I’m not sure where I heard about this but it seems to be a good time of year to brush up on some photography skills as we begin our Holiday events. Montreal photographer Andrea Clegg has put together this list of no-cost moocs that may be of use to both teachers and students alike.—
The URL: http://www.lightstalking.com/5-free-online-courses-to-improve-your-photography/
Like you, I’m off for a couple of weeks of catching up with Mrs. Teacher List, friends and family. My wish for all of you is a Very Merry Christmas, a fun New Year and much rest. All the best and thanks for your continued support as we look forward to 2015.
-Pete
My pal, Sandra Gluth, told me about this interesting tool the other day. From the site: “Para is a prototype digital illustration tool tool that uses direct manipulation to define and edit procedural artwork. Through creating and altering vector paths, artists can define iterative distributions and parametric constraints.”—
The URL: http://www.paradrawing.com/
]]>
My pal, Angela Stolk, passed this site on the other day. I’m going to keep an eye on this new site as UK teacher and owner, Dexter Williams, add to his tutorial base. He starts with “Beginning ActionScript”, a series of lessons will “teach you the basics of ActionScript programming and show you how to start creating your own computer games or applications. Each booklet should take about 1 hour to work through and by the end you will be able to create your own Space Invaders game.” If what Mr. Williams ships in the future is as solid as this series, he’ll make very valuable contributions to CTF and CTS resources here in Alberta and around the world.—
The URL: http://www.wissp.com ]]>
My pal, Bill Lomax, sent me this the other day. On Monday, Google “announced the launch of Computer Science Custom Search, a customized search engine for finding K-12 computer science education (CS)resources. Developed using a collection of over 550 CS education websites, such as Khan Academy, Google CS First, Girl Develop It, Bootstrap, ScratchEd, Code.organd Made with Code to name a few, CS Custom Search connects you to computer science education materials and programs. By focusing on a list of websites that provide primarily free and open K-12 CS education resources, the customized search engine ensures that you will find materials that can be readily adopted for your class, after school program, or enrichment for your child.
“CS Custom Search has been designed to support a range of users with varying degrees of experience with CS. For those with extensive experience, CS Custom Search has been optimized to support queries for unique CS topics across a wide range of languages and platforms. For those with less experience, the custom search solution provides recommendations on a range of search topics to ensure that a lack of CS vocabulary doesn’t negatively impact your results.”
—
The URL: http://www.cs4hs.com/resources/cscs.html
Paper-Leaf.com author, Jeff Archibald made and offers up “all of the basics of color theory contained in one place – specifically, a cool infographic-esque poster.” Whether teaching Color Theory in elementary art classrooms or digital color theory in secondary classrooms, this poster is available in multiple formats for download, sharing and printing. (I didn’t realize until I researched this site that they’re from my hometown of Edmonton!)—
The URL: http://paper-leaf.com/blog/2010/01/color-theory-quick-reference-poster/ ]]>
Another resource that I’ve found helpful for teaching illustration comes from Cartooning Basics in the form of a no-cost classroom handout. This sheet of expressions is very simple to replicate whether a student is sketching with a pencil and paper or trying to master Illustrator’s Pen Tool.—
The URL: http://www.cartooningbasics.com/downloads/CartooningBasics-ClassroomHandouts.pdf ]]>
I use an “Anatomy of Type” approach to explore the different typographical components with my students. I like the way this site breaks it down and presents the definitions — and if you look along the right sidebar, there is a no-cost download of a fantastic poster in pdf format!—
The URL: http://www.typographydeconstructed.com/ ]]>
My pal, Theresa Paltzat, found this site for those who are building their makerspaces with 3D printers. From the site: “MakerBot’s Thingiverse is a thriving design community for discovering, making, and sharing 3D printable things. As the world’s largest 3D printing community, we believe that everyone should be encouraged to create and remix 3D things, no matter their technical expertise or previous experience. In the spirit of maintaining an open platform, all designs are encouraged to be licensed under a Creative Commons license, meaning that anyone can use or alter any design.”
When I was playing around with the site, I discovered another component – a no-cost product called OpenSCAD for creating solid 3D CAD objects.
It is no-cost software and available for Linux/UNIX, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It appears that the two sites work very well together. I’d love to make that dinosaur business card on the front page!
—
The URL: http://www.thingiverse.com/
The Bonus URL: http://www.openscad.org/
My brother, Brian, shared this site with me. It’s a discussion of the “Realistic” v. “Flat” design trends in web design. The interface is fun as students scroll down through the story, ending in a keyboard game-battle between the two. I liked the message at the end to wrap up the experience.—
The URL: http://www.flatvsrealism.com/ ]]>
Adobe Education Leader, Kevin McMahon is the creator of a new project called “Art Heroes” – a program intended to benefit creative students and teachers – and a wide range of noble causes. Essentially, Art Heroes connects digital media students who need to develop their portfolios for college and job apps with non-profit causes that cannot afford industry rates for creative work. This project is in its infancy, so if you teach creatives, they may need to return as the job-list grows. If you know groups who need work done, please pass this information on so they can submit a job.–
The URL: http://www.art-heroes.org/ ]]>