Photo Editing: Perfecting the Imperfect

This photo editing task has indeed been a challenge for most of us. As a beginner myself I struggled to find a suitable software that is user friendly. I tried Adobe Photoshop CS3, Ulead Photo Impact, Acdsee Photo Edtior 5 and Zoner Photo Studio. But the one that I feel most comfortable with is Adobe Photoshop Elements. It is not only user friendly but even provides step by step guidance to edit or create a photo or a collage.

Pn Foziah's tutorials that were posted in the forum very informative and provided a step by step guidance in editing a photo.

I initially, put in a lot thoughts in thinking about what exactly to edit. I flipped through some of my family photo album that are dear to my mother. I saw my sister's various photograps. I had an idea of creating a collage with these photos and publish the collage as one photo finally. Another great help for in completing this task was this blog that I still do not know how I found. Even though it is in Bahasa Malaysia, you can bank on it for some useful tips. Here is the link: http://zulkiplyharun.com/.

Though I had my photo completed well early, I did not upload it as I thought it was to be on Sunday. Yet, a text message in the middle of the night made me quickly turn on my PC and upload it instantly. However, not all my friends were as fortunate as I was.

Some who had no internet connection in their homes were unable to do what I did. They were allowed to upload the task within a given time later on. I made use of this opportunity to replace my uploaded photo, as I managed to create a more sophisticated photo with my more enhanced editing knowledge.

The Progression

My group made a good proress with the given assignment. We neatly divided the work among us. Yet, we allowed room for interaction and learning from each other. Initially,I had no idea of things such as Keepvid and so on. But, due to this assignment, I have learned how to make use of them. The first thing I learned through this assignment is about downloading videos. Well...I now know how to download a video from You Tube or Google Videos.
In doing this assignment, especially in groups, I managed to learn from my group members a number of things about internet resources. I learned about some useful sites to download necessary softwares such as RealPlayer, that can come in handy in more than one way.
Even though, it has been very time consuming to identify videos of our topic 'Travel and Adventure', I definetely aquired a lot of things that I would normally not. Things like this that I usually take granted are indeed important!!!

Moving with The Flow of The Wave

In this second week of lecture, I find myself struggling to understand completely and completing the assignment assigned to us. This would go for my group members as well. Pn Foziah's lecture was long-winded with many things ponder and for us rethink upon. It kind of pointed out how little we knew about technology and how much more we had to learn in the days to come. As an ancient saying goes, "what we could fill our hands and what we do not know fill the rest of the world." There are always something new for us to learn about as technology is fast growing and is always full of updates.
I came across this incredible video about how technology can assist us as teachers to conduct our lessons. This video easily gives an overview of the technology in classroom by comparing the classroom instrument of the past and present, how technology simplifies teachers’ workload and how it can be integrated in the classroom.

Week 1: Resources: they are everything around us

Hello everyone.
In this 'Choosing and Using Resources For ESL Classroom,' course, we are learning on how find, create, develop and/or adapt resources to suit the needs of our students. What I notice among many of us is that, we go to extreme lengths to develop a teaching resource when in fact there are plenty of them readily available around us. Just take for instance, cartoons or songs. Children today are literally adicted to them . And using them would attract the children towards learning the lesson. As children learn something in a fun way their affective filter is naturally lowered and they can acquire the subject easily.
Here I have discovered some useful link s for us: http://www.britishcouncil.org/languageassistant-teaching-tips-cartoons-comics.htm
http://www.motivationalplus.com/Cartoonsforteachers.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2145417_find-cartoons-teach-science.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=
http://www.songsforteaching.com/yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=y
http://www.isabelperez.com/songs.htmssp_art
http://casnov1.cas.muohio.edu/scienceforohio/Colors_of_Nature/Rr.html



I am looking forward to learn to choose appropriate the resources as well as create/develop them. I am sure that this course has a great deal for me to learn to improve myself as a future teacher.