WEBSITE DESIGN PART I: Home Page Layout

For a description of Part I, click here Make sure to click on the file that says, "PART I"
With the recent installation of Dreamweaver, the 8th grade students are now able to produce actual websites that can be posted live on the internet. The unique aspect about this assignment is that students are building every element of these sites themselves, starting with the home page layouts. Here are a few (please keep in mind that these are works in progress and reflect the initial stage in building an effective website):

(above: Jack Findley)

(above: Hans Hinebaugh)

(above: Payton Coates and Kendall Harden)

DIGITAL NARRATIVES

This was an assignment that I gave to the 8th grade students in Digital Arts. I assigned this project before I saw what Mr. Kevin Dennis did in his spare time. Nice! I like the Animoto transitions and I think that we could do some really interesting things in DA with this type sequencing.

For the Digital Narrative assignment, each student had to prodcue a ten slide, fully-narrated presentation on one of the following subjects: a favorite story/novel, an important/significant historical even, or a story/poem/sequence that they have created. You can go to Google Docs, to retreive the criteria sheet.

Web design, animations, and much more

Hello out there! Boy, it has been a while! During the final two months of the school year, I hope to be posting updates on the developments of the 8th grade website designs. My hope is that we can "go live" with some of these sites by year's end. Students are currently (4/7/10) wrapping up their Digital Narrative assignments (which I will attempt to provide some samples of on a different post).

Embedding a File

Braxton Castle Sketchup design work by Will Blum (Moeller HS '09)
additional renderings composed by Mr. Troy Woolery

Finals Week and other misc. stuff

Finals week is, well, finals week. Both the 7th and 8th grade students will complete a Photoshop evaluation as their final. Other than that, not much else to report...

Next week (Jan. 18th-19th) will be a short one. 7th grade students will begin work on the Digital Photography LJ module, as well as taking their photos for the upcoming Warhol Pop Art Posters.

The details of the Pop Art Poster assignment will be posted next week...this assignment will also allow for student reflections, so keep an eye out for the comments section below!

Digital Photography

This week, although shortened by Mother Nature, was dedicated to two focal points: 1.) researching the history of digital photography and 2.) re-thinking how we interprete imagery.

Researching the history of digital photography introduced the students to terms such as "floppy discs (huh? what?), video tape recorders, and megapixels." These terms may not seem archaic to some of us, but they are already yesterday's news to many of the students.

In terms of re-thinking how we interprete imagery, the students worked through an activity in which they were shown an image of a gentleman by the name of Phineas Gage. I (the teacher) then read an article from the Smithsonian magazine, which detailed a horrific accident that Mr. Gage had to endure while working with some railroad tiles. After I read the article, I then had the students look again at the picture of Phineas Gage. I wanted them to think about how thier impressions changed of the image...what did they think before I read the article, and what did they think after?

Following the article, the students worked on an activity in which they composed drawings of moments that left significant impacts on their lives. These drawings were done on the front of a white, 8.5" X 11" sheet of paper. Then, on the back, the students drew the same moment, but slightly altered the image (i.e., a shape was subtracted, or a color was slightly changed).

Again, the whole point of this activity is to open up the discussion between both teacher and students to engage in a conversation of how we view things. Ultimately, this conversation should head in the direction of discussing the power of photography, and the power that still images can have over us.

This week's activities will transition into the next week of Digital Arts, when we will discuss the work of Andy Warhol, and the students will begin work on their Pop Art posters!!!

8th Grade Animated Sentences: Global Issues

For this assignment, 8th grade students created "animated sentences", which are actual Movie Maker files in which the students seek to focus on particular global issues that concern them.


The criteria for the assignment is attached just below: