Ross's Portfolio

Graphics: Isolating An Image From Its Background

As part of a UWS "Interactive PowerPoint for Teaching" workshop I helped out at today, I was asked by quite a few people how to remove the background from a picture so that it could be integrated into a presentation more cleanly. I showed a few people some relatively simple tricks using free, open source software called Gimp. In order to make this information more widely available, I have put together a short guide on how this can be done.

Library Thing

For all the book lovers our there (or which I am one), I have recently been playing with a great online tool. It is called Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com) and it can be used to catalog the books you own, have read and want to read.

Assignment 1

Due to a timetable conflict I was unable to undertake the group project for assignment 1. Instead, I aimed to answer the following question:

In relation to a recently delivered unit of work, consider how you would utilise two extra weeks with the same students on the same topic. Your answer should make use of the assessment tasks undertaken by students, as well as your own understanding of their development. Your answer should take the form of a 1500 word reflective essay.

My submission can be seen in the attachment below.

IPT Syllabus Analysis

The two visualisations below were produced as an excercise in coming to grips with the NSW Stage 6 Syllabus for the IPT strand of computing. The first is a simple word cloud illustrating some of the key ideas in the syllabus, as represented by word frequency in the syllabus documents. The second attemptes to add some structure to these ideas in order that they be understood at a higher level.

Click on either image to see a larger version.

Focus Week

I spent the last week observing and teaching at Cleveland Street Intensive English High School in the City. This school is one of a hand full of IECs (Intensitve English Centres) spread around Sydney. Their role is to take in new, non-English speaking arrivals to the city and prepare them for entry into the school system.

Visual Literacy

Today, as part of my Focus Week at Cleveland Street Intensive English High School, I attended a CPD session on visual literacy. This is not an area I have a great deal of experience with, and so I feel like I gained a lot from the workshop.

Big Ideas Graphically

The attached file outlines the big ideas I have drawn from the IPT syllabus, displayed in a logical and graphically descriptive manner. In short, my big ideas are to do with understanding ICT in a holistic fashion: rather than discreet technologys in isolation, I hope to help students see the entire fabric of ICT, and how it is intertwined with human society.  This document can be used with students or fellow teachers.

Thoughts on Being Human

When I was younger I operated to what I held as a strict, innate moral code. I believed I was, by my very nature, a good person. As time has passed I have behaved in different ways, learned new things and been exposed to many more people. This has caused me to realise the fallacy of my earlier beliefs. It seems to me now, that humans are, without passing judgement on any individual, simply base animals. What appears to set us aside from other animals is our development of complex culture, language and society.

Project & Tasks

For this week's computing class we worked through a process of using Big Ideas to form questions that inspire projects. Projects are then linked to syllabus outcomes, and are then further refined into a number of tasks. Tasks can subsequently be broken down into activities.

Attached below are 3 documents which show my working through this process.  

UWS ICT & Education Workshop, 08/08/2009

This page refers to a CPD workshop I ran at the "Beginner's Teachers Forum" at the University of Western Sydney School of Education.

Information for participants: through this workshop I hope to balance hands-on exercises, suggestions, theory and values, with the aim of helping you to better incorporate ICT into your classroom practice. Listed below you will find all of the resources that we will use in this session.

Feel free to leave feedback or questions in the comments section below,