Yesterday was the fourth meeting of the Physical Computing class I’m taking… every week gets more and more exciting!! We’ve learned how to manipulate the basic tools, create simple animations using the timeline, use action script (very, very basic though), and make buttons. I guess that might not sound that exciting, but these basics are going to lead to bigger and better things…. We had some time to mess around and try to create a scene, so I tried to recreate the ‘chute’ scene one of our instructors created…. Take a look!!!

Yeah, it doesn’t look that great, but it’s the concepts that count!! Using what I’ve learned so far I’m going to try to make a ‘real’ project this weekend that I plan on using in my senior PreCalculus class. In class today we worked on what I thought was a pretty straightforward word problem— however, instead of spending about 5-10 minutes on it, we wound up spending almost the whole period discussing it/working on similar problems. The problem involves a beaker of an acidic mixture in which x amount of pure acid needs to be added in order to achieve a set percentage of acid in the solution. It hit me that I could make this problem so much easier for them to visualize by using a flash movie instead of static images….. I can totally visualize what I want to happen in the scene, but I think it’s going to take a little bit of work to make it actually happen. We’ll see what I can do this weekend!! Between online tutorials and being able to contact our instructors via email for help I think I’ll be able to pull it off…… so hopefully next time I write I’ll be able to share a much cooler scene than my ‘chute’ movie!!!

Part 2:
Working with the timeline is starting to make more sense, but it’s still a little tough… More frustrating though is trying to draw!!! I don’t have Illustrator, but I was able to download an opensource version called Inkscape. I can see that it’s going to take me a while to learn how to manipulate the various tools, but I was able to do a slightly better job creating images in Inkscape than in Flash…. I need to spend more time creating my ‘acid’ movie, but I guess I have a pretty good start. Take a look:

I obviously have a lot more work to do, hopefully I’ll have more time this week to play around with it…..

chute

I started the Math Department website last year and have been constantly working to add content and improve the design. I have been frustrated by the inability to add to the site from work as well as the inability to easily allow the rest of the Department to contribute directly to the site. I’ve been looking around to see what’s the best and easiest way to change the structure of the site and have decided on using a blog to build the site. Not only can I add the Math Department faculty as contributers to the blog, but it will be possible to post from work. Plus, I’m a lot happier with the look of the site. And it will be possible to change the design in the future without having to spend the time figuring out CSS. Which is great, because while I would love to be able to learn how CSS works and use it, I just don’t have time to invest in that project right now!!! Here’s a link to the old site, and again here’s the link to the new site. If you have an opinion either way, ideas, questions of comments– let me know!!

Other news, I am looking forward to the classes that I have signed up to take during the spring semester ‘08. I will be taking Physical Computing (3 credits), Computers and Technology for Educators (3 credits), Graphics and Multimedia (3 credits), and an Eyebeam workshop (one day inservice workshop on technology). Needless to say, it’s going to be a very busy semester!! I plan on spending most of my Christmas break trying to get everything in place on the Math Department Website as well as with the blogging and podcasting projects that I’m working on…. That way I’ll be able to focus on those classes and not get overwhelmed!! So, we’ll see how that goes Good thing I’m really great at multi-tasking! Seriously though, the great thing about these courses is that they are all project based, while I do very well in classes that are assessed through papers it’s really not my thing. I’m sure there will be some writing element to these courses, but the focus is on learning how to use and implement technology which is right up my alley. I can’t wait!!!!

One more item of interest, I’ve created a PageFlake. It’s a pretty cool idea because I’m not really sold on using G-Reader to keep up with blogs. Plus it’s easy to customize and yet another tool that can be shared, which is great Take a look and maybe sign up for your own account!!

Take care