess that they remembered or used it quite bit from the summer camp.
The surprise of the day was when the freshmen received their printers during class but the bigger surprise came to them when they realized they had to haul it all day. Poor thangs, but it seem to only fuel their excitement about ITA and enforced the program’s seriousness about their success in education.
Chris led the freshmen pack into the world of Photoshop by giving them a quick review from summer camp’s Photoshop class. To start the class off they were questioned about what they knew about Photoshop and if any of them used Photoshop since the summer. It was nice to see many of class were making use of their new knowledge in Photoshop outside of class. Also, I notice the lack of assistance needed by the majority of students and I think I can hazard a guess that they remembered or used it quite bit from the summer camp.
The surprise of the day was when the freshmen received their printers during class but the bigger surprise came to them when they realized they had to haul it all day. Poor thangs, but it seem to only fuel their excitement about ITA and enforced the program’s seriousness about their success in education.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Switching rooms for hardware
Mon, Aug 9, 2010
The class had hands on experience with dismantling and assembling the hardware components of a computer in room B109. Now, we're in room B207 with AJ revealing the function of each hardware starting with the power, how other hardware communicate and the versatility of a computer through the use of the motherboard. The analogy AJ is using to describe the function of a computer is the central nervous system of humans. Such as, the spinal cord connects to the brain. The revelation from AJ, he stated that rats can laugh if a person tickles it!! That one came from left field :O
After the rat thingy, AJ informed the students about the different regions of the motherboard. Such as, the low level control (BIOS), north bridge, processor socket, RAM, South bridge, Serial ATA for hard drives and PCI controller Interface, and IDE for disk drives. Oooohh! Bus is another word for a connection.
How would you describe the main purpose of the motherboard? versatility - hard drive can run different programs at the same time. Like a house, say a person wants to view the tv but everyone in the house is watching it in the living room. So, that lone person can take the equipment to the basement and plug in the components to an outlet and watch a tube, there we have it.....versatility.
Why do computer have to prioritize processes? Take keyboard for instance, it is highly prioritize because if people are able to type on the keyboard of a computer while the computer process other programs, it makes people happy since they don't have to wait to keep working.
The north bridge has direct access to the CPU. What else is connected to the motherboard on a computers. Everything! :)
Cristina continues the lecture with the SATA drives, optical drive, CPU, PCI slots, Graphics card. Then it was right to the mighty compatibility exercise! And she was not playing cause she wanted all of to the student to pass the test for tomorrow, also, she reminded the class to open the attachment to her emails. Because students have not been opening their attachments to the emails.
Now, we're back in room B109 and Ann has the students go over a quick review game of jeopardy on the power point program before their Permit Road Test. All the students have their thinking caps on while taking the test.
The class had hands on experience with dismantling and assembling the hardware components of a computer in room B109. Now, we're in room B207 with AJ revealing the function of each hardware starting with the power, how other hardware communicate and the versatility of a computer through the use of the motherboard. The analogy AJ is using to describe the function of a computer is the central nervous system of humans. Such as, the spinal cord connects to the brain. The revelation from AJ, he stated that rats can laugh if a person tickles it!! That one came from left field :O
After the rat thingy, AJ informed the students about the different regions of the motherboard. Such as, the low level control (BIOS), north bridge, processor socket, RAM, South bridge, Serial ATA for hard drives and PCI controller Interface, and IDE for disk drives. Oooohh! Bus is another word for a connection.
How would you describe the main purpose of the motherboard? versatility - hard drive can run different programs at the same time. Like a house, say a person wants to view the tv but everyone in the house is watching it in the living room. So, that lone person can take the equipment to the basement and plug in the components to an outlet and watch a tube, there we have it.....versatility.
Why do computer have to prioritize processes? Take keyboard for instance, it is highly prioritize because if people are able to type on the keyboard of a computer while the computer process other programs, it makes people happy since they don't have to wait to keep working.
The north bridge has direct access to the CPU. What else is connected to the motherboard on a computers. Everything! :)
Cristina continues the lecture with the SATA drives, optical drive, CPU, PCI slots, Graphics card. Then it was right to the mighty compatibility exercise! And she was not playing cause she wanted all of to the student to pass the test for tomorrow, also, she reminded the class to open the attachment to her emails. Because students have not been opening their attachments to the emails.
Now, we're back in room B109 and Ann has the students go over a quick review game of jeopardy on the power point program before their Permit Road Test. All the students have their thinking caps on while taking the test.
Many Uses of Computers: Hardware
The day begins! Cristina introduced the class to the basic outline for the day and then invited Elizabeth to introduce herself. AJ went around and had each of the students introduce themselves and then zoomed off into a lesson on the Motherboard and hardware.
AJ likened the motherboard system to both the human nervous system and city structure. A memorable moment was when AJ explained one difference between the nervous system and a computer, in that a computer won't know when something's wrong with it, it will just keep working and trying to make it work. He said there were certain viruses once that would disable the fan on a computer, so the computer would keep working, working, working without a fan . . . and eventually it would start on fire! Josh in the back joked about how crazy it would be if we just exploded when we got sick . . . he also kept insisting his name was "Thorax the Impaler" or "Doom".
Soon followed a fun discussion - why would someone create a virus? We talked about people using it for advertising and stealing personal files, what a trojan horse is . . . Viruses, viruses, viruses! It was great :)
After introducing a comparative computer parts exercise and then explaining that she would send further information this evening in powerpoint form.
After a very short break, the students found themselves in B109 for an hour of taking apart computers! Maddie covered:
North Bridge:
- CPU
- RAM
- the video card (kind of a part of the North Bridge)
South Bridge:
- The optical drive
- The hard drive
- SATA cords
- IDE cords
- The floppy drive
- the power source
- the heat sink
Great job Maddie! That's a lot to cover! Everyone had fun trying to figure out how the pieces came out of their plastic/metal racks and how to put them back in. Yeah! By tomorrow everyone will be a pro and pass with flying colors on their permit test
After returning to their own room, Cristina did an optional review of powerpoint during break (clever use of time Cristina!) Then AJ introduced the permit test and everyone took it for the last half hour of class, when they were finished writing their blogs. Yeah hardware day!
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