Dear Many Uses Students, Thanks for a Great Audio and Video Day

Ann Tran
- ITA Tech Instructor -

The third day into The Many Uses of Computer Camp started with the students discussing their favorite genre in music. A lot of the students listened to Rock, Oldies, Hip-Hop, and R&B.

Then, they immersed themselves into a free music creation program called "Roc" on aviary.com to compose two measures of rhythm starting with a kick drum, snare, and various other instruments. All of the students, with or without musical background, had their own unique beat. After, they used Sony Acid to add a bass line and record a voice over. In the voice over, the students composed a thank you note to the ITA students and staff for being accepted into the program.

With their audio good to go, the students dived right into Adobe Premiere, a video editing program. After an hour, the students were able to piece the video together with pre-filmed shots of the first couple days of them at ITA!

In only three short hours, the students transformed into music producers and video editors! It was a ton of fun!!

NOTICE: Video coming soon!

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!