"Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes.
Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them.
This is one of the best ways of self-education."
- Thomas Carlyle -
Reflections on Student Products
"Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes.
Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them.
This is one of the best ways of self-education."
- Thomas Carlyle -
Reflections on Student Products
My students' work results in few "artifacts" which can be compressed onto a web page. However, from the Multimedia Productions class I have chosen three items, an introductory tutorial on the Dreamweaver program, a "Red Ribbon Week" Public Service Announcement video, and an image modified and enhanced in Photoshop.
The video is almost exactly 1 minute in length (just over 58 seconds), and has been reduced in size and resolution and highly compressed from the original for the sake of compact file size. Even so, it is a 22 MB file, and only viewable on a high-bandwidth network. This particular product was done by two students, (now both graduated) and was awarded honours by the American Automobile Association in a national competition. It was especially compelling to us because two of the teens lost in the accident were students at our school, and the other two well known to us.
The Dreamweaver tutorial, while incomplete, was an assignment done by a student who was in the process of learning the program himself. Students who had prior experience with the multimedia programs at our disposal were assigned to select the program they knew least well, and create a tutorial for beginning students. The student did not finish the assignment because he is in such great demand around the school as a mentor to teachers learning to use computer technology in their classrooms. For those students who have shown both talent and diligence, real experience takes priority over classroom assignments, and they routinely leave class to assist others. A few of my students are so indispensible that they are given special hall passes which allow them to be essentially anywhere on campus at any time. None has yet abused that privilage.
The eclipse image is an example of the combination and modification of several existing images in Photoshop. This is the work of a first-year student who found Photoshop especially compelling.
In Computer Repair and Computer Networking, the products are not something which can be squeezed through a wire to a web page. Computer Networking students have helped to install wiring, configure computers and keep their teachers and classrooms up and running. Computer Repair students have refurbished more than 400 donated computers in the past two years and distributed them to students who did not have compters at home, and to classrooms and other schools where they were needed. My department head happened by with a camera one day, and provided a few images some of the students at work, and their product. These image files are relatively large, and the page may take three or four minutes to download.
