http://billgx.edublogs.org Exploring the intersection of technology and the arts Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:45:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm certain there are plenty who would disagree with me, but my personal social networking policy is to follow these two rules: 1. Accept any friend requests from students, but never initiate the request. 2. Never say or show anything on Facebook that I wouldn't want said or shown in class. I've been ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/20/do-you-facebook-with-students/ Last week, I introduced my visual literacy students to the fascinating and entertaining documentary film "Helvetica" in which world famous designers praise and berate the ubiquitous typeface. My students were amazed at the force and passion with which these designers spoke about simple sans-serif lettering. This morning, I'm catching up on ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/17/noticing-typography/ One of the cool new features of the WordPress Headway 1.5 theme is the Photo Gallery. I'm switching my wife's business website to a WordPress format to simplify content management and to allow her to be a content contributor. I'm writing up this tutorial because there are a number of steps ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/16/how-to-make-a-headway-photo-gallery/ Having Fun I just found a cool Firefox plugin that I really like. It's called ColorSuckr. After installing it, you can right-click any photo on the web and extract the main colors from the image in order to create a color scheme. Here are the results of sucking colors out of ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/13/grab-image-colors-with-firefox-plugin/ I recently heard on NPR that the school library at Cushing Academy, Ashburnham, MA has completely done away with books in favor of digital texts. From the NPR story: Dean of Academics Suzie Carlisle says school officials had noticed the trend. She says surveys they conducted showed students weren't turning to ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/12/school-library-ditches-books/ It seems that a young teacher in Georgia was pressured into resigning her job because of her online activities on Facebook. A parent complained to school administrators about Ashley Payne's Facebook profile, which included vacation photos of her consuming alcoholic beverages and also contained profanity in some of her status ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/12/teacher-loses-job-because-of-facebook/ This video was sent to me by a colleague at work. I was immediately reminded of Daniel Pink, author of "A Whole New Mind" and frequent writer about emotionally intelligent design. Let's face it, no amount of cajoling, criticizing or high pressuring can compete with sensitivity to the feelings of the ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/03/emotional-intelligence-fights-obesity/ In 2007 Vinton Cerf, a founding father of the Internet wrote that what this country needs is another Sputnik to reinvigorate science education. After reading Cerf's article, last spring I did a research project on the National Defense Education Act. The NDEA was the US response to the launch of ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/11/02/5/ It is difficult to live where I do and not be reminded from time to time of the 1918 Willa Cather classic, “My Ántonia”. Today was one such day. As I drove to work through the gently rolling prairie hills of north central Kansas, I saw mile after mile of ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/10/30/my-antonia/ I've been noticing over the past several years some really rad pumpkin designs around Halloween. My suspicion is with the onset of digital photography coupled with manipulation software, it is becoming easier for the average person to put a fairly complex design on a pumpkin. In my Visual Literacy class, we've ... http://billgx.edublogs.org/2009/10/27/where-the-wild-things-are-jack-o-lantern-design/