Week 3: Digital images

Use in the classroom or educational setting:

It is very important for students to understand the need of mass production and trying to make circuits smaller. To convey this message, I chose some complex looking circuits by focusing on connections. Using so many wires, designs get complicated. In computer chips, there are millions of those that are connected to each other. My goal with these images to show students the importance of integrated circuits. Students will be shown a circuit prototype image first and be asked where the complexity is coming from. After pointing out to the circuit connections issue with the discussions and the aid of cropped and focused images, students will be asked to team up and discuss the prototype circuit that my research group had built in the past.

The learning objective would be:

“Students will realize the importance of interconnections of circuit chips and be able to apply this knowledge on a real-life sensor prototype circuit.”

Students will be asked to create similar gifs from what they find on youtube (making sure they choose from Creative commons licensed products) about complex digital circuitry.

Application:

By focusing particular sections of a video or an image, we are applying the principle of reducing extraneous processing. Students are not having to look at an entire video if our point is to show them only a part of it. By using pixlr or any photo editing tool, we are letting students to look at a particular aspect of the image. Modality is also important. My collage text as well as the infographics have a casual tone rather than a book sentence. When we talk about the digital imaging itself, it is apparent that we are actually incorporating multiple aspects of multimedia use in classrooms. I think using not still images by cropping videos and generating gifs are a great idea.

Reflection:

I am a powerpoint lover. I do all my editing and drawing with powerpoint. Although it is limited, it still serves a great deal. I am always hesitant to learn a new drawing or editing software because of the initial time investment. That is one of the reasons I stayed away from Photoshop for example. However, looking at these small online programs, I really loved the idea of being able to do more with little learning. These tools (pixlr and  makeagif in particular), when used properly, are so powerful and can dramatically increase the effectiveness of teaching. I particularly loved makeagif. It is basically an animation that can be created within seconds. Being able to highlight certain areas of an image using pixlr is something I could perhaps use in the future. I enjoyed playing with these tools and might be exploring some other tools in the near future.

Original image was taken from Wikipedia: "Breadboard complex", May 7, 2007, Public domain.

Gif was created using makeagif. Youtube video: thebombzen, "Digital Clock Built Using 7490 Decade Counters and a 555 Timer," via Youtube, June 6, 2013, Creative Commons Attribution,

make animated gifs like this at MakeaGif

An infogrpahic created by using my original research prototype: