Many Uses of Computers Camp 2011: Graphic Design or Photography?

Cristina Lor
- ITA Tech Instructor -

The second day of class was another great experience; were so into their Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator projects that they spent their break time working on them.

The said projects include their “Layers of Me” which was created in Photoshop. In this project, the students had to import their portrait into Photoshop and then add multiple layers, categorized in the folders named “Culture”, “Hobbies”, “Name” in which all text found in the folders related to each of the folder name. They had the chance to change the font size, color, family, effects, and location of each text box.

Their illustrator project revolved around family, but in the form of penguins! In this graphic design portion of the session, the students were to use premade symbols to assemble penguin versions of their family.

Here are some class examples:

During the third hour of labs, the Evaluation unit, the students were given a mini lesson on blogging – capitalize proper nouns such as, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and utilizing the power of the Enter/Return key whenever a new thought is formed! Once the mini lesson was completed, the students dove into finishing up projects, catching up from the day before, or blogging.

Looking at how fast the students picked up on both of these programs illustrates how the instructors were getting more comfortable with the students, even after only two days!

Many Uses of Computers Camp 2011: The Introduction to Labs, Labs, Labs!

Today was the first day of the Many Uses of Computers Camp for the new cohort of ITA, the class of 2015.

The 30 students began their lab with an introduction of themselves, the ITA instructors and interns, and then continued to learn each other's names with the Drop the Sheet name game.

After the introductions to staff and students, the class was split 15-15 and proceeded to their assigned labs for the rest of camp. This assures that each student can be helped and not lost within a large group.

Upon arriving in the appropriate labs, the students talked about their technology story - what kinds of technology they have experienced working with, and then dove right into learning about the accounts that they would have to navigate with and around for the next four years of ITA: Google, Wisc, and Panda.

Once the students knew what these programs were, they began exploring each one of them as they set them up.

The first day ended with an hour of storytelling, but not the kind where the instructors sit up in the front of the room and read to the students; instead, the students were guided through a memory activity where they were to recollect an event in their life... their 8th grade graduation. This was their first blog post and beginning of the documentation of their next four years at ITA.

Welcome Class of 2015! You will do great things!

Stepping Towards the Future

April Arevalo
- ITA Tech Instructor -

I feel that having the students thinking about speech, dialog, words and how they can be used to express feelings, thoughts, the past and present is a great way to develop clear and meaningful messages in student projects. For me personally being able to write down what has occurred in my life is a huge tool to help me reflect on what I've accomplished, and how I can change my future. Lately I have been thinking about inspirational words and how to incorporate technology to display something positive. I recently thought of doing an "inspirational word" poster in Adobe Illustrator. I think it will be a great way for the students to realize that being creative and original and having fun and is a key part to portraying a strong message.

When students get to create in a way that involves colors and different aspects of "art" they don't necessarily see that a message is being formed. When more than one glance is taken, thousands of messages can be portrayed, ones that they hadn't thought of the first time. I saw this to be true while I assisted in the Mandala Custom Workshop. The students seemed to be creating things that were captivating to the eye and at a second glance deeper messages were shared. There were themes of nature and the beauty of the universe. Projects like this are beginning to open the minds of the students to something more than just doing projects because they have to.

By coming up with clearer messages, I feel the students will appreciate what they are creating a lot more and pursue future creation on their own.

America's Next Top Blogger

What better way to start off the 2010-2011 choice sessions than to become a better blogger at Information Technology Academy? This must have been the thought of the four students who signed up for the blogger workshop, right? :D At least, that's what I like to believe. But that doesn't matter because no matter how small an interest in blogging is, it will go a long way... through ITA and beyond.

As a graduate of ITA (2009), I didn't get as much of a chance, if at all to write blogs while I was in ITA (to be frank, I don't recall when AJ, the lead technology instructor, implemented or discovered blogging), but better yet, I don't just get to write blogs, I get the honor of teaching how to write blogs too!

The goal of the course was designed to make students more aware of their writing style and the way that they present it to the their readers. As you're reading this, you're probably thinking, "Wow, she's a good writer. I want to keep reading," right? I'm just playing! But please... do.. keep reading because it's all about how the workshop went.

The students started off the day with a writing a blog about what "blogging at ITA" means to them... Students wrote that it meant telling instructors how their projects went for the day. And at least in some part, it is to inform instructors on how the day went. Blogs are also useful for the students! When they return from a long break, they can read their posts and remember what they did at the last session they attended. They can also do a better job analyzing what they have learned and how they have grown while in the IT Academy program.

After a discussion on how everyone can utilize blogging at ITA, the class jumped right into "good" blogs on the internet. A lot of the good/more intriguing blogs, as the students pointed out, had a lot of pictures which kept the reader's attention among other things.

After looking at examples of good blogs, the class critiqued each others' previous blog posts. This led to a revision of their blog posts; a nice way to finish the workshop!

~written on 10/23/2010

UPDATE: Starting this year, at IT Academy's 11th Annual Holiday Luncheon event, we are now able to reward ITA's best blogger! It's called the "Blog Maven Award," and the prize this year was a "smart pen" which is a great tool for writing, drawing, taking notes, and using a computer. Congratulations to Kim!!!