Science Teacher: Enhancing Illustrations for Student Learning

1. ATASC 2018 – Friday, Oct 19th – 2:15 pm – Fort McMurray Delta ldindustries.ca @b_langdale brad.langdale@gmail.com

2. Science Teacher  CTS Teacher • What happens when a Physics teacher gets a chance to teach one block of Communications Technology (Comm Tech) every year?

3. Do Your Illustrations Matter? • Science and Illustration go hand in hand; the need for good illustrations for our students is paramount. • We display more and higher quality images than previous generations of teachers did (with less exclusive reliance on diagrams from a textbook). • The internet is filled with images that are *close* to what you want. How can we quickly and easily change these images so we can use them for our students?

4. Balance between Time and Quality • Before you spend your time, ask yourself: • Are these changes pedagogically relevant? (Will they increase student learning/allow students to articulate understanding). • What is the output? (Is this image going to end up on a piece of paper? A final exam? The projector screen?) • Will anybody notice or care? (Is this an image you spend a lot of time looking at? Are these changes minor or major?)

5. Software: • Microsoft Word/PowerPoint (probably already installed on your computer a school) • Adobe Photoshop Elements (~$100 CAD, one time download) • Adobe Photoshop CC (~$25 CAD/month) • Pixlr Editor – Flash based web-based “Photoshop light” (free)

6. Snipping Tool • Pre-Installed on Windows • Allows you to quickly make a screenshot of any portion of your screen. • On a Mac  Command+Shift+4 does an equivalent function. • Many Google Chrome extensions also perform this task: I use Awesome Screenshot. This is great for Chromebooks or Chrome users in general.

7. Drinking from the Firehose • Whenever I do demos with Photoshop or other new programs in class (and when I watch someone do a demo that’s new to me) I always think about drinking from a firehose. This will be a lot of information in a short period of time! • My goal is not for you to 100% remember all of the steps you’re about to see. My goal is that you realize the steps are possible with the various programs. Once you know it’s possible, you can go back over the resources later to practice the steps yourself.

8. Examples: • Removing Backgrounds (making selections) • Removing elements of a photo (clone stamp tool) • Adding Text (adding layers) • Changing Colours (adjustment layers)

9. Microsoft Word/PowerPoint • To remove a background: • Click on the image to select it. • Go to the Format menu. • Click on Remove Background. • Use the pencil icon to decide which areas to keep or discard. In this case, we want to discard the background. • Trace around the edge of the diagram, the press Keep Changes. • This does a fast, albeit crappy job.

10. Microsoft Word/PowerPoint • Setting a transparent colour can also help remove a background from an image. • Click to select the image, then choose from the Format menu Colour  Set Transparent Colour. • Click on a colour you want to make transparent. This works well if the background colour is not included somewhere else in the image (the Earth example to the right).

11. Sometimes, changing the brightness and contrast of an image can remove the background effectively enough. Here’s a photo out of the Science 10 textbook I took with my phone. Name this simple machine: Screw Lever Wedge Block and Tackle • Click on the image to select it, then choose corrections. You can typically find a correction that will make the background white, which works well for a photocopy.

12. Pros/Cons of Office • Pros: • It’s relatively fast and easy to use. • It’s typically the program I’m in anyhow (when making handouts and tests). • You probably already use it, so you have some background • Cons: • I’m rarely satisfied with the results. • The level of adjustment is low. • I’m never sure if what I want to fix will be fixable in Office.

13. Pixlr Editor • Let’s remove a background using Pixlr: • Open an image in Pixlr Editor (File  Open Image) • Click on the Magic Wand tool ( ). • Click on the background to select it. • The software looks for differences in colours in order to make the selection. Adjusting the Tolerance slider

14. Pros/Cons of Pixlr • Pros: • Cheap/Free • Web based, so you can use it on any machine you find yourself on. • A few “standard” Photoshop tools are included in the free version. • Cons: • Ads • You kind of get what you pay for. • Flash based, so it doesn’t work well in Chrome or on some tablets.

15. Photoshop CC • Let’s perform that same task in Photoshop: • Open a new file (choose the clipboard pre-set to get an artboard the same size as your image if you’ve saved an image to the clipboard). • Make a selection around your image using a selection tool (the quick select tool works really well, as does the magnetic lasso ).

16. Pressing Ctrl+j makes a new layer out of your image. • Turn off the background layer (click the little eye next to the layer) and save your image in the .PNG format to end up with a transparent background. .jpeg file format .PNG file format

17. Clone Stamp Tool(Photoshop CC) Open your photo within Photoshop. Select the clone stamp tool. ( ) Make sure you are on the layer containing your image! Hold down the Alt key and select an area of the image to clone. Release the Alt key to stamp over the area of the image you want to cover up. Note: you may want to change your brush settings to make the brush harder or softer to suit the job you’re doing.

18. Text Tool(Photoshop CC) Select the text tool. ( ) Make sure you are on the layer containing your image! Click and drag with your mouse to define the text box’s area. Type!

19. You can also lay down some drop shadows on your text by: • Clicking on your text layer from the Layers Menu on the right hand side panel • From the main menu, select Layer  Layer Style  Drop Shadow • Adjust your shadow properties until you are happy

20. More Interesting Clone Stamp • The advantage of using Photoshop to, say, covering up the arrows with little boxes in Word or editing in Paint, is that the Clone Stamp tool is really fast when you get the hang of it, and the result is very professional.

21. Pros/Cons of Photoshop CC • Pros: • Most professional quality results • Very versatile • You could use this program for so many more tasks… • Editing photographs • Editing Video • Cons: • Expensive! And perhaps a big ask from your IT department • A steep learning curve (at first) • You’re going to need a half-decent machine to run it

22. Clone Stamp and Adding Shapes in Pixlr • Maybe you want to change where the label lines show up on a diagram, or make them a bit darker. Erasing some with the clone stamp tool and adding some more lines that show up on a printed version more clearly is possible in Pixlr.

23. Clone Stamp and Adding Shapes in Photoshop CC • Here I used the Clone Stamp tool and the line tool to add some more legible lines to a photo I really liked that I found on Twitter. Now students could measure the angle of incidence and refraction on this new diagram.

24. Photoshop Elements • To change the colour of a portion of a photo: • Open your image file in Photoshop Elements. • Make a selection of a portion of the image you want to change. Try using the quick select tool. • Click on Layer from the main menu, then New Adjustment Layer  Hue/Saturation • Move the sliders to adjust the colour of your selection (try clicking the colourize button if your selection started off white).

25. ldindustries.ca @b_langdale Thanks for listening! brad.langdale@gmail.com