Digital Image Editing March 6, 2007
Posted by Brian in : Exc.el BLogs, GLOW, Uncategorized, digital imaging, social media, teachmeet, web 2.0 , 5commentsAt the last GLOW mentors in service day I was part of a team with Dr Robin Strain and Tess Watson tasked to come up with an in service on digital imaging.
The idea of the course is for staff to acquaint themselves with the hardware and software needed to start working with digital images.
Part of the course will cover basic editing of images. Not all the PC’s in East Lothian schools have editing software installed therefore for everyone to be able to carry out this function a good online editor had to be found.
There are a few out there so I thought I would run through the features of some of them and ask for any others that people would recommend.
A very basic picture editor that lets you resize, crop, rotate, adjust brightness, saturation and hue. Its advantages are that
- no registration required
- it has unlimited undo and redo.
- can handle large files (up to 10mb).
- imports from anywhere on the web.
- handles all file formats.
- can save edited photos to your own flickr account.
With its large, easy to use, buttons this could come in very handy in primary schools and will definitely merit a mention in the final in service presentation.
PXN8 is a very feature rich photo editing application and whilst it may not have the same visual appeal as Snipshot it does let you do a bit more.
- zoom in and out.
- use filters to enhance photos i.e remove red eye, whiten teeth.
- spirit level function to straighten up pictures.
- fun features such as snow, text and charcoal effects.
This is another excellent online application that should make the cut. It offers a bit more than snipshot and may be popular with those wishing to experiment with photo editing.
Phixr is an application that we came across on the day of the GLOW mentors in service and it seemed to tick all the boxes but recently I have had difficulty in getting it to work. It now works well due to the hard work and excellent customer service from the guys at Phixr.
- no need to register with session time of up to 2 hours.
- preview effects before applying.
- variety of effects and photo overlay option.
- email the photo from Phixr itself, or upload it to Flickr, FotoPic, Photobucket, Fotolog, Buzznet, DropShots and LiveJournal.
This was the leading contender. Problems with the website may, however,put this one on hold for the time being.
This is the leading contender thanks to the hard work put in by the guys at Phixr who have managed to get it working in our schools. Excellent customer focus.
If you want to try any of these site out then just click on their logo. Let me know what you think of them and which you think would be most apt for use in schools.
Also if you have come across a good photo editing site then please again let me know and the team will evaluate it for its inclusion in the forthcoming Teachmeet roadshows.
Happy editing.
New Year Thoughts January 9, 2007
Posted by Brian in : Exc.el BLogs, GLOW, SSERC, STAG, Uncategorized , 4commentsHaving a bit of time to myself over the past couple of weeks I had time to sit down and think about the coming year. Here are some of the things I thought about.
I am looking forward to my role as a GLOW mentor. I should be attending my mentor training around at the end of May with the project itself hopefully being rolled out towards the end of the year.
In the first quarter of the year the full report carried out by SSERC and STAG into CPD provision for technical support staff will be ready to be published. It was commissioned by the Scottish Executive and will be extremely important in helping to map out the future of the technician service in Scotland. My hope is that local government education departments take full stock of what it contains and act on its recommendations.
As a member of the Scottish Technicians Advisory Group, and with their support, my aim is to try and improve accessibility to CPD for technical support staff within East Lothian and to assist and advise the council should it wish to implement the recommendations contained within the Scottish Executive report.
At the national technicians conference in Crieff last year one of the points discussed was that technicians should work to raise the awareness of the important job we do in the learning and teaching process. Having received many positive, and the occasional negative comment about my blog I think I have succeeded in doing so however little that it may be.
I am still very much new to the blogging game and not too sure how much I have done to promote the work of support staff. I have had many emails from people far and wide with words of encouragement so I will continue to blog throughout 2007 with my aims being to further raise the profile of support staff , air issues that may have no other forum for discussion and generally try and inform people of the work that is entailed in being a science technician in a large school within a relatively small local authority. 
By last and no means least single status / Job evaluation is still to be finalised in East Lothian. We should be hearing more around mid February. It would be great if the unions and the council came to mutual agreement. Things around the country have got a bit messy in some councils and the thought of going through what other employees and local authorities have gone through doesn’t bear thinking about, especially as the exercise has dragged on for around six years here.
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