Category Archives: learning

New Year’s Resolution: For a Few Pixels More…

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Excited by all of the megapixel goodness she has discovered over the last few days, my pal Molly continues to look for pictures she can use with her students. After learning how to use Search Tools in a Google Image search to zero in on large pixel pictures, Molly wanted to know if there’s a way to get high resolution images in Flickr.

I was delighted to tell my friend the answer to her question is, “Yes!” To demonstrate, I suggested Molly take a look at the USDA’s Photography Services Division site.

“I thought you were going to help me find megapixel images from Flickr,” she sighed.

I laughed. “All in good time,” I replied asking her to look at the USDA’s Photography Services Division site.

Molly scanned the page. “Oh, I see the link to the PSD’s Flickr account,” she said getting ready to click it and move on.

“Just a second,” I said, “The great thing about the USDA’s Photography Services Division is that all its considerable (700+) photographic images are in the public domain. You and your students can use and reproduce them without permission or fee. Free is good!”

Molly smiled and I continued talking. “In fact, there are many photographs and images maintained by the U.S. government that fall within the public domain.”

Molly was delighted to hear the news. Even so, she clicked the link and made her way to the PSD’s Flickr account and began looking through the images there. After she selected an image she liked, I directed her attention to the View All Sizes link in the upper right hand corner.

View All Sizes Blueberries

“When you click on that,” I explained, “you’ll have be taken to a page with different sized versions of the image that you may download. The larger versions of the images have better image resolution. I doubt that you’ll even need to resize them to be larger. This means that your students won’t be subjected to awful grainy pictures.”

Flickr image, large size

:-)

New Year’s Resolution, Part II: See the Big Picture

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My friend Molly is still looking for powerful images that she can use for instructional purposes. She knows that great pictures can enhance learning by making content more engaging, relevant, memorable, and ultimately, meaningful. Though Molly understands the efficacy of stopping by the Creative Commons Search site (CC Search), she’s hungry for more photographs, illustrations, and graphics. After reading yesterday’s post about the importance of looking for digital graphics with good image resolution, Molly now knows to pay attention to pixel count.

Molly knows that people use Google’s search engine to find images. In fact, she’s done so herself. Molly is well aware of all places at Google where one can switch over to an image search.

Simple Google Image Search

However, Molly wants to know if there are any quick tricks that she can use to make her Google image searches more productive. For example, when she’s searching for images of Charles Dickens and simply clicks one of the many links to Images, she gets any number of pictures.

Results of a simple Google Image search

Even so, Molly has to hover her mouse over a particular picture to discover the image resolution (number of pixels) for that image. In the example above she finds and image that is 311px wide and 400px. That image won’t be so pleasant to gaze upon if she has to increase its size. If Molly is looking for images with a lot of pixels this kind of search will take a long time. Ugh! If only there was  a quicker way to find pictures with a larger image resolution.

Wait! There is a way to do that. Google’s Image Search allows Molly to look for pictures with a certain image resolution. This means she can get Google to return only those images of a particular pixel size.

Detailed Google Image Search

There are only four steps to the process:

  1. Click on the Search Tools button.
  2. Look for and click upon the Any Size drop down menu.
  3. Choose a size. In this case, Molly wants digital images that are Larger than a specified size.
  4. Choose a specified size. Molly is going with 1024 px wide and 768 tall (Why? It’s because most 21-inch monitor screens can show images that are 1024 px x 768 px. If she’s going to be displaying images with a digital projector, she could look for even larger images with (*gasp*) even more pixels!)

After successfully using this technique, Molly will have her pick of digital images rich with pixels! The images have such great image resolution that it’s very unlikely she’ll need to resize them to be larger. This means that her students won’t be subjected to awful grainy pictures. They’ll marvel at how clear and impressive her images are!

Google Image Search Big Pixels

I’m sure this handy trick for zeroing in on the biggest, best images will only server to whet Molly’s appetite for even more compelling images.

Forget Adobe CS2, Get GIMP Instead

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When I awoke yesterday morning there was a rumor bouncing around the internet that Adobe was giving away Creative Suite 2. Well, according to Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from Forbes, all that speculation was unfounded. I hope there aren’t a lot of people upset about this turn of events. If folks are heartbroken, they shouldn’t be. Although Adobe makes killer graphics software, there’s a great alternative to Adobe’s product that works on all computer platforms.

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software.

 

GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) does amazing work. This versatile application is powerful, has a consistently helpful community of users, and is FREE. In fact, GIMP has been free from the beginning. Rather than moping about Adobe CS2. Download and install GIMP and get started making and editing graphics with the satisfaction of knowing you can do it without spending a cent.

Let Me Explain: Why I’m Enjoying Lee LeFever’s Excellent Book

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The Art of Explanation by Lee LeFeverAt some point or another, we’ve all been expected to create an explanation to help family, friends, or co-workers understand our ideas. We share facts and our expert knowledge only to be left with clueless or apathetic expressions. What a frustrating experience–ugh! What if we could easily learn to plan, create, package, and deliver explanations that convince others that our ideas are worth caring about? There is a handy solution! People who are picking up Lee LeFever‘s book The Art of Explanation can explain while they have a reason to smile. Want to feel good about delivering powerful explanations? Get this book!

I’ve been poring over The Art of Explanation by Lee LeFever and I thoroughly enjoy what I have read so far. The book is excellent! The content is a magnet for the reader’s attention. Mr. LeFever, Chief Explainer at Common Craft, consummately practices what he preaches. Beginning with the preface and continuing through the following pages, the author makes a compelling case for examining and honing our ability to craft powerful explanations. What makes LeFever’s work so engrossing is that he does a masterful job explaining what he suggests we do. In brief, the writer :

  • gets us to acknowledge that better explanations are vitally necessary and serve to improve the world and subsequently our quality of life
  • lets us know why crafting better explanations should matter to everyone
  • creates a number of believable (contextual) narratives that help us see explanations from a new perspective
  • links new ideas about and skills for explanations to situations/concepts we are familiar with
  • helps us discern where (in our explanations) we should focus on explaining why or how
  • summarizes what we have learned and moving us forward to the next steps we need to take

Moving through text, we learn how to differentiate words that are often–and erroneously–used interchangeably with the term explanation (e.g. description, definition, instruction, elaboration, report, and illustration). The author convincingly explains the importance of empathy in crafting and “packaging” effective explanations. LeFever makes the point that meaningful explanations help an intended audience clearly understand why they should care to know more about a given topic. He also helps us understand why we fail to properly explain our ideas and goes on to clarify how we can effectively plan our explanations.

I can’t wait to dive back into this book!

Related resources:

Want to know more about the fellow who is widely credited for inspiring the video explanation industry? Read Lee’s biography.

Intrigued? Buy the book!

Book Report

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I am grateful that my wife is so understanding. Though I am an insatiable bibliophile, she tolerates my frequent book buying binges. Even so, during my latest lapse into literary licentiousness, I promised my spouse that I would do more than just purchase, voraciously read, and toss aside my acquisitions. I gave her my word that I would dutifully blog about each of my books. Here are the books that I hope will help me become a little wiser.

I’ll be posting my discoveries/insights here as I work my way through each book.

Slim, Vout, and All Kinds of Hep Conlangs

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Slim Gaillard, musical Renaissance ManThe world became a little more grar-sa on this cee-met-o in 1916. That’s when Mr. Bulee “Slim” Gaillard first graced the universe with his unconventional presence. Actually, the date of Slim’s birth, his birthplace, as well as his lineage are still being disputed. What is known about this remarkable fellow is that he was one of America’s most innovative performers. Gaillard was something of a Renaissance Man. He was a clever songwriter, jazz singer, guitarist, and thoroughly mesmerizing pianist. For an entertaining sampling of Gaillard’s vocalese variations, drop by the Internet Archive’s collection of Slim’s collaborative tunes with Slam Stewart or listen to the embedded selections below.

Gaillard also constructed his own language, a lingo called Vout. Slim’s tongue-in-cheek speak is sometimes referred to a conlang or constructed language. Wikipedia has an engrossing list of constructed languages that features communicative creations of authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling. Also of interest is the Wikiportal devoted to constructed languages.

Note: The picture accompanying this post was constructed from an image that was originally posted to Flickr by Never Slim at http://flickr.com/photos/39989459@N00/371852605. The original image is licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

Mind42: Digital Citizen Qualites Concept Map

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I’ve been participating in Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) and have benefited greatly from the experience. As I work through the challenges in the P2PU courses, I blog my experiences in a journal-specific blog called The Visitor. My most recent challenge, Badge Maker, has me thinking about developing and using badges. I want to create badges as a means of helping people develop qualities that will guide them into becoming the kind of citizens that help a digital community prosper.

I intend to produce a digital course in which participants acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for entering, acclimating to, and supporting reputable online communities. As they learn what they (at least in my opinion) need to know and do, they will be able to earn badges that attest to their mastery and progress. I order to help me reflect upon and hone my own thinking about what participants must understand and apply, I went looking for an easy-to-use, web-based concept map generator.

Although I know of and use a number or concept-mapping/mind-mapping resources and tools (Cacoo, Cmap Tools, FreeMind, Inspiration, Lucidchart, Mindomo, Mindmeister, Text2Mindmap, Tufts University’s Visual Understanding Environment/VUE, to name a few ), I eventually settled on Mind42. I’m hoping that, as I progress through the P2PU’s Badge Maker challenges, my concept map will help me flesh out my thoughts and insights.

This image is a link to a concept map housed at Mind42. It is guiding my badge creation thinking.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what I created with Mind42. One of the aspects of Mind42 that I really liked was that (in addition to offering so many features for free) the service allows me to export my work out to a number of formats (as a FreeMind version, a PDF, as well as a PNG).

Creative Commons License
Concept Map: Qualities of Digital Citizens by Jeff Giddens is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at: http://mind42.com/mindmap/b4cc3675-b97a-4a8b-ad86-308f4dfea2b6?rel=url.

Try, Try, Try Again

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Well, here I go again.

I am going to try to return to blogging on a regular basis.

In many ways, I feel like an alcoholic climbing back on the wagon. I’ve been away from this blog since April of this year. Why?

Work.

With the economy being what it is and needing to keep my bills paid, I’ve been holding down three jobs (one full-time, the other two, part-time). I all but gave up on sleeping this year. People I know who I run into want to know where I’ve been and why I haven’t been posting anything. I wince when they ask and tell them the truth: I have been too damned tired. I seem to have lost myself in any number of one of jobs. On one had, I am grateful I am able to provide for my family. On the other hand, I hate that my work has whittled away what little time I had for blogging. I also know that complaining will do little to alleviate the problem.

So, I am going to try to do this yet again. I recently began working my way through P2PU. I am so glad that I did! The experience required me to create a blog where I can document my progress.  I’m doing it in fits and starts. Creating and posting to that new blog stirred up a desire to come back here and bring Preclectic back to life. I know that consistent blogging will keep my mind and skills sharp so I’m going to try.

Python Counterstrike: Squirrel Ambush

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Kurt Grandis, a soft-spoken software engineer from North Carolina, delivered a humorous and informative presentation at PyCon 2012. PyCon is the largest annual gathering for the community using and developing the open-source Python programming language. During the course of his presentation, Militarizing Your Backyard with Python: Computer Vision and the Squirrel Hordes, Kurt describes how participating in citizen science (ala the Backyard Bird Count) led him to use Python to tap into computer vision libraries and build an automated sentry water cannon capable of soaking bushy-tailed backyard bandits.

Related Resources:

  • Kurt mentions OpenCV in his presentation. What is it? The Wikipedia entry for OpenCV (or Open Source Computer Vision Library) states that it “is a library of programming functions mainly aimed at real time computer vision.”
  • He also talks about support vector machines (SVM) as a means of analyzing images so as to recognize and distinguish bird shapes from squirrel shapes.
  • Canny edge detection also comes into play.
  • NumPy (also mentioned in the presentation) is the fundamental package for scientific computing with Python.