Ross Wallis, one of the SILVER project teachers, will be part of a team of 12 Apple Distinguished Educators delivering a four- day course from 29th June to 2nd July at the Leigh Academy in Dartford, Kent. He will be updating us on the development of this training event with some further information and comments.
Please feel free to participate on this by posting your impressions/comments/queries, etc.
Good luck Ross and I look forward to hearing from you and, hopefully, other participants about this interesting event!
Susa
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Apple Creativity Week
This was a week of computer based instruction at the Leigh Academy in Dartford.
The Leigh is a high achieving flagship state school, housed in state of the art building, and equipped with a very impressive collection of Macintosh computers. The entire academy was taken off lessons for a ‘creativity week’ and 12 ‘Apple Distinguished Educators’ (me being one of them) were brought in to offer four days of creative instruction to groups of combined students and staff. We were teaching in groups of between 35 and 40 students and teachers.
Although the week was based around Apple’s iLife suite, I was able to concentrate on my specialism of cut and paste using Adobe Photoshop, images taken from the BAL collection, a small set of copyright free images of the Olympics (the theme of the week) and the students own original imagery.
At the end of each day of instruction, all the students and teachers uploaded the projects that they had created to Eurocreator, an educational site sponsored by Apple, and created to celebrate the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. As work was to be published, is was very important for us to make sure that students were not infringing copyright in their use of images and movie clips, hence the arrangement with BAL to use the library for the sessions that I taught.
Apple also gave a selection of winners enticing ipod prizes for each day – a fact which altered my original lesson plan a bit, as students were less keen to collaborate.
Below was my original lesson plan – the deviation from this mostly that students spent the day on their own work rather that doing the swapping of files that I had envisaged do to the wish to win the prizes.
The sessions worked well, there was a lot of create work created, which can be seen on the Eurocreator site – click on photos to find my students work in particular – I have also put a collection of my favorites up on my school website, http://www.artatsidcotschool.org.uk – with a link from the front page.
All the students were responsible for uploading their own files, which meant that I did not have any particular control over the quality of what was uploaded – and maybe I shouldn’t anyway. This, along with the large numbers in the group, some problems with the uploading, and anomalies with the site itself, meant that I had little control in making sure that students did not upload images that contained copyright imagery, despite pleadings from me, nor was I able to make sure that they each individually credited BAL, although again they were explicitly asked to.
They were wonderful students, very creative and very keen, and some great work was done.
The issue of copyright is ongoing. It is so easy for students to cut and paste from a internet image search – and they all do – so how do we, as teachers, instil right practice. How do we know if images from an image search can be used or not if they are not watermarked?
I would be very grateful for help, advice, ideas, suggestions etc. I am keen to learn and to pass this learning on.
And very grateful for help from Bridgman Art Library. I feel that this project was a first experiment, and I plan to continue experimenting with my own students in the coming few months.
The Exquisite Corpse
Photoshop never lies (still)
Objective
To enjoy learning the basics of digital image manipulation through the creation of collaborative surrealistic
digital montages using Adobe Photoshop and images from the Bridgeman Art Library.
Resources
• Software: Adobe Photoshop, Safari
• Fast Internet Connection
• Cameras and Scanners
Lesson Plan
The sessions will be based on a digital version of a game similar to the Surrealist’s ‘exquisite corpse’, aka
consequences. Each player will get a given amount of time in which to create a digital montage, telling the
beginning of a story, both visually and in text. At the end of this time the students will swop files, (randomly)
and work on each other’s images, adding, altering, amending, and furthering the story, adding both to the
image and to the text. This game can continue for several rounds of ‘photoshop pingpong’ with versions
being saved along the way. Both Images and working practice will be based on the themes of the week:
inspiration, respect, equality, excellence, courage and friendship, perhaps with particular reference to the
ideals of the Olympic Games.
Session 1 – 9.00 – 10.00
• Introduction and examples, with a brief presentation of works by surrealist artists such as Renee Magritte,
Giorgio De Chirico, Salvador Dalí , Man Ray, and the collections of Joseph Cornell.
• Basic Photoshop Essentials, including making selections, using modifier keys, the wand, lasso, and
marquee tools, transformations in scale, and rotation including perspective and skew, the quickmask and
filters. In order to fully participate in this game students will also have to learn about the clone (rubber
stamp) and healing brush tools, layers, layer styles, adjustment layers, masks, opacity and brushes; shapes,
modes and opacity.
Session 2 – 10.00 – 10.30
Students will create an initial background image – round one
Session 3 – - 11.00 – 12.00
Students will swop files for round two
Session 4 – 12.00 – 13.00
Students will swop files for round three
Session 5 – 14.00 – 15.00
Students will swop files for round four
Session 6 – Upload to Eurocreator – 15.00 – 15.40
Students will upload finished work to EuroCreator.
Learning Outcomes
Students will learn the basics of Adobe Photoshop within an art historical context and with awareness of
issues surrounding copyright. Students will be downloading and uploading files and capturing imagery with
scanners and digital cameras. They will also be introduced to online resources such as those offered by
Adobe, and the myriad of Photoshop tutorials that can be accessed via the web. Students will work in a sprit
of cooperation and respect, for each other, and for others in general.
Wow, Ross, those pictures! I’m bowled over by the creativity, imagination and skills acquired by your students.
Stella
Ross, well done! The images are great and you can tell by looking at the work that the participants were really engaging in the creative processes you established with your lesson plans.
This issue of copyright is indeed ongoing and I hope that we can at least touch upon it in the 3rd and final prototype. There is a lot of innocent misuse of images in this age of copy and paste, quick downloads, and easy access. It’s an interesting dilemma that the more we develop technologies that allow for quick and easy access to digital assets the more we can expect copyright infringements. Technology both serves and destroys. It destroys the old order that is traditional copyright law whilst presenting endless opportunities for all kinds of new creative activities, the like of which you are involved with. Whatever the future of copyright law it is enviable that there will have to be a different law for education use as apposed to commercial use. There is clearly a big difference between a student manipulating a high resolution image with the aim to learn some new Photoshop technique and someone who is using an image on a CD cover.
This is a conversation that could go and on. Perhaps we shall pick it up again when we begin work on prototype 3?
Glad that you found Bridgeman content useful and look forward to working with you soon again, Brian
Epic post. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more posts!
i like it! XD
What a great blog. I found this blog while searching on google.