A Trio of Goldfinches

This picture, I’ll admit, was a total accident. I was shooting through some thick brush which, being so out of focus, ended up giving this photo a ghostly, swooshy feel. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all, but I like the effect.

D750_4965 20170115-1-Edit-Edit-1
A Trio of Goldfinches

Light and Shadow — Greatest Cinematographers of the World, Interviewed

This is an incredibly inspiring video that will appeal not just to the videographers in your classroom but the photographers as well.

In my Communications Technology class, students are asked to watch the video and share a few inspirational quotes or messages they gleaned from it. I often create a Word Cloud with the results, similar to the one below.

Note: you must be logged into your DSBN account to access this form.

How to Save URLs in a Project Folder

This video will show you how to save URLs into your project folder. This is necessary when creating and submitting projects that use assets from the Internet.

Always give credit where it is due!

Computer Science Teacher Survey

Educational Testing Service (ETS) is developing a new licensure assessment for entry-level Computer Science teachers (in the US). A licensure assessment is used to determine whether teacher candidates demonstrate a sufficient level of knowledge and/or skills to enter their profession.

ETS convened a national advisory committee (NAC) of Computer Science teachers, teacher-educators, and representatives of computer science organizations in order to determine which knowledge and/or skills are important for the beginning Computer Science teacher to possess in order to practice safely and effectively.  During this NAC meeting, members were asked to consider what Computer Science teachers (at the secondary level) are expected to know at the time of entry into the profession (e.g., the first day or month on the job).

The survey that follows is their attempt to verify the domain of knowledge and/or skills that were identified at the NAC meeting.  The entire survey should only take about 20 minutes to complete.

Click here to access the survey.

Tutorial: “Affinity Designer – For Beginners”

This is a great video for beginners to Affinity Designer as well as vector graphics in general. It provides an overview of starting Designer and walks you through an activity that teaches about:

  • creating drawings,
  • drawing rectangles,
  • layers (locking and positioning),
  • CMYK and HSL foreground and stroke colour selection,
  • manipulation of object nodes,
  • the use of the move tool,
  • the pen tool and the various pen tool modes,
  • how to zoom-to-fit,
  • the place image tool,
  • adding text,
  • use of Pixel Persona,
  • adding texture using a paint brush, and
  • saving and exporting the file.

Here’s the graphic created with this tutorial:

Affinity Designer - For Beginners

Photoshop Compositing Assignment

Use Photoshop to recreate any image from this Flickr account. Note: in most cases the owner of the account will have provided links to the resources she used.

Submit the following to the handin folder:

  • your final PSD file
  • a 1024 pixel jpg export of your file
  • a shortcut to your inspirational image
  • the assets you used in a folder named “assets”
  • shortcuts to all your assets

When handing in the PSD file, do NOT flatten or merge the layers.

start.ca – Awesome Internet Provider

“Effective February 1, 2017, your internet service pricing will go down by $10.00 per month and your speed will increase from 30 Mbps download to 40 Mbps download with 10 Mbps upload.”
 
How many times have Rogers or Cogeco sent you an email like that?!!
 
I’ve been a very happy customer of this company’s since I switched to them. The few times I’ve had technical problems their customer service was fantastic, and their prices are much better then Cogeco’s or Rogers’.
 
https://www.start.ca/. If you subscribe, please tell them I sent you so I get a referral bonus. You won’t regret switching to them and your wallet will thank you.