Kokomo Art Association Video

My fieldwork is finished with KAA. As promised I completed a video advocating their organization and calling out a need for volunteers. What I learned: DO NOT record video using a regular digital camera. My images are crappy in my opinion. I also need to make more effort learning the video software on our computer. Hopefully the next video will be better! Until then here is the first attempt...also consider the message, KAA needs volunteers. Contact information is at the end of the video!


Happy Holidays everyone!

Instructable Media Project

Hi! See, I haven't completely abandonned my blog! Currently I am in a methods course and an art history couse so we aren't doing a ton of tecghnology related things, but I will have a few things to share as I am creating videos and instructables online for the methods course.
For my Z533 Intro to Art Education course (that I drive 8 hours per week to attend in Bloomington) we had to create an instructable media project. I used an app called Frameograph on my ipod touch to compose my short video:



Creating this video was very time consuming as posing the materials and taking the photos for the stop-motion annimation proved to be a slower process than I was originally prepared for. The end product I think is very cute and I am proud of it, but I felt my instructable needed more content to communicate the process of the printmaking project more effectively. Enter: instructables .com. Using this website one can upload steps, photographs, and videos via the site's very easy to use online templates to share your instructable.

View my finished instructable media project here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Print-Using-a-Carry-Out-Box/

Coming Soon: Documentary video advocating Kokomo Art Association

Until Then! Happy Halloween & Thanksgiving!!

Wintertime Blahs

Well, winter is here...with a vengeance. I'm heading in to an uncertain future.  Spring semester began last week and I can officially say I belong to Indiana University Bloomington now. I'm going to continue distance learning for as long as I can to save money. My classes this semester do not cover any new fun technology stuff, but I can share that I am completing them both online. I have no physical classroom to go to this semester. I'm hoping by the time I am ready to teach I will be able to teach some online as well. My advisor at Bloomington showed me there is a class I can take once I get down there specifically about teaching online. If our economy continues to get worse I think people are going to have to work more just to keep up with life..that includes college students. The online option has been a lifesaver for me. Without it I wouldn't be able to pursue my education goals at all because I have to work full time to keep a roof over my head!

Another little techy tidbit related to this semester...have you ever had a class that the required textbook cost over $200? I did this semester. I did a little research desperately trying to find a cheaper option. What I arrived at was to purchase a Kindle Fire. On Amazon the same textbook was available as an e-text edition for $60. The Kindle was $199. As a result I spent $61 more dollars this semester, but I'm sure it will save me at least that much in the semesters to come solely by purchasing cheaper e-texts. The Fire also has a lot of tablet-y features on it that are useful like e-mail, facebook, etc. If you aren't interested in having yet another gadget, you can get a free download of the Kindle reader app on your computer and read your e-texts there. Barnes and Noble has a similar app called Nook Study. I downloaded this app to my net book. It looks like it works much like Amazon's Kindle app, but I found Barnes and Noble's e-texts were higher priced than Amazon's. Also the app can't be downloaded to the Nook tablet devices. In the end, I'm happy with my Fire and recommend anyone hoping to save money on overpriced textbooks check one out.

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!