The digital graphics/animation teacher has the knowledge and skills needed to teach the Foundations, Information Acquisition, Work in Solving Problems, Communication strands of the Technology Applications Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) in digital graphics/animation, in addition to the content described in Technology Applications Standards I-V.

I already had some experience in the area of evaluating graphics, having been a newspaper photographer for several years. But evaluating a photograph had become an almost-subconcious action. This artifact forced me to consciously consider what makes (or doesn't make) a photograph work.

The most enjoyable aspect of this standard was the opportunity to "play" extensively with Photoshop. It's almost an addiction, now, because it is so much fun to manipulate photographs. With a camera, I'm not Ansel Adams -- I don't always get what I visualize on film in one frame. With traditional methods, every attempt to "improve" a photograph is a one-shot deal . . . if it doesn't work, you're back in the Dektol with another print. With Photoshop, "Cancel" or "Step Backward" lets you move back and try again.

Teaching students photography is so much easier this way . . . where re-printing a photo was an annoyance to me, it was often the end of their efforts. Now, we can look at it before they "print" it, and adjust where needed.

Even so, it's still an art -- knowing what to manipulate and how much to manipulate comes with practice and guidance. The TATC course has helped solidify my views and provide a common vocabulary to use with students.

Animation is also fun -- Livemotion is simple to use, and easy to manipulate. The key, I think, is teaching students to visualize an overall action, then break it down into individual steps, then break that down into frames. Meanwhile, the basic principles of composition need to be followed in the overall effect.

Resolution, file size, etc., is still complicated, but knowing the basics makes it possible to pass those on -- and probably more important is being able to look at a student's work and explain to them "what went wrong." That picture that looked so good at one resolution looks jagged and fuzzy at another. I can now explain why. And sometimes, they even "get" it.

Artifact #8 / Artifact #9 / Artifact #10

Caption 8

Indicators:Standard I, Standard II, 7.3s, 7.6s, 7.9s, 7.15s, 7.16s, 7.24s, 7.32s, 7.37s, 7.38s, 7.47s, 8.1s, 8.2s, 8.14s, 8.17s, 8.19s, 8.35s, 8.41s, 8.44s, 8.47s, 9.15s, 9.27s, 9.35s, 9.38s, 9.43s, 10.9s, 10.43s, 11.1s, 11.7s, 11.10s, 11.12s, 11.23s, 11.24s, 11.35s, 11.39s

Artifact #8

Descriptors: Elements of Design, Principles of Design, Digital Graphics

Title: Art Critique Project

Course: Foundations 100-1

Date Created: August 2002

Source: Individual Development

Media: HTML web page

Description: This project required the student to find one example of each of the five TA subject areas and analyze them for their effective use to the elements and principles of design. The following guidelines were used to complete that analysis:

• compare and contrast the rules of visual composition such as "rule of thirds" and "the Golden section/rectangle" with respect to harmony and balance as well as discord and drama.
• identify pictorial qualities in a design such as shape and form, space and depth, and pattern and texture to create visual unity and desired effects in designs.
• evaluate the fundamental concepts of a design, including composition and lighting.
• analyze graphic designs to decide the point of interest and the attributes that determine the dominance and support of the subject.
• identify quality in design, such as consistency, alignment, repetition, and proximity.

Rationale: This assignment was developed to help the student develop an understanding of the principles and elements of design. In analyzing the examples of the TA courses, I was forced to look beyond just the aspect of "that's a pretty picture" and note the reasons why a photograph worked or did not. The assignment called elements of old photography lessons back to the forefront of my mind.

Implications for future: I do not yet know which TA courses I will teach. However, the concepts in this assignment will continue to be important in most of the classes and in any webpage or graphic work I do on my own.

Reviewer's Comments: "Excellent job! I really liked the layout. It made it very easy to get to the different areas of the page. The only suggestion would be to place some links back to the top to prevent from having to scroll back to the the top."

Note: The links were added in a later version.

"I really enjoyed your examples. Your judgement of the digital graphic was exactly what I thought. As I first looked at the picture (before reading your thoughts), I was thinking of how peaceful the picture made things look!!"

Reviewer's Name: Kimberly M. Woodard

Date Reviewed: August 21, 2002

Title: TATC Student

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Caption 9

Indicators: Standard I, Standard II, Standard IV, Standard V, 7.4s, 7.6s, 7.8s, 7.9s, 7.10s, 7.15s, 7.16s, 7.17s, 7.22s, 7.24s, 7.25s, 7.26s, 7.30s, 7.32s, 7.36s, 7.38s, 7.40s, 8.1s, 8.2s, 8.3s, 8.4s, 8.6s, 8.7s, 8.9s, 8.11s, 8.13s, 8.14s, 8.15s, 8.17s, 8.18s, 8.19s, 8.23s, 8.24s, 8.25s, 8.26s, 8.27s, 8.30s, 8.31s, 8.34s, 8.35s, 8.36s, 8.37s, 8.38s, 8.40s, 8.41s, 8.42s, 8.44s, 8.46s, 8.47s, 9.2s, 9.5s, 9.6s, 9.8s, 9.10s, 9.11s, 9.13s, 9.15s, 9.16s, 9.21s, 9.24s, 9.26s, 9.29s, 9.37s, 9.39s, 9.40s, 9.42s, 10.12s, 10.28s, 10.29s, 10.31s, 10.34s, 10.37s, 11.1s, 11.2s, 11.10s, 11.11s, 11.12s, 11.21s, 11.29s, 11.32s, 11.33s, 11.35s, 11.38s, 11.39

Artifact #9

Descriptors: Digital Graphics, Animation

Title: "Creating Digital Graphics"

Course: 101 Digital Graphics

Date Created: October 21, 2002

Source: Captured photos, Internet

Media: Nikkon Coolpix 995, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Livemotion, Dreamweaver

Description: This lesson took shape over the four weeks of our Digital Graphics/Animation course. We began by finding a topic that we would like to build a lesson around and posting both the topic and a brief description of what that topic would entail in a lesson. Over the next three weeks, we would create an entire unit, including items such as lecture notes, a vocabulary listing, instruction sheets, etc. We then would create a website to display the entire unit lesson plan with the following content:

• Vocabulary
• Sample of finished product for the lesson
• Digital Graphic or Animation activity not used as the lesson sample
• Lecture Notes/Handouts
• The homepage
• Step by Step Instructions
• A credits page, showing links to helpful sites and sites where we obtained our information
• Presentation documents, not only for web page viewing but also with links to downloadable, universally accessible formats

Along the way, we would create a sample of the product for our unit lessons if the lesson focused on digital graphics, or if the lesson focused on animation, create a graphic image that could be used on the website to present the unit lesson. We would also develop two or more variations of the product that we created, keeping the original picture with the original colors and applying a color theme (cool/warm/sepia, etc.) in one variation and touching up the photo with colors that you created (using the color mixing theories with your software) in another.

Then we presented our your digital graphic images by creating a web page, which was to include:

• A summary of the software used, the major tools used to create the image and the tasks involved in the creation
• An analysis of the original image's foreground, middle distance and background attributes
• Names for the basic color scheme that comprised the variation images
• An analysis of how the different color themes altered the image's meaning.

Some of the suggested concepts or tools to be applied in the development of this activity were:

• Moving and/or duplicating a selection
• Layering
• Blending
• Eraser tool
• Masking
• Resolutions
• Color Mixing
• Tonal range
• Hues
• Saturation
• History tool

Then, using the theme we selected, we were to create a list of vocabulary terms that the student would need to know in the unit and create and post in .rtf or pdf format a vocabulary word sheet and answer key.

The next step was to create an animation to help illustrate the web site and theme for the lesson, including the following criteria:

• Use at least one object (text or graphic) in the animation
• Ten or more frames in length
• Use basic color concepts

In the animation, we were also expected to incoporate concepts of timelines, layers, keyframes, rotation, scale, cells, frames, tweening and exporting.

After determining the best way to present unit lesson to a class, we were to create step-by-step instructions so that our students could create a project for our lessons. The instructions could come in the form of outlined steps, web tutorials, or any other form we desired.

In the final week of the Digital Graphics/Animation class, we were to create a web site to display the entire unit lesson plan with the following contents:

• The home page for the site, which would contain the animation
• The vocabulary pages
• A sample of finished product for the lesson
• Lecture notes/handouts
• Step-by-step instructions
• A credits page with links to helpful sites
• Clear links to all pages in the site
• Vocabulary and lecture notes/handouts provided in a downloadable, universally assessable format

Rationale: I included this lesson as an artifact because it seemed to emphasize the many different effects possible by manipulating a photo, and combined two things that students love -- music and their own photos. I did get rather tired of looking at my own photo, but I was the only member of my family who would pose. I was impressed by how effective some of the changes were at changing the impact of the CD cover.

Implications for future: This was a fun project for me, and I suspect it would be for students, also, for the reasons stated above. I see it as a mid-year project, maybe moving from a unit on digital graphics to one on animation, since the animation was really just "eye candy," and contributed little to the overall project. Still, it would be a good way to introduce an animation element.

Reviewer's Comments: This is a well prepared lesson. You have made it very easy for anyone to take use it as is. Students will really enjoy putting this together. They all think they are going to be stars some day and this is a good way for them to fantasize. Since I will be teaching DG for the first time, I will be using this lesson and won't change a thing. I love your web page design, too.

Reviewer's Name: Dotty Hare

Date Reviewed: July 1, 2003

Title: TATC

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Caption 10

Indicators: Standard IV, 7.6s, 7.9s, 7.10s, 7.15s, 8.1s, 8.2s, 8.5s, 8.11s, 8.14s, 8.17s, 8.22s, 8.25s, 8.35s, 8.38s, 8.40s, 8.44s, 8.45s, 8.47s, 9.11s, 9.20s, 9.41s,11.29s, 11.30s

Artifact #10

Descriptors: Digital Graphics, Animation

Title: Digital Bio

Course: 101 Digital Graphics

Date Created: October 12, 2002

Source: Scanned/captured photos, Internet

Media: Html webpage

Description: We were directed to give a brief introduction of ourselves, in pictures, by drawing a picture or making a collage of ourselves as online learners. We were expected to "tell us about you, how you feel, how you learn, your family, etc," and were encouraged to use some of the following digital graphic concepts in this activity:

• Using the selection tools such as rectangular marquee, elliptical marquee, lasso, crop, or magic wand
• Moving and/or duplicating a selection
• Layering
• Adding text
• Drawing tools
  

Rationale: I included this artifact because it frankly was a great deal of fun to create. It also gave me an opportunity to experiment with animation in piecing together a computer photograph, a Shiner Bock beer bottle, a photograph of myself and the word "Help!" to illustrate the long hours spent on the project and with modifying an already-created animated gif by taking the animated gif of a caveman smashing a computer with a club and adding the words "TATC Frustration" to the animation. I took an image which was originally of Catherine Zeta-Jones on the arm of Sean Connery and replaced Ms. Jones' head with TATC classmate Dotty Hare's and created a mouseover to exchange Connery's face with my balding mug. I created a collage of photos to illustrate my interests (adjusting many of them to achieve better clarity), and cropped, removed and replaced backgrounds and placed the photos in layers to produce a coherent whole. Then I optimized the created collage for web display and cut it into slices to make it as fast loading as possible.

Implications for future: I see this as an assignment that could serve two purposes: (1) reinforcing lessons students learn in digital graphics/animation, and (2) getting to know students a little better. Too often, I just know the mask they present at school, and am often surprised when I find things behind that mask that I might not suspect.

Reviewer's Comments: Absolutely loved your graphics! You made it humorous, and still seemed to get in all the different techniques, etc. Sean Connery look alike?...seemed like it to me!

Reviewer's Name: Kathleen Markwardt

Date Reviewed: October 12, 2002

Title: TATC student

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