Website Design Class Conquered!

Here is the link if you would like to check out my site!

http://turing.iuk.edu/~n245-7/project/

I'm not sure how long it will be available on this server since it is through the university, but until they remove it - this is the link! I think future plans for my site include transfering the artwork images to a slideshow format rather than thumbnails. As thumbnails the whole page has to be re-arranged to add or remove work; as a slideshow the only thing I would have to change would be the slideshow! I also plan to update te artwork shown on here with better quality images and more recent work. Much of my high school work is here and I would like to tailor the viewing experience more to recent, more illustration oriented work to attract book illustration jobs!

Update on Website Course

I'm still here clicking away on what will hopefully be a good investment of time and money. This course has been more challenging than I originally expected it to be but I am happy so far with the results. Originally I hoped to be able to share the steps to creating a website here as I learned them...turns out that was a pretty naive idea! I will tell you that The textbook I am using (pictured below) is very helpful and easy to navigate. It steps out the Dreamweaver software functions one by one. If you already own the Dreamweaver software and are having difficulty figuring it out, this book will help!



If you do not own the software already I would reccomend taking the IUK N245 course. The cost of tuition for the 3 credit course is not much more than the retail cost of the Adobe design suite of programs that you are able to download free as a student AND you get the instruction to go with it.

I am beginning phase two of my site heatherfouts.com As soon as I have it viewer friendly I will post the URL here! Thanks everyone for being patient! Oh~ also new artwork coming soon...

Have a Happy Holiday!

Back to School!

Where did the Summer go? I have a lot of changes to report and some good news, too! I am enrolled this semester in an intro to website design course. The accelerated 8 week course begins October 19th and I will try to report what I am learning as I go. Hopefully anyone else out there thinking about building their own website can/will benefit from my experience. I am very intimidated by the task of learning the Adobe Dreamweaver software AND trying to cram in as much knowledge of XHTML and CSS into my head before beginning the course. I was so doubtful after reading the class syllabus that I e-mailed the instructor to make sure this course was going to be a reasonable endeavor for me. He sent me a pretty optimistic response. I hope I can keep up and do well....we'll see!

My good news is that over the Summer I was officially accepted to the master's program in Art Education at IU Bloomington. This fall will be my last semester as an IU Kokomo student. I plan to begin coursework online and via some IUK classes then transfer to Bloomington when the distance learning options run out.

Meantime...watch for updates soon as I begin my journey into website design!

W200 Happy Ending

Well I just completed my last assignment for W200 Using Computers in Education. I have really enjoyed this class. I'll continue to update my blog from time to time as I learn new cool technology goodies. Until my next post~Have a great Summer!

W200 Critical Thinking

This is our last module of work for my W200 Using Computers in Education course. We were assigned two articles to read, had to write 6-8 paragraphs on the topic ourselves, then had to create a wiki to share the information on. Next week we'll combine our thoughts into a single document using Google docs.
A wiki is a shared workspace where a group of people can upload files, create agendas, lists, assignments, etc. These documents can then be read, edited, and added to by all individuals belonging to the group. If you're interrested, my group's research topic was Questioning Technology Use. Please feel free to visit my wiki at:

http://visualartsgirl.pbworks.com/

W200 RSS Feeds

Ok. Back when we were creating our blogs for this class I somehow figured out how to add the RSS feed option to my blog. I knew it had something to do with subscribing to my blog but didn't fully understand what that meant. This week's assignment cleared all of that up for me. I decided to attach the YouTube video our instructor provided us so that my non-W200 classmate followers may learn as we did:

Our assignment was to create a reader using iGoogle, Yahoo!, or our blog and subscribe to five posts. I used iGoogle for the assignment because I'm obsessively picky about keeping my online accounts as organized as possible. Since our instructor mentioned we would use iGoogle for a future assignment I thought it would be a good site to "contain" this material. I did, however apply what I learned to my Yahoo! homepage, it now comes up with the latest news from defleppard.com. (smile)
I was surprised how many of the websites I bookmarked last week did not have RSS feeds! I thought, oh this assignment will be easy! Just pull up some bookmarks from last week's assignment and subscribe? Wrong. I had to search for new sites and blogs because most of what I bookmarked did not have feeds. I even bookmarked a site called Art Education 2.0 which is supposed to be all about how Web 2.0 propels Art Education......no feed. Bummer. Anyhow, my new RSS feed websites and blogs have been added to my delicious site. They'll be the ones tagged "rss."
I think using feeds will definitely be something I continue. The sites added for this assignment to the iGoogle account are still new to me, but in time I'll decide if they are sites I need to have constant update on. While "playing around" on my Yahoo! site looking for how to add feeds I did discover how to edit the content on my homepage. I can now read my facebook and Twitter updates on my homepage when I sign in. Like the feeds, its another time-saving application. That was not the first time an assignment in this class has lead to the discovery of other useful things!

W200 Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a method of storing, organizing, and sharing websites via the use of "tags" which make them easy to retrieve. If you have ever sent someone a link to a website you found interesting, you have participated in social bookmarking. For this assignment we explored Yahoo!'s free bookmarking service Delicious. We set up our own page and saved 20+ bookmarks of sites that will assist us as we move forward in our careers. I have added a gadget at the bottom of my blog page that lists my Delicious tags and invites you to subscribe to my network. Here is the link to my Delicious page if you would like to check it out:

http://www.delicious.com/visualartsgirl

W200 Library Resources

For this week's assignment we researched a topic of our choice using the IUPUI library database. We then shared our findings in a Publisher document which we posted directly to the instructor. I decided to share mine on my blog so that my friends could view it as well. To share my newsletter's PDF file, I uploaded it to scribd.com and embedded the HTML to my post. Let me know what you think!

Blog Newsletter Vol 1

Just Have to Share It!

I just have to share it! Take a break from W200, watch, enjoy, go buy a ticket! I know two girls who will be there August 12th!

W200 Assistive Technologies

For this assignment we were asked to explore technology which makes the content on the Internet accessible to everyone. The first group of websites I researched help break through language barriers. I was not surprised to find there are several websites that have the tools available to translate e-mails, typed phrases and words, even whole websites into the language of your preference. Three specific websites we were asked to check out were Google Translate, Paralink, and Babelfish. Of the three I thought that Babelfish by Yahoo! was the most user-friendly. I even installed their translator tool to my blog (see lower right hand side.) You can now translate my blog to any language listed in the drop down box just by clicking on it. There are a few drawbacks to the translation tools such as Babelfish. The translations are not always spot-on. I feel that the tool does get the translation close enough that someone needing the other language could figure out easily what is trying to be said; but it is definitely not a tool to use as a cheat for your mid-term French paper due Friday because most times the grammar and tenses are off. Another problem I experienced was computer lock-up while translating. My computer did well with translating to languages that do not use symbols for text, but locked up most times when translating to symbols. I tend to think this may be just a problem my five year old processor has and not a problem with the actual tool, but thought it merited mention in case others experience the same.
The second group of technology we researched for this assignment included tools for individuals with situations that make Internet use difficult. The websites I explored for this part of the assignment were www.microsoft.com/enable/at and http://www.wested.org/cs/tdl/print/docs/tdl/home.htm . Microsoft Enable gives instruction on ways one can customize computer settings and Microsoft software settings to better suit the user. New settings can aid with visual, hearing, and dexterity impairments. The West Ed website I felt gave more detailed description as to why one would such tools, sharing scenarios in which the technology was used and explaining how not only a physical disability, but also learning differences in individuals can constitute a need for assistive technology.
Finally, we were asked to research Photosensitive Epilepsy. This is a condition most common in people age 8 through 20. It involves a person's sensitivity to flashing lights, moving pictures, transitions from light to dark that may trigger sickness or seizures. I found this website helpful: http://www.epilepsymatters.com/english/faqphotosensitive.html#whatisphoto
At the bank, we have a phrase that we use-"Know your customer!" It's just a quick phrase we use communicate to each other that- I know who this person is, what they need, what they do, what they can't do, what they want, where they live, what is a normal transaction and what isn't, etc. It's how we protect our customers from fraud and banking errors. I think the same practice could be applied as an educator to "Know your student!" It's all about paying attention and asking questions. If you know your student has a history of epilepsy you aren't going to sit them in front of a flashing computer monitor, you're going to find another method to communicate the lesson.
I feel like this lesson covered some very important topics. No cool artsy whatsits to share on this post, just straightforward information useful to educators and individuals alike.

W200 Emerging Technologies: Communication

In this post I am showcasing an online application used to aid in communication.  These applications are used to share ideas, agendas, flowcharts, just about anything you can think of back and forth with a chosen group of individuals. After researching a few of the sites suggested for this module I decided to share monkeyon.com purely because this application makes me laugh...hard. Thank goodness there was no Internet when I was a teenager! (You'll see what I mean...)
Monkeyon.com allows one to create a to do list online and delegate the items on the list to whomever they choose using only their e-mail address. Each item on the list is a "monkey." You assign a description of the task you want done and a deadline. Once you send the "monkey" to the person you want to do the task, the application continues to send the monkey repeatedly until the task is completed or the deadline passes. In other words, the monkey is on their back until the task is done. When the task is done, the receiver "kills" the monkey which prompts an e-mail message bask to the sender. When the task expires the monkey "dies of old age." Dead monkeys can of course be revived and re-sent. Once signed up for monkeyon, you will be able to manage your monkeys sent, send new monkeys, and view monkeys sent to you all via tabs on your homepage. The free version of this application allows 5 monkeys to be active at a time. To have the ability to send unlimited numbers of monkeys there is a $20 charge.

Example of a monkey:

Since it may be hard to read, the e-mail states that "Heather has sent me, a highly trained and super-intelligent monkey, to remind you to: Finish Your Homework!"
I think this application is a cute non-offensive way to communicate that you're holding someone accountable for something. It could be a fun parenting tool. A teacher could use this application to follow up on tasks assigned to parents or students alike. Follow the link, check it out & tell me what you think!

http://monkeyon.com/

W200 Emerging Technologies: Photosharing

I LOVED THIS ASSIGNMENT! For this lesson we explored photosharing applications available on the Internet. Being that I'm an avid photographer and scrapbooker this was right up my alley! I began my search for websites using this website: http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/  This site was provided to us by our professor and it has links to many useful sites. After reviewing a few I chose to use Hallmark's Smilebox application:  http://www.smilebox.com/
Smilebox is a photosharing website that allows you to create your own photo slideshows, videos, and e-greetings using pre-designed templates. The program recognizes photos already stored in your computer's My Pictures folder, you just choose the ones you want to use. The program has a free version with limited choices of templates, or it has a membership version for which you can pay monthly or annually. The paid version of this software allows one full access to the templates available as well as the ability to upload your own music and the ability to print your creations from home.
The program was very user friendly. After choosing a template, the program walks you step by step through the process with easy to navigate icons and instructions. I think it took me about a half hour to complete my slideshow. Even the task of attaching my creation to my blog was made easy as Smilebox has a "share it" tab that allows one to post to blogger accounts.
I think this tool is universal. It will benefit anyone who wants to share their photographs. The program is easy enough to follow that even young children could use it to create photosharing presentations for school projects. For this assignment I chose to demonstrate the technology from the perspective of a teacher advertising an annual field trip. The pictures in my show are actually pictures of my boyfriend and I during our last visit to Chicago. I highlighted different features of the trip by adding text to some slides. Since the slideshow creation went fairly quick, I also created an invitation to the event. My thought was that this would be something sent to students or parents of students. The slideshow advertises the event, then the invitation gives the participation details.

My photosharing creations:

Free slideshow personalized with Smilebox

This free invite card personalized with Smilebox

Like I said, this program was so easy to use. The only suggestions I can think to give would be to have your photos edited to your liking before applying them to a template on Smilebox. There are really no photo editing options on the site, so do that beforehand using whatever software you edit your photos with. I use Google's Picasa program. My other suggestion would be to consider the paid membership. I got a kick out of using "Send Me On My Way" by Rusted Root for my background music as opposed to the generic music provided by the free version. Please comment and let me know what you think!

W200 Emerging Technologies: Podcasting

For this assignment we were to create a podcast or vodcast and explain to others the process in which we made it. I chose to create a vodcast. A vodcast is a video that others can download to their computer or mobile device to watch. It is a useful tool, especially for teachers, because you can create videos of the material you want to communicate to your students and send it to them via their subscription to your feed. I see where this could be a very valuable tool also for an artist who wants to share their work or instruct others on how to create certain projects.

My personal testimony of my experience could be summed up in one word: DUH! I went about creating this project with some really complicated process in mind. I spent two evenings up until the wee hours of the morning Google-ing websites of "how-to's" and video editing and podcasting and media share sites. Now that I have filtered through all the information I found, I ended up using programs I already owned or that I was familiar with before this lesson. Like I said...DUH!

After recording my video on my digital camera and adding titles and music to it on Adobe Premiere Elements, I saved it as a podcast ready file in my documents through that option on Elements. My edition of Elements is a trial offer, so I apologize for the black bar across my face in the video! When I purchase the software, the bar won't be there anymore.

Next I made my blog subscribe-able through Google's feedburner site. This allows people to be notified when I update my blog. This was a completely new experience for me. I think I have the connection on there the way it should be, but I will re-post if I find out I have it wrong.

Next I uploaded my video to You Tube. Why it didn't occur to me before that this was a video sharing site, I have no idea, but my video is now a part of their archive. Below is the URL to connect to my first podcast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJ_d14V1K0

It's not exactly Oscar material, but I feel like I'm closer to understanding how to use this tool. As with anything in technology, the more you use it, the better you get at it. My tips or advice to anyone looking to create their own vodcast would be to not be overwhelmed by the idea of it. This was a fairly simple task that I made into a monster! Take it one step at a time, and don't forget to use the programs you are familiar with!

W200 My Definition of Technology

I define technology as inventions that make tasks and self expression easier. It’s the use of our knowledge to create tools that help us achieve the things we want. My thoughts on that are: it’s all about what the inventor or user wants to achieve. Hopefully things like building a safer automobile, finding a cure for a disease, or connecting with and old classmate are the goal instead of building a bigger bomb, manufacturing an illegal drug, or stalking an ex-spouse. Technology is what we make it! Personally, I think it is more help than harm, but I acknowledge the possibility it has to harm.

I have used technology since the beginning of my education and it is hard to narrow it down to three examples. I suppose an early example that comes to mind would be the educational toys I had as a child. Speak ‘n’ Spell, See and Say, and Alphie are examples of electronic toys used to aid a child in language skills and I used all three of them. Later, I used Apple computers while working on my high school newspaper staff. We used a publishing program to arrange the layouts of our pages before sending the files via hard disk to a printing service for printing. Oncourse is my most recent example of using technology in an educational setting. While working on my undergraduate degree five years ago I used the service much the same way as I’m using it today for my current classes. It is interesting to see how much the Oncourse service has evolved since I used it before and how much easier it is now to navigate. Three basic examples of my personal use of technology would be my pickup truck, my smartphone, and my scrapbooking die-cutter. I think sometimes it’s easy to not acknowledge older inventions as technology which is why I chose to mention my truck. It has over 150,000 miles on it so I think it’s safe to say I use it often! My smartphone is my “connection to the world.” Since disconnecting my home phone service, it is the only phone line I have. So my dependency on this device has grown and it is hard to imagine a time when we didn’t have mobile phones. My last mentioned device is my die cutter. It connects to my computer and I am able to draw and create images that it will then cut out of card stock to be used as embellishments to my scrapbooks I like to make. I could always draw the image and cut it out by hand, but the die-cutter does it quicker than I could by hand which allows me more time to do other things.  Also I am able to save the images on my computer to cut exact duplicates later if I ever have the need.

A time that technology enhanced my education experience would be the use of an overhead projector in my undergraduate History classes. I was never very good in History and dreaded the requirement of taking it in college. My instructor used an outline written on acetate which he projected on to a film screen at the front of the class while giving his lecture. Something about that method clicked for me. I have learned since then about the differences in the way people learn and how some people are more visual in how they learn. I definitely fall into the visual category. I’ve used that knowledge about myself to help me get better grades in other classes and it is all thanks to the overhead projector used by my instructor in my undergraduate History classes. It’s difficult to think of an example of a time technology didn’t help at all when being used for educational purposes because I feel that opinion varies dependent upon the individual. Personally, listening to the radio during art class or watching the movie “Cool Hand Luke” during my high school literature class didn’t benefit me in either class. But it may have been inspiration or a needed break for someone else in the class. I see value in using different approaches when incorporating technology with educational environments.  

W200 My Slogan

I chose to use Microsoft’s slogan “Where would you like to go today?” because I feel it describes my personality very well and because it is also a “wink” toward our class material. It suits me because I have spent the past ten years on a journey correcting decisions I made when I was younger that took me off of the path I had planned for myself in high school. During this time I have accomplished major steps in the direction of the life I want to have: a good job, a home of my own, and a college degree. I still have lots of places I want to go in life and I’m getting there one day at a time. Life throws curve balls at us every day. It’s up to us to decide which direction they take us.

Attached are pictures of me with my boyfriend Ryan outside of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and with my best friend of 30 years Jackie and her daughter Jenna at Disney World.

W200 PowerPoint Presentation

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

W200 ppt module 2

View more presentations from coaltrain423.

I've Got Something to Say!

"It's better to burn out, than fade away!" Sorry, couldn't resist, if you read my profile & know anything about 1980's rock music you'll know where that came from. My name is Heather Fouts and this is my first blog. I'm going to use it to organize my projects and get input from others for my class on using computers in education. I hope that it not only gets me a good grade in my class, but also becomes something I can keep on using to showcase things going on with other classes I take, stuff I'm doing, art I'm working on, or just things I'm interested in. So far the experience has been enjoyable. The most difficulty I have had so far has been with my module 2 PowerPoint uploads. I think I made him too fancy because he does not travel well to all the places he needs to go. I hope to have a little more success with blogging and I welcome classmates and anyone else creating or thinking of creating their own blog to post so we can work on this together!

A little bit about me:

I'm a graduate student at Indiana University taking classes toward my master's degree in Art Education. The most common reply I get to that is "Where are you going to find a job with that?" or "They're cutting the art programs in schools." If I had a dollar for every time I've heard something similar to these statements I wouldn't need to worry about having a job at all! It's like the knee-jerk response for most people. I have faith that I am on the right path with my education. I'm expanding my knowledge on something I know I'm good at and hopefully someday I can make a living off of it.
I live in Kokomo with my boyfriend Ryan and my tomcat Coaltrain. Ryan and his mother, Linda have been really supportive of my decision to pursue my art career. Coaltrain has posed for a few sketches. I'm an only child of Hiram and Posie Fouts. My dad worked for forty plus years as an electrician at Delco/Delphi Electronics and my mom has always worked at home. I can tell that my parents aren't 100% sure how to feel about my decision to move on from my semi-successful past ten years of employment at STAR Bank, but I think they will be happy for me in the end. I've rushed in to less intelligent commitments in the past and my parents were there to see me through it, so I get their hesitance to jump on board with any of my latest and greatest of ideas.
I serve on the Board of Trustees for the Howard County Historical Society (HCHS) and Museum. I help them arrange special events and plan exhibits at the Seiberling Mansion. Before HCHS, I worked as a volunteer at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. My job there was working in the Dinosphere exhibit as a lab technician removing the matrix of dirt and rock around fossilized dinosaur bones. I explained what I was doing to people when they approached my window in the lab. In October I can usually be found working the Headless Horseman event at Conner Prairie Living History Museum in Fishers, IN. I'll be somewhere near the hayride, loading people into the hay wagon of doom and sending them off into the forest to meet their fate with the Horseman.

I'm going to work on attaching links to the events and places I have mentioned so far as well as to some of the things mentioned in my profile. My coursework for W200 will also be accessible here. I hope anyone who decides to follow me enjoys what I post and I look forward to seeing what they "have to say!"