Standard VIII

Digital Graphics/Animation

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.

Reflection

As I entered this course, I think I was intimidated--not so much by the content as by the tools.  My experience with graphic software was almost nil.  Once I had completed my study of this standard, the intimidation factor had waned, but I'm still not where I want to be.

I learned the most from using those tools I already had knowledge of to gain knowledge of unfamiliar tools - for instance, using MS Photo Editor (familiar) for one task, then opening the image in Photoshop (unfamiliar) for another.  Familiarity gave me confidence, and of course, unfamiliarity gave me broader knowledge.

I think I grew the most in the area of details - I'm now more aware of the subtle aspects of image selections, layers, color depth, opacity, etc.  There's no specific area where I'd like to see extensive growth at this time - I'm still so inexperienced that I think I could learn much more in all aspects of digital graphics.

Artifact #1 / Artifact #3

Caption 1

Indicators: 7.36s, 9.1s, 9.21s, 7.37s, 9.16s, 11.12s, 10.19s, 10.2s, 8.1s, 8.2s, 8.3s, 8.4s, 8.22s, 8.23s, 8.24s, 8.25s, 8.26s, 8.27s, 8.41s, 8.42s, 8.44s

Artifact #1

Descriptors: Digital Graphics

Title: Basketballs - Elements of Design (Graphic posted below)
Course: Foundations 100
Date Created: August 2002
Source: Individual Project
Media: Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word

Description: A graphic (jpeg) file using a basketball to show the major elements of design.

Rationale: For the assignment, "Representing Design," we were asked to create a graphic that would use one basic form to exhibit the various Elements and Principles of Design.  Because I like basketball, I chose to use a variety of perspectives on a basketball.  I'm very new to Photoshop, so I elected to use the drawing tools in Word to create the basic form.  Then I imported that graphic into Photoshop for refinement.  This piece is a compilation of the various perspectives I created in Photoshop.  I'm proud of it because I never thought I'd complete it, but it's not perfect.  For one thing, I think the palette is simply too big in its native form--this makes it difficult to see as an individual file, and it also takes more memory than it probably should.

Implications for future: I learned here to be less scared of Photoshop than I once was.  I also gained much from using what I knew (Word) as a bridge to what I needed to learn (Photoshop).  I'm still not totally comfortable with Photoshop, but I broke through some mental barriers in this project and can now go forward.

Reviewers Comments: I really enjoyed viewing this project of Peter’s.  His color choices were excellent and the concepts were very well presented.  They were presented in a very understandable manner and I was able to clear up one mis-conception I held in regards to form and space.  I really enjoyed the graphics!  Great job getting the idea across and the presentation was very professional!

Reviewer Name: Stacy Hayes

Date Reviewed: August 2002

Title: Teacher

Reviewer's Comments: I enjoyed your project!  We used the same image and our project is totally different.  I really enjoyed your movement and contrast example.  I never looked at it that way.  I also liked your web page because you could see the entire webpage and also zoom in to see the images up close.  Nice Job!!

Reviewer Name: Jamie Crider

Date Reviewed: August 2002

Title: Teacher, Sanger High School

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Caption 3

Indicators: 8.1k, 8.2s, 8.6s, 8.8s, 8.2k, 8.17s, 8.18s, 8.19s, 9.1k, 9.4s, 9.5s, 9.9s, 9.2k, 9.18s, 9.7k, 9.22s, 9.23s, 9.24s, 9.25s, 9.9k, 9.12k, 9.34s, 9.35s, 9.10k, 9.40s, 9.44s, 9.47s, 9.51s

Artifact #3

Descriptors: Animation, Web Authoring
Title: Splash Page - "Arctic Blast" Photo Album
Course: 103 Multimedia
Date Created: February 2003
Source: Individual Project
Media: Adobe LiveMotion 2.0

Description: The project in question required this particular animation as the introduction to a Powerpoint slideshow.  The main page itself was required to contain a storyboard of the show, then the slideshow would be accessible from there.  We were required to include a splash page as a lead-in to our main page.  Obviously, the splash page needed to relate thematically to the slideshow.

Rationale: It just so happened that on the days leading up to this assignment's due date, the DFW Metroplex experienced its worst ice storm in around 20 years.  My family, like most, was trapped at home.  I decided at the last minute to scrap my original slideshow idea, snap a few photographs, and develop a slideshow depicting the "Arctic Blast" (a favorite phrase used on evening news graphics).  I wanted the phrase to appear on the splash page, and I decided to depict sleet falling in my animation.  It made sense to use hexagons rather than snowflakes, since sleet is essentially angled ice pellets.  I also coordinated the background in the animation to the background for the two web pages.  I included this in my portfolio because it was the most successful animation I had developed to date.

Implications for future: As with Digital Graphics, I was highly INexperienced in animation as I entered TATC.  I had developed an animation for a previous project, but it was not exactly as I initially envisioned.  This animation, on the other hand, was pretty much how I planned it.  I especially intended the contrast of the single pellet that "meanders" its way to the ground as the text appears.  It was at this point in my TATC experience that I knew I was becoming fairly competent with animations.

Reviewers Comments:

Reviewer Name: Diana G. Saenz

Title: TATC Student; Technology Teacher - Lamar HS

Date Reviewed: February 2003

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