A Successful Photoshop Breakout Today! #busedu #worktogether

As a computer teacher, it's often hard to find good "cooperative learning" activities or provide solid opportunities for productive group work that doesn't turn into one person doing all the work and everyone else taking credit. But, my students have quite enjoyed my first two attempts at digital Breakout EDU in the computer lab!

Today, we did the newest Breakout I created for Photoshop. It's here, so check it out!

https://sites.google.com/site/photoshopbreakout1/

I learned much from creating my first one, and I decided to make this one a bit more challenging and the groups bigger even though I was afraid some people might fall through the cracks a bit. I took a chance and out of about 40 students, I truly only had one who I felt was "not engaged" in the activity and wasn't actively working with a group like he should have been.

My first step this time was to provide them with a teeny overview of what a Breakout is on our class website bellringer-- (adapted from https://sites.google.com/site/digitalbreakoutjb/faq)

How do you play a Breakout EDU Digital game?
Breakout EDU Digital games come fully loaded and ready to play - no setup required. Simply navigate to the page and begin looking for clues on the page and connected pages. You might find something in a foreign language, pictures with hidden messages, or QR codes that you can scan with your phone or the QR code Chrome Extension. Our best advice - click on everything possible. If you see something clickable, it’s worth a look. Other clue types include bolded letters, Google Apps documents, invisible text, and whatever else we can come up with! The games require a degree of critical thinking and will not always be completely straightforward. Additionally, some clues act as red herrings (decoys to throw you off). Your goal will be to solve the lock codes (dates, directions, words, numbers) until all are correct.. and then, you win!

What do I need to play?
All you need is an internet connection and a device! You can use your computer and/or your phones, but your team will need to submit the "final locks" on one machine to unlock the game and win. It's helpful to try to work together to solve puzzles more quickly. Your team will be given two CLUE CARDS that you may give to your teacher during the game to help you, but all must agree when to use them and for what part of the game. Otherwise, you cannot use the teacher for help.

If you finish before the hour is up, you will win a prize. :)

I put four sheets of paper on the board with numbers to match how many students were in the class and gave each group an animal name (Llamas, Penguins, etc.).  They were told to sign up on a line in a group of their choice (and since it wasn't "go grab a partner" if you didn't know anyone, you could just sign a line and not feel weird about it) as they walked in. Then, I gave a short intro to the activity, told them they could use computers and/or phones, and that if they worked together well, they might indeed win and get a prize! I also let them know they were only competing against the clock, not against a neighbor group (but not to share answers anyway).

I also provided each group with two HINT cards, which is done in the non-digital version but I didn't think about the first time I ran a game. They had to all sign the back and write which lock they wanted a hint for or which puzzle/clue they wanted help with. Otherwise, they couldn't talk to me during the hour and had to work together to try to solve the locks.

Here is a group of 5, spread out moving back and forth, turning monitors to share information, and working very well together. These guys actually finished the fastest today, in about 30 minutes!

Once a group was able to find all the locks and "win" the game, I took their pictures and treated each group with a candy bag, which they could divide as they saw fit.  Here are my 5 winning groups from today! 

Some thoughts going in to creating my next one....

1. Always have a "pretty easy" lock so they can experience some easy success. 
2. Have at least three people play your game and get feedback before you use a game. For this one, I modified it a bit after feedback from both students and adults who played my game. I added a random word that was buried in some "invisible" text to help them "hint" that there was text over there, a "quote" above a slideshow that helped tell you what to look for in the slideshow, and provided some "help letters" on the crossword/word puzzle to make it easier to complete. These were good changes and things I might not have done without feedback from about 6 people.
3. Provide a tangible reward. I didn't hand out candy the first time I ran one. This time, each team knew a bag of treats was on the line! And, I didn't let them keep the card that I took their pictures with, but a few students asked why they didn't get to keep the card, so maybe they need some sort of "certificate" or something. I know some of the ones I've participated in provided a badge or something for completers.

I'm already looking forward to creating another one! My next one will be in Web Design and will be a hybrid one since I am kicked out of my lab for Aspire testing on November 1. I hope to create physical clues but use an iPad or tablet as the "lock box" for each group. I already have two clues figured out! But, I plan to create a physical version AND a complementary digital version of that one in case someone does want to run it without printing clues.

If you have any good ideas for Web Design or Photoshop locks, let me know!

Photoshop Obama Hope Poster Project #busedu

As we are nearing the end of the presidential term and entering election season, it's fun to see the various takes people have made on the "Obama" Hope poster. I found it quite amusing and then it served as inspiration for my next class project!

From Pinterest

I actually started by watching a tutorial on how to do this from Blue Lightning TV, but it didn't use our version of PS, utilize shapes, and wasn't clear on clipping adjustments, and I wanted to incorporate that into the project. So, I developed my own resource adapted from theirs. I figured I'd share it with you! I really enjoyed their tutorial. I didn't really use the Channel Mixer or the Gradient Map adjustment features in Photoshop before, so I was psyched to learn something new.

• Handout Link
• YouTube Playlist Link

Here is one of my examples:

I'm going to have the students follow the steps (and/or watch the video tutorial I created) to recreate it using their own image of themselves. Then, my early finishers will have the option to parody the poster for a character of their choosing. Like this!

What do you think? It's actually a pretty quick, short project. So, if you are headed into Spring Break with a day or two to kill, maybe give it a shot! Or, perhaps district testing is happening soon and you need filler. Enjoy!

SD card idea! #busedu #photoshopclass

In my Photoshop and Multimedia classes, students are required to purchase SD cards to use for the cameras. However, I have struggled over the years managing how to keep them from losing their cards! If I let them keep them, I have to require a pencil case or something with a zipper. But, then they forget and leave them in the computers or they are found on the floor. And, half of the time, they try to write names in pencil or they rub off so I have no idea who a card belongs to.

I have had binders with those "baseball card" holders (9 per page) and even photo albums from the Dollar Tree with one SD card per slot. But, none of that is perfect. And the album pages would rip or they will fly out as the students turned pages. 

But, I had an idea this year over Christmas! What about a jewelry holder? So, I went to Five Below, a store near me, and bought this pretty dotted one (yes for $5!). It actually had 30 small slots and three large at the bottom and it's perfect. I bought sticker dots and put numbers on each slot that correspond with my 30 student workstations (their assigned seat numbers). Then, I came up with a key! Each hour is assigned a different color (see the Spring 2016 card below). And, they put that sticker on the SD card and label with their initials, hour, and computer number. Then, everyone who sits in seat 1 will store their cards in slot 1 on this! And each has a different color so you can easily identify your card. Since it's not in an album, they aren't lined up waiting to turn the page and several can retrieve their cards at the same time.

I mean, maybe I'm a genius. Just kidding, but this idea is working out really well and had to share. Happy Friday!