Wednesday, April 18

Standardized & Stylized

I am not even taking these tests (at the moment) and it's still draining.

I've been anxious with and for them but someone has to be the adult in the room, so yeah. I guess that's me. :P I am proud of how they have done, as squirrelly as it got today. One more day! Woo hoo!

Went around before testing started and was the primary garden fairy. LOL. I brought in a little bit of my own plant food to help out the sad ones that the classrooms have planted in the past few weeks. We hope to see more progress because there's about four weeks left in the school year! I hope that some of the teacher who planted indoors will start sooner next year. It feels a little anti-climatic to send home cups of dirt that may or may not have seedlings in them in hopes that they bloom two weeks into summer vacation. I know they try to follow the kits they are given but those are the last to be sent out and it just ends up frustrating most of those who participate. My mentor has taken it upon herself to get other materials for the kids to make their own terrariums with a better selection of planting materials and guaranteed to grow seeds. I've brought in some of my seeds for them to possibly use. Okay, enough of the plant-talk.

It was 9:30 and I was already ready to go to bed. However, I don't feel like walking up at 3am. One sad panda that would make me. ... What did I just write?

Oh! I have homework from the one of the classrooms that I've working in to do. I have a Flat Stanley! It's a little earlier than last year that I wrote about him. The kids are going to bring him back with pictures and we'll set up a display that's in the main hallways of the school. I can't wait! My unofficial title at school seems to be creative consultant and I have no problem with that. I can do elementary-aged creativity. Just hope that I can think of something remotely interesting to do with Flat Stanley this weekend. XD I definitely will make sure that I will do something with one next month when I'm in Florida because the environment is so foreign to kids here.

On a vaguely related note, I am obsessively looking into graphics tablets. It's always been a dream of mine to own one despite that I'm not nearly talented enough to use it to its full potential. Ever. It's an electronic tablet that (nowadays) attaches to your computer a la USB port and instead of using a mouse, you use a special pen. Higher-quality tablets have greater number of sensitivity points on the various sizes of workspace.

You can often transcribe your own handwriting either into a graphic or have it type it up for you. Many graphics designers use it instead of drawing on paper, scanning it, and then painstakingly trying to clean up that image on the computer with what I've seen deemed as a "soap on a rope" (mouse). It makes a lot sense to have tools that closely resemble a paintbrush, markers, or pencils for digital art.

I'm hardcore eyeballing ones that not only can be used for basic photo-editing but the one with a bigger workspace (the small ones are roughly 4x6 inches) that is easier to do art on. Many people stop using a mouse. I think I'd keep mine around A) because it's fairly new and a good mouse and B) gaming. End of story, lol. I would love to be able to add doodles and my own handwriting to my digital scrapbooking. That and it would be a million times easier to do the finite movements and adjustments that I attempt to do with a mouse and two hands.

A few years ago, these suckers were $500-800 with the Photoshop boom but before that $1200 for super professionals. I've seen some basic models for $60-80 and I am mentally drooling. I am checking out a particular company that has been a forerunner in this technology for years: Wacom. Check out the products if you want to learn more! They have handy comparison charts. Before I get any weirder...

2 comments:

  1. Ahh! Flat Stanley! Just have to love him! :) I never got a chance to do anything with Flat Stanley and my first graders this year...there's always next year though, right? :)

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    Replies
    1. Always! The kids in this class are just going around town for a week with Stanley so we can put the pictures on display!

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