Project+Proposal


 * Project Proposal:**

For my project, I would like to create a wiki for my Digital Photography course which I teach at A.C. Flora High School. I would like the wiki to be aligned to the current curriculum, which means it will include all the tools necessary for the course. This site will be a place where students can go to review project requirements, view teacher and student examples, get handouts with digital editing tips and techniques, and view demonstrations of the various Media Art processes. Typically, this course is offered to 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students. Students are required to take the beginning art course, Art Foundations, before they can enroll in Digital Photography. Students enrolled in this course should have basic computer skills and basic knowledge of art terminology and concepts.

My main goal with this website would be to give students alternative and extra modes of presentation as well as expression. According to Rose and Meyer, "Each medium (text, images, and sound) poses barriers for some students, while offering particular opportunities to others. None works optimally for every student or for every situation, which means that several media options should be available" (Teaching Every Student, 2002). While the students will be presented with this information in a traditional classroom setting, giving them opportunities to view the information in different forms at any time will help to instill that all students will learn the material. For example, not all students do well with reading a textbook and gaining the knowledge that the textbook is trying to give. Some, often many, students need examples, discussions, and auditory information in order to understand the concepts. Also, many students need to see steps to technology processes multiple times, especially after a period of time. While the information that I present in class will be the same or very similar to the information on the website, it is available at home as well as at school after I have presented it. The website will increase the flexibility of how and when the information can be viewed and reviewed. According to Rose and Meyer, "by virtue of one essential feature, flexibility, digital media surpass traditional media in their ability to meet diverse students' varied needs in a variety of instructional contexts. This flexibility is inherent in the way digital content is stored and transmitted" (Teaching Every Student, 2002). I want to be able to provide this flexibility to all my students.

I would like to create wiki instead of a traditional website because I would like my students to be able to access the site at school as well as at home. Last semester, I created a personal website for my Ceramics course. However, since it is a personal site, it is blocked and my students can only access it at home. My district blocks all personal websites, however it does not (at this current time) block wikispaces. While I enjoy making traditional websites, I think that wikispaces will be a good alternative tool to use. Videos that are created for the wiki cannot be uploaded and hosted on Youtube. This site is also blocked. I will have to use either teachertube or screencast to host my videos. The art department has previously purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements for the photography students to use. All other software that is chosen for the course must be free. Downloading also poses a problem. The district does not allow teachers and students to download programs off of the internet. Any problem that needs to be downloaded must be done so by an IT administrator, and the software must be approved by the technology committee. Therefore, it is best to use programs that do not have to be downloaded onto the computer themselves.

My current Digital Photography curriculum consists of several projects, each one building on the other, developing the students� knowledge of Media Arts processes and well as photography concepts. The students use several software programs for their projects such as Adobe Photoshop, PowerPoint, wikispaces, and MovieMaker. In order to teach the students how to use these tools, I have to give many demonstrations. Often times, students are absent and miss the demonstrations. Other times, a student may need to see the demonstration again because he/she forgot the steps. In order to save time, it would be beneficial to have the demonstrations on a site that students can access anytime, anywhere. In addition to the demonstrations, they could also download and print out handouts of the same processes. They can get the project requirements as well. They can also view the teacher�s example and student examples from previous years to gain a better understanding of what is required.

I encourage my students that cannot afford to buy Adobe Photoshop Elements to use to use Gimp, Sumo Paint 3.0 or Pixlr.com at home. Although these programs are very similar to Adobe Photoshop Elements, there are a few processes that are different. I would like to have demonstrations and handouts for these two programs as well. Therefore, if a student is working at home and gets stuck, they can go to the site and view the video for the process they are struggling with, or print out a handout instead.

As a result of taking Digital Photography as well as using the Digital Photography wiki, the learners will be able to demonstrate the following:
 * Beginning level Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, Pixlr, and/or Sumo Paint editing skills, such as: cropping, rotating, lighting and color changes, adding a filter.
 * Intermediate level Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, Pixlr, and/or Sumo Paint editing skills, such as: selecting and editing a specific area, copying and pasting layers, adding text, warping text, adding gradients.
 * Advanced level Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, Pixlr, and/or Sumo Paint editing skills, such as: Dodge and burn tools for adding shadows, rubber stamp tool, and multiple layer manipulation.
 * Intermediate level PowerPoint skills.
 * Beginning and Intermediate level MovieMaker skills.
 * Creating portfolios using wikispaces.com




 * References: **

Rose, D. Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age. Association for Supervision & Curriculum Deve. Retrieved on February 1, 2011 from [].

Matthew, K., Felvegi, E. (2009). Wiki as a Collaborative Learning Tool in a Language Arts Methods Class. Journal of Research on Technology in Education. Retrieved on Oct. 31, 2010 from [].

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Nagy, J. and Bigum, C. (2007). Bounded and unbounded knowledge: teaching and learning in a web 2 world. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education. Retrieved on October 2, 2010 from []

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Patrick, S. and Powell, A. (2009). A summary of research on the effectiveness of K-12 online learning. International Association for K-12 online learning. Retrieve on September 20, 2010 from [].