The Fine Art of Commenting

"The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all. "

Mark Twain

It came to me as a surprise recently, that I would have to teach my 6th and 7th grade students how to comment on a blog. Turns out, this is not an innate ability as I had previously presumed. Initially I said, “Read someone else’s blog and leave a comment“ That… was a poor choice. The first comment left read “No Duh, lol.” Luckily, the program that use allows the teacher to read each comment before publishing it to the web, forever attaching it to another person’s thought.

The next day in class, I wrote put the comment unnamed, up on the screen and asked students what it meant. It led into a great discussion on authentic audience. I was able to explain that while “lol” might make sense to them, but that there is a reason it gets underlined when typing it into a word document. Since our discussion on appropriate commenting, the comments have led to some really good dialogue.

Photoshop and Photography

During the past two years, for some unknown reason, I decided to teach myself both photography and Photoshop. I have never taken a formal class in either, but overtime have become quite proficient at both. I would almost call Photoshop an addiction at this point as I use it almost every day for both work and as a hobby. As a teacher, I have found that there are many ways to utilize Photoshop to make learning visual in my classroom.

My current interest is in HDR Photography. HDR takes the best of photography and Photoshop to make an ultra detailed almost surreal image. The process is done by taking up to five pictures using varied exposures. You then use a program like Photomatix (www.hdrsoft.com) or Photoshop to combine the photos. Once combined, I use Photoshop to alter the photo and to add detail. Above is a picture I took of one of the schools where I work. The entire process takes around an hour to complete. I really think that buildings look the best in HDR format, when you try to take a picture of a person it really doesn’t turn out all that good. What else would make a good HDR photo?

Blogging

I have decided to take on blogging in two different ways today. One, I will be starting my own blog here. I have called it “Digital Exploration” because that is the name of the class, I teach as well as something I spend a lot of time doing. Second, I started a new blogging program with my students today. The website we used was http://www.kidblog.org/ and it is awesome! I had a different program that I used in the past, but the kids didn’t really care for it and neither did I. Therefore, I used in class less and less. Many of the issues were around set up and maintenance of the blogs. I was able to set this program up in about 10 minutes and my students were all able to blog on the very first day. They were also able to comment on each other’s blogs and I set up accounts for other teachers in the building to read and comment on the blogs. It will be interesting to see what they come up with as we move forward.