Reflection 3, Week 4.

Introduction

For this week's reflection Gary has really opened up the task, by asking us to engage in the choice of three media tools which are Podcasts, Images and Audio. 

In this weeks online lecture I was really impressed with the Microsoft Collage tool shown by Gary which was given as an example. I couldn't help myself but to jump straight in and download this tool and you will find my results further into this week's post. 

I also looked into image re sizing through a software I have used before called Gimp and I also sampled Paint.net. After experimenting with these tools I then completed a Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition (SAMR Model) analysis on further use of these tools in the learning environment.

I then decided to venture into the unknown territory, as that's half the point right? So I decided to have a go at a Podcast. Having been a huge fan of two Podcasts, Conversations with Richard Fidler on ABC and Tim Reid's podcast of Small Business Big Marketing. I have definitely listened to my fair share of podcasts. These great podcasts even kept me entertained on my long drive up from the Sunshine Coast to Rockhampton for rec week. 

Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008

Well this tool that I was so very impressed with first let me down. The first few collages I made came out with nothing but a black image. At first I trialed and errored on the tool by adding different amounts of photos into the collage software, but still had no success. Before moving on and giving it a complete miss. I removed and re installed the software this then worked fine for me. Much like the fix for Gary's microphone problems on the lecture this week. My first collage was a collection of images taken of me surfing at Noosa Heads Qld, please refer to Fig 1.

Fig 1. First attempt of Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008.

I was not completely happy with my first attempt as I noticed the software draws it focuse on the people's profile in the images selected. My research on this later confirmed that the software draws attention by object recognition and face detection Microsoft (2008). As you can see there where other surfers in the water that day that could not be helped being captured in the photos

Gimp Image Cropping

This then moved me onto my next task of image re sizing through cropping. I used a tool I was with familiar with from other university projects which was Gimp. This is a free software used for image manipulation. I re cropped the photos which had other surfers in either the foreground or background. As you will see from my second attempt of the collage in Fig 2. I think you will agree the overall collage certainly combines in a much better and pleasing image overall.

Fig 2. Second attempt of Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008.

The two images I cropped have been listed below to show a before and after of how I cropped out the other people in the images.

Fig 3. Before Cropping.

After Cropping.

Fig 4.

Fig 5. Before Cropping.

Fig 6. After Cropping.

These images took up to a minute to upload due to there size being anywhere from 800KB to 10MB.

Paint.net image re-size.

I then moved onto a new program which Gary suggested called Paint.net. With this program I decided to tried reducing the image size. I also wanted to notice if there was any degrading of the quality on the image. As you can see from the below examples in Fig 7 this was the original image before resizing with a width = 4616 pixels, height = 2952 pixels and size 9.37MB. Compared to the re sized image in Fig 8 which was reduced down to a width = 300 pixels, height = 192 pixels and a size of 25.5KB. There does not seem to be a lot of difference evident to the naked eye. It is suggested however to double click on each image individually. 

Once the image is blown up the quality in the pix-elation does become evident and the original non reduced image does show a much clearer picture. Another factor in the process I recorded in  was upload speed/time. The original image took 40 seconds to upload to the blog. The re-sized image only took 4 seconds this is a huge difference. This might not concern many people but if you had ten or more images to upload this could result in a major time saver in upload time and also internet usage.

Fig 7. Original W4616 x H2952 x Size 9.37MB upload time 40 seconds.

Fig 8. Re-sized in Paint.net W300 x H192 x Size 25.5KB upload time 4 seconds.

SAMR Model

SAMR Model task to modify photographs and incorporate them into students studies through the use of ICT's.

Substitution

An example of substitution for a image task could be for students to bring to the learning environment their own photos in a traditional printed form. To substitute this students would be bringing in photos on a USB stick to use for the task and upload to a computer.

Augmentation

Augmentation would be for students to scan these already printed images onto a computer. Then use a software as demonstrated in this blog such as Gimp and Paint.net to re scale and crop images.

Modification

Would be the student taking their own photos and using software to re scale and modify the pictures to use in a task. An example would be to turn the photos into a collage such as the one I created in Microsoft Research AutoCollage 2008 refer to Fig 1 and 2.

Redefinition

These photos could be used in their creation of a website, blog or wiki creation. Or used in a movie with only still images used as the imagery.

The use of the SAMR model really helped me with my mode of thinking on this task. I can see how I will need to refer back to this model when teaching to ensure the desired affect in the use of ICT's is achieved, which is transformation.

Paddo's Podcast 

The making of the podcast was very simple. I found the audacity software easy to navigate around and it only took me about 30 minutes before I had the basic requirements for recording my own voice and adding some music in as a intro. 

Where I got stuck was then being able to upload this into my blog. It appears most web content is really tailored around images and video. So audio files by them selves are not accepted into YouTube or directly into the blog. This gave me a real challenge and in the end I video recorded a simple page on my mobile phone displaying Paddo's First Podcast Episode 1 hand written on the page. I then uploaded this into Windows Movie Maker and repeated the video footage as I lay my podcast recording over it. Sounds simple now but this took a couple of hours of experimenting until I got it to work in a format which could then be uploaded into my blog. Please listen to the final result by clicking on the below YouTube video in Fig 9.

Fig 9. Paddo's First Podcast Episode 1 recording. (Farriss & Hutchinson, 1987).

In order to know what to talk about in my podcast I created a rough script to follow to avoid silence in the recording. Please refer to this following link in Fig 10 if you wish to see my rough Script.

Script Link

Fig 10. Link to Podcast Script.

This week really laid down some challenges and I really enjoyed the making of the Podcast. Even though I did experience some real technical issues in getting the podcast uploaded to the blog. The podcast is something I would really like to explore further and could be very useful students who may find oral learning more suited to their learning style. This could aid these students by having them listen to a podcast with headphones and then setting some tasks and questions to complete after listening to the podcast.

Anyhow this has felt like a very long and time consuming post as Gary did point out. Please feel free to add any comments they are always really appreciated.


Week 4.
Final Post: 01.04.15 Appprrriiilll FFFOooooolll.

References:

Brewster, R. (2004). Paint.net [Computer software]. Washington, DC: Freeware.

Farriss, A. & Hutchinson, M. (1987). New Sensation [Recorded by INXS]. [Mp3]. Retrieved from http://www.apple.com/au/itunes/music/

Kimball, S. & Mattis, P. (1995). Gimp 2.8 [Computer Software]. Berkeley, CA: The Gimp Development Team.

Mazzoni, D. & Dannenberg, R. (1999). Audacity(R) [Computer software]. Adelaide, SA: Carnegie Mellon University. SourceForge.net.

Microsoft (2008). Forget the Scissors, Microsoft research Makes It Easier to Create Digital Photo Collages. September 4.

Retrieved from http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/autocollage/content/AutoCollagePR.doc