DWRL Lesson Plans - Photo Editing

Introducing Ideology with HSBC Advertisements

Cate Blouke — Sun, 03 Aug 2014 02:16:11 +0000

Author:

Image Credit:

HSBC advertisement

Brief Assignment Overview:

This in-class activity uses the popular HSBC ad campaign (a tryptich of the same image with different value labels) to introduce students to visual rhetoric and ideology. After discussing the ads, students create their own version.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

Single Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Visualization

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Media Console/Projector

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

A computer-enabled classroom will allow for the full activity, in which students create their own version of the ad campaign. This could easily be adapted to an activity without technology.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

First Day/Week

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

A relatively straightforward exercise, this in-class activity serves as a fruitful introduction to talk about commonplaces, ideology, and visual rhetoric. The ads themselves address the issue of values through their captions, such as "The more you look at the world the more you realize that people value the same things but in different ways."

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

If adapting for use wihtout technology, you might make up some handouts with three unlabeled images and ask students to come up with labels. Similarly, if you don't want to take up the full class period, you could pre-select images to provide students.

Instructions For Students:

As your reading from Picturing Texts discussed, we learn how to se the world in particular ways. As the authors argue, "we construct our realities as we learn to see."

While this has certainly been a theme throughout the course, today's exercise addresses how the way that we see/read texts tends to reflect our own values or ideology. Ho we interpret an image can sometimes say more about us than the image itself.

The international banking firm, HSBC, has an ad campaign that reflects this multi-faceted approach to people and reality.

The triptych above labels the same image with three very different value judgments, illustrating quite explicitly how the same object can retain radically different meanings depending on the viewer.

One of the goals of this course (and an essential element of visual analysis) is for you to learn to consider multiple readings of the same image. As such, and as a handy segue into our unit on advertising, for today's exercise you'll create your own version of the HSBC ads.

With a partner (or two), find an image/object that you can label with at least three different meanings - being careful to use an image that is licensed for adaptive reuse. You can find these images by either using the google advanced image search functions or the filters in a Flickr search (both of which I will demonstrate in class). We'll be talking more about Fair Use and Creative Commons as we move into our final unit, so this is good practice to get you started.

After finding an appropriate image, using either photoshop or an image editing platform of your choice, compile the three images into a tryptich and label them with your different value readings (just as in the HSBC ads).

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My students had a great time with this exercise and came up with some nice examples. During the discussion, we also talked about design and parallellism.

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

In this course we will explore the ways in which images can be read, analyzed, constructed, and manipulated. We will interrogate how images inform our reading of historical and political events, of personal identity, of public and private spaces. We will think through issues of self-presentation: how our stylistic choices convey messages to the world around us, and how we interpret the choices of others. We will look at the spaces we frequent and consider the rhetorical effects of everything from the architecture to the furniture to lighting. In short, we will investigate how the visual (non-linguistic, non-textual) world conveys its messages.

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Setting Up a Studio Environment for Multimedia Projects

Scott Nelson — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:27:16 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Matt Jones CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Brief Assignment Overview:

Whenever I teach, I always assign some form of multimedia project, and these practices have helped to set up a studio environment where collaborative multimedia projects can thrive. Rather than post an explicit lesson plan to our site, I thought I’d run through a set of practices that have been successful for me over a few courses.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Course Unit

Semester-long Project

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The pedagogical goals for this assignment are to have students think about what multimedia production skills they already possess and what skills they'd like to develop. Further, these practices foster a collaborative environment where studetns learn to work together toward common goals.

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

Since these are a set of practices rather than a specific use of a technology, what follows can be adapted to any classroom. Because most of the classes I teach are in rooms with computers for the students, I'll assume such a setup. Mainly, the students need some way to communicate with each other outside of class. I use PBWorks wikis for this aim, but a class blog or even email can be used to coordinate student skills.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

While each course's specific assignment may vary, I've sucessfully implemented these practices in many student projects. These projects have ranged from creating infographics to video games to ebooks. What I hope to achieve from these practices is a form of student autonomy that places responsibility for their work squarely with students.

For this aim, it's important that the assignment's product have some form of value outside of the classroom. Digital media needs a real audience, one beyond just the teacher in a particular course. With this in mind, I require that any multimedia project that students create have some venue in which it is showcased. This can be something as simple as posting it to Facebook, or something more complex such as publishing an ebook in Apple's iBookstore. Hopefully, by having an audience beyond the classroom, students will attribute more value to the rhetorical work they do. These projects aren't just for a grade in a self-contained course, but instead rhetorical practices that work upon the networks they inhabit.

Secondly, I set up a type of Craigslist for student skills. Early in the semester, I have students post a brief biography detailing their current skills in multimedia production and skills they'd like to develop. I normally create a new wiki page for students to populate, but this can be done via a course blog or a mass email. This particular stage in setting up the studio environment requires that students think about their relationships to multimedia and the ways they can create in these modes. Undoubtedly, I have students who begin this stage thinking they have no skills in multimedia whatsoever, but a brief class discussion usually gets students thinking about the digital discourse communities they already belong to. Some may be avid social media prosumers, while others may keep Twitter or Instagram accounts.

A further advantage to these Craiglist-style bios is that students can self-select collaborative groups. If, for example, one student has a great idea for a video game, but no skills with Photoshop, the bios are a first step to making those need-based connections. Plus, because students are shopping for skills among their classmates, they tend to create more organic groups with a common goal. This practice seems to reduce the occurances of group members who refuse to contribute to a project and let others "take up their slack." Common interests drive group formation, so individual students are less likely to be bored with the project.

As a final bonus from this practice, because groups are formed based upon skills, sudents tend to create affinity groups that share knowledge. Students teach each other their skills, and thus all participate in the production of the project. While there is the risk that students will only practice what they are already good at, experience has shown me that this isn't the case. Students are genuinely interested in the common goal they've set, and hence, they all work to create a quality product.

The final practice I do in the classroom is to give students time to play. Multimedia takes some time to create, and scheduling in-class time to experiment is extremely important. Digital technologies ask that we manipulate them, to try out hypotheses regarding their rhetorics and grammars. Groups need time to teach each other skills, and studio work days are important for this task.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

As I've indicated above, this is more a set of classroom principles rather than a specific lesson plan. However, they've worked well for my students, especially when they are working with multimedia. A familiarity with programs like Photoshop, GIMP, Illustrator, Inkscape, inDesign, iMovie, Audacity, or GarageBand can help, but I've found the single most important skill to have is flexibility. No instructor can possibly know all there is to know about these multimedia creation applications, so a willingness to learn from students is paramount.

Instructions For Students:

Since this is a set of practices rather than a specific lesson, there aren't any explicit instructions to students beyond what I've outlined above. However, the following may be helpful when attempting to set up a Craigslist-style skill listing:

In a brief paragraph, outline your interests in the upcoming project, listing any type of multimedia you would be willing to work in or learn. The aim here is not necessarily to give only those programs you're already confident in, but instead your interests in creating multimedia using some applcations.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Because I use the Learning Record Online for all of my courses, the practices outlined above aren't assessed in the traditional sense. I circle the room on studio days, talking with students about what problems they may have run into and to get a general sense of the project's progression. The Learning Record allows for these documented processes to be used as evidence for learning, so the multimedia product is much less important than the processes students go through to create their project.

A successful project is one where students learn new ways of communicating in multimedia, and learn to collaborate with likeminded individuals toward a common goal.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

As I've indicated above, these pracitces have been sucessful in a variety of group projects. I've used this with an infographic assignment, a video game prototype assignment, an actual working video game assignment, an interactive image assignment, and an ebook assignment.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

I have successfully used this studio environment in RHE 306, RHE 309K, RHE 312, and ENGL 314J. I'll give each course description below.

RHE 306:

This course is designed to prepare you for the academic writing you do at the University of Texas and writing you will do in your careers and personal lives beyond UT. It is a course designed to teach you not what to think, but how to think on your own. Ultimately, you should learn to be a better thinker, who is able to think critically about topics, other people, and yourself; a better rhetor, who is able to analyze a specific situation and adjust your writing to fit accordingly; and a better communicator, who is able to express ideas effectively.

It will include three units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses (such as RHE 315 and 312) encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 309K: The Rhetoric of Video Games

This course seeks to explore video games as a modern discursive medium. Far from being mere “mindless entertainment,” many video games make explicit or implicit arguments about gender and sexuality, economic systems, corporate practices, geopolitics, and both real and imagined societies. What arguments do these simulations and simulacra mount about how the world is? What arguments do they mount about how the world should be?

Much of the past and current study of digital rhetoric seems to look at the content of computers through applying older means of rhetorical analysis, looking at the text and images contained on computers rather than the processes through which this content is represented. What we seek to explore is a relatively new field—procedural rhetoric—and the ways this new field can inform video game criticism. How do the procedures inherent in video games make arguments about the world?

The course will include three major units with each unit culminating in a composition and including writing instruction that supports the drafting of that composition. Composition is a broad term including symbolic efforts in a variety of media (including video, audio, and web-design, to name just a few). Many lower-division RHE courses encourage or even require composition outside of the traditionally imagined prose essay. Nevertheless, the written component of every lower-division RHE class must meet the writing flag requirements as stipulated by the college. These written assignments may include a variety of genres, including narrative, argument, analysis, or critical reflection. (“Creative” writing assignments—plays, fiction, poetry—are not suitable genres for formal writing assignments.) As required by the college, each major writing assignment includes a peer review process. You will also complete informal writing exercises that prepare you to do the writing necessary in your formal assignments.

RHE 312: Writing in Digital Environments

This course explores rhetoric across a variety of modes: verbal, visual, aural, procedural, haptic, and kinesthetic. “Writing,” in this sense, refers to a variety of inscription technologies. For example, it can be communicating through text on a screen, through the rules of a game, or through the layout and colors in an image. In this course, we will create a variety of digital communications, most with a purpose of persuasion. In doing so, you will learn about digital discourse communities and will eventually present an argument to a chosen digital community.

Each form of media brings with it a set of affordances and constraints. Much of digital media relies upon the logics and metaphors of earlier forms of media, but does present new avenues of distribution and production to a wider range of people. In this course, you will analyze various forms and communities of digital communication and reflect upon these affordances and constraints. Hopefully, you will leave the course with a greater awareness of not only the communicative power of digital media, but also some of the limitations it imposes upon its users and producers.

The course will three major units, with each culminating in digital composition and textual reflection. Throughout the process, you will participate in peer review of your compositions and maintain evidence for use in your Learning Record.

ENGL 314J: Literature & Video Games

In the popular press, literature and video games are frequently positioned as enemies fighting over time. In a recent Slate article, for example, journalist Michael Thompson states that in the time it takes to play one modern video game, “You could read War and Peace, for instance, then follow it up with Thus Spoke Zarathustra and a few starter courses in a new language” (par. 1). Further, the often-cited 2004 National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading at Risk report places video games among other forms of electronic media as “competing” with literature. But both of these sources (and countless others) fail to examine the more complex connections video games have had with literature over the past sixty years. What at first began as a parasitic relationship of video games borrowing, adapting, or extending literary themes, characters, and plots has now become more symbiotic, with both media now remixing each other.

Rather than view video games and print literature as contenders for precious time, this course seeks to explore the ways literature and video games impact one another. That is, this course looks at literature as a practice and not merely a collection of artifacts. Using video games as a frame through which to study literature, we will work our way through a variety of genres, including fables, fantasy, epic poetry, historical fiction, science fiction, mystery, and gothic fiction. This course helps students prepare for upper-division English classes (as well as a wide range of upper-division courses in other UT programs and departments) by focusing on close reading and critical writing, and by introducing formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts. Students will learn how to use the online Oxford English Dictionary as well as other resources essential to literary study.

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Diagnosing Digital Literacy via Student-generated Avatars

Scott Nelson — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:04:56 +0000

Author:

Scott Nelson

Image Credit:

Scott Nelson

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment is purposefully simple because its serves as a diagnostic for students' levels of functional digital literacy in programs like Photoshop and Jing. It also serves to familiarize some students with these programs, and with the processes necessary for maintaining their class blogs.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Ethos

Visual Rhetoric

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The pedagogical goals of this assignment are to determine students' proficiency levels with screencapturing and photo editing programs. I use this diagnostic to determine the depth of later technology lessons.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Computers for all the students; Jing or some other screencapturing program; Photoshop; a class/student blog or website.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

First Day/Week

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

I begin the lesson by directing students to a South Park avatar creator such as the ones at South Park Studios or SP Studios (two different sites that yeild similar results). I then give students abour 20 minutes to create their own South Park avatars using the applications on those sites. The only restriction I give them is that their avatars are created on a solid background, for easier cropping later.

Once everyone has created an avatar, I direct the students to Jing, a screencapturing program from TechSmith. Jing is free, but does require an email for registration. There are other ways to capture what's on the computer screen, but I like to introduce Jing as a possible avenue. Alternately, you could have students just use Command+Shift+4 on a Mac keyboard to define an area of the screen to be captured.

Now that everyone has an avatar created and saved in a file, we take them into Photoshop. The immediate goal here is to cut the avatar from its background. For this, I walk students through the Quick Selection, Magic Wand, and Magnetic Lasso tools. (There are numerous tutorials on YouTube on how to use these.) Using my own avatar, I show them the limtations of each selection technique and show them how to adjust the tolerance for the Magic Wand. After everyone has cut their avtars from their backgrounds, I have them save the files as a .gif or .png so the background remains transparent.Everyone emails me their avatar, and I make a composite image to serve as the banner to our class blog

For a final step, I have students upload thier avatar to the class blog in their introductory posts.I walk students through the process of creating a post on a Wordpress blog I've previously created, and show them how to put images into a post.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

To prepare for this lesson plan, instructors should familiarize themselves with basic Photoshop techniques, particularly selection tools. For an introduction to the different types of selection tools and what each is good for, I recommend this brief tutorial. For other Photoshop techniques I always recommend You Suck at Photoshop, as it's entertaining and instructive.

Techsmith provides a series of videos on how to operate Jing.

I use Wordpress for my class blog. For instructions on how to insert an image into posts, you can visit the Wordpress Support Site.

Instructions For Students:

For the pedagogial aims of this assignment, it's best to do this as an in-class activity, but you can provide them with these instructions should they wish to continue outside of class.

For this assignment, you'll be creating an avatar for our class blog. You'll need to create the avatar, save it as an image file, edit that image file to remove the background, and post the final image within your introductory blog post.

1. Go to either South Park Studio or South Park Avatar Creator. Using the applicaiton on that page, create an avatar by clicking on various options for body type, eyes, clothes, and the like. You don't have to create an avatar that correspnds to your real visage, but you can if you like. To make later steps easier, htough, you should only have a background of a solid color, and preferably a color that contrasts with the outlines of your avatar.

2. Once you have an avatar, open Jing. Use this program to capture an image of your avatar from your screen.

3. Open the image in Photoshop, and use one of the selection tools to select only the background, and delete this background. You should now have a gray-and-white checkered background (meaning it's transparent). Save this image file as either a .gif or .png.

4. Go to the class blog, and create a new post. Somewhere in your introductory post, you should insert your avatar image.

Feedback:

Students are generally positive about this lesson. It's fairly easy, and it's fun for most to play around with these technologies. I probably won't change this assignment in the future, as its simplicity is its strength (see below).

Some students are ay beyond the skills taught in this lesson, but the assignment gives enough flexibility for them to adjust it to their level of expertise.

Evaluation Suggestions:

This assignment isn't evaluated. In fact, this lack of evaluation is necessary for the assignment's pedagogical aims; it's a low-stakes assignment for a variety of reasons. My aims in having students do this exercise early are to get them playing with Photoshop and Jing, and to have them appraoch the technologies with an open mind. A grade for the assignment would add undue pressure to achieve, and run counter to the attitude toward technology I'm trying to cultivate. Later assignments in my class require students to alter images for rhetorical effect, so this assignment serves as an introduction to some useful programs.

During the in-class work, though, I pay close attention to students' skills in navigating the programs. I feel we often assume students come into the class with stellar computer skills, an assumption that overlooks the digital divide. By paying attention to how students move easily through the programs or struggle with their navigation, I can use this early assignment as a diagnostic for some students' functional digital literacy skills.

I take note of the students who either struggle or seem to fly through the assignment. Using this as a diagnostic, I can later pair those types of students together to harness the collective intelligence of the class. I match these students up so that peer teaching can occur.

If I see a student who is struggling with basic functional literacy skills sucha s using a mouse, I'm sure to reiterate to the class that getting better at these programs increases their skills at other programs they'll later encounter, and that I'm available to sit down with them one-on-one to walk them through the process.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Some students are ay beyond the skills taught in this lesson, but the assignment gives enough flexibility for them to adjust it to their level of expertise.

Course Type:

Introductory Writing Course

Course Description:

The Rhetoric of Video Games

Tags:

Visualization Software