Week 1-Copyright

Oh, the world of copyright. To be honest with you, it scares the crap out of me. As a teacher, I make my kids cite all the sources they use in research and creating presentations. As a student, I use things that are mine personally (pictures) to be sure that I am not violating copyright laws. It's easier for me to use my own images, than to try and use something from Creative Commons and use it wrong. If I need music, I'll create my own GarageBand loops or find something from freeplaymusic.com. I know I am not distributing my work for profit, but I still freak out to think I am possibly violating some law.
Good Copy, Bad Copy was interesting to watch. It's eye opening to see so many artists and producers out there sampling from each other. I am not sure if I think it's right or not. I can't imagine music without other music. So many times, you hear a song on the radio that sounds like another song, or has been redone by another artist. This is more exposure for the artists, but at what point does the song writer get credit for this. Some recording artists are mega millionaires, but what about the song writers, the behind the scenes people, producers, mixers and so forth. When do they get all the public recognition and mega millions?

BP14-Photoshop

Yikes!!! Who knew Photoshop was so complicated.

If you read my previous post, you know that I learn better by doing, rather than listening and watching. I am a hands on kind of learner. That being said, I decided to open Photoshop and take a stab at it. I've seen so many pictures of children in black and white with these striking eyes, so I thought to myself "Andrea, you can figure this out! How hard can it really be?"

WOW!!! This is one that I think I am going to need to watch some tutorials on.

So, I went to lynda.com and found a Photoshop tutorial all about enhancing eyes. I opened my picture I wanted to change and the tutorial side by side. I admit, I watched this one about 3 times before I even started to try and modify the picture. I was able to figure out how to enhance the blue in his eyes. What puzzled me was how to get the rest of the picture in black and white. Again, I played, and after many trials and much frustration, I figured it out.

Did I make it harder than it needed to be, probably. Did I learn how to do it? YES!!!

Here is the original picture.











Here is my new version.







Is it perfect? Not quite, you can still see some white areas in his eyes where I couldn't quite get them in right. But I do think with time, I can figure this out. It's going to take some more trial and error, but I am confident I will get it.

BP13-GoogleDocs-Presentations #2

You'll see that this post happened for a reason. View the presentation to find out why.



If you follow this link, you can view the presentation online with access to the speaker notes (my thoughts).

BP12_Google Docs-Presentations #1

I've been watching the lynda.com tutorials on Google Docs presentations. At first glance, they seem familiar to me. I am already thinking they are similar to Keynote and Power Point. What I found useful was the New Features tab. This is where you can click and learn about new features to Google Docs. One click learning-gotta love it!!

In Presentations, you can create a presentation quickly and simply. There are templates to use for presentations depending on your needs or you can create your own. If you can't find a background you like in the gallery, open up the templates and choose form the many that are created. Editing the objects in a presentation is so simple. You use the command buttons at the top of the presentation screen and format the object till your heart's content.

If you want to give your presentation a permanent name, you go to File--Rename and name your document with a permanent name. How simple is this?!

If you've already got presentations made in PowerPoint, you can very easily upload them and GoogleDocs will convert them for you. You can add slides into current presentations by importing them into the current presentations. You can't simply copy and paste slides into a presentation, you have to import them.

Presentations is limited in some of it's abilities; like transitions and animations. But for simple, straight forward presentations, it seems like a good choice.

BP11_OMM_Wordle

Here is my one minute message about Wordle.

BP10_Comments to Elizabeth

Here's a link to my comments on Elizabeth's one minute message.

BP9_Comment to Kiylise

Here's a link to my comment on Kiylise's one minute message about SmileBox.