Today in class we had good discussions about guest speaker Jessie Miller and our visit to PSII. Afterwards, we got down to a topic that I had been avoiding until now: Trello. I have nothing against the digital tool, it’s just that I saw exploring it as one more thing to do when I already had a lot on my plate. That said, up to this point in school I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants when it came to assignments. I’ve constantly been surprised by due dates because I haven’t really been keeping track, and have done a fair bit of last-minute scrambling as a result. So looking at Trello in today’s class was timely. A busy November is approaching, so I’ve decided to finally make use of the tool. I’ve begun adding assignments to my lists and calendar. Another thing I did was add the app to my phone. This way, I can add inquiry ideas or assignments to my to-do list when I’m away from my computer, thereby staying up to date while avoiding having to spend big amounts of time updating it. I look forward to learning more about Trello, exploring and utilizing the built-in inquiry tools, and determining whether or not it will work for me! See below for a tutorial:

Today, we also looked at Photoshop and Illustrator, industry leaders in graphic software. Photoshop is a pixel-based software option (little dots make up the images) and Illustrator is a vector-based software option (images are based on mathematical models that can be manipulated on the screen). I didn’t get to spend any time with either software, as I need to download Photoshop onto my computer, but it looks like a user-friendly tool. We also looked at PowerPoint (and the related tool SmartArt), a tool that is great for creating slide shows. But that’s not all it’s good for! Everything you create on PowerPoint can be exported as a picture or, if you hit ‘save-as’, you can choose to convert files to a bunch of different types (jpeg, etc.). If you don’t want to pay for these tools, there are free options out there, such as GIMP (like Photoshop) and Pixler (like PowerPoint). Needless to say, I have a lot of useful teaching tools to explore. See below for Photoshop and PowerPoint tutorials:

Last, we looked at some cool apps for the phone, such as Prisma (uses AI to turn photos into works of art), MirroLab (applies kaleidoscope effect tp photo), comica (makes picture look like it’s from a comic book). We also looked at BryanMathers.com, a creative commons site with a lot of cool images to choose from! (https://bryanmmathers.com/)