As a teacher I believe technology is a tool that can be used in classrooms effectively. In the past I have used overheads, blackboards, calculators, videos, video cameras, Microsoft Media Player, calculators, Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Producer, PowerPoint, e-mail with other students, graphics, Google Sketch Up, and other web applications.

I believe technology should be used to enhance education. It should supplement a lesson plan
to make the lesson plan come alive. I also think it is a great tool for students to express their learning through an active presentation to teach others what they have learned. When we tell others what we learned it is very powerful. However, more powerful is when we actually teach someone else.

I think students should be involved in developing their own assessment. They should be encouraged to share what they learn and teach others what they think is important. For instance in Texas we have the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills elements known as TEKS.

Here is an example 7th Grade Social Studies TEK
( History. The student understands individuals, issues, and events of the Civil War. The student is expected to:

(A) explain the roles played by significant individuals during the Civil War, including Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Abraham Lincoln;

What were the roles of these men? How could multimedia and technology allow someone to explain the significant roles they played? We could have a video where we interview teachers and principals on what role they think these people played. We could do research and provide a comparison table on contributions they made. We could draw pictures and illustrate a flipbook that shows what they did. There are scores of ways to show how these individuals were significant. The key is that technology allows the student motivation to show what they know in a non-traditional way then a multiple question paper and pencil test.

I would love to have students produce these types of self-assessments using rubrics. Currently, I work as a teacher working with students that are in trouble. The assignments the students receive are usually worksheets with fill in the blanks. I have yet to see the use of technology to motivate students to research.

In my humble opinion I think that is what we, as teachers, should be doing. For instance, what good is an adjective, preposition, or verb. Have students show through examples how these can be used most effectively. For example, something short was Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be, that is the question.” What does that mean and why was it so profound?

Thanks for listening,

Michael Leyba

I’m going to be teaching a photography class very soon. The class will offer photography instruction for both digital and film cameras. The focus of each class will be different. We will also have time for questions and answers about your specific camera. This class will be available via internet if you are interested, please contact me at 432-522-7276 or e-mail me at ml@michaelleyba.com.

Thanks for listening,
Michael

Portraits by Michael
http://www.michaelleyba.com
The Tea Party
http://www.teaparty4u.com

The Tea Party is a fun place to be with all the decorations and dress up possibilities. We hope you will look into having a Tea Party soon for your favorite occasion. Please drop in and have a snack with us. Remember that the Tea Party is where the fun begins and memories are made for tomorrow.

Here are few photos of recent guests:

Thanks for listening,

Michael

Portraits by Michael
http://www.michaelleyba.com

The Tea Party
http://www.teaparty4u.com

I think Go Daddy has the best technical support of any company. There people are extremely sharp. I have had to use this tech support on several occasions and all the people know there way through the system. The Go Daddy interface is pretty technical and very deep, but the user support folks can walk you through it so it is easy. I’m impressed. There is more control for the website owner than any other system I’ve used.

Great Support!

Thanks for listening,
Michael

Portraits by Michael
Michael Leyba
http://www.michaelleyba.com

The Tea Party
http://www.teaparty4u.com

Welcome to my blog for Monday, June 18, 2007. Good news, I found my wallet. You might not even know it was missing.
It is a royal pain when you lose something important like that. I found it at my Portraits by Michael Studio. It was in a back room in a bag I had carried from home. Not a good place to put it.

The Tea Party is going well here and we are excited about the parties. If you have little girls and would like them to learn what it would be like to have a princess or tea party please come by our location at 3211 West Wadley Suite#12 in Midland, Texas. It is where the fun begins and memories are made for tomorrow.
Thanks for listening.
Michael

Portraits by Michael
http://www.michaelleyba.com

The Tea Party
http://www.teaparty4u.com

Phone 432-522-7276

Had a great wedding yesterday with a wonderful couple. The images were great and they did such a terrific job posing and being natural. The outdoor photos at the Kingdom Hall grass were fantastic. The bridesmaids were beautiful in their pink dresses waving the scarves in the air. It was very moving.

Here is one of the photos from that session.

We have our tea party in business now. It is exciting to see the transformation of the space from a floor with four walls to a place where kids are having so much fun playing at being kids. We’ve had several boys and girls come in and dress up and have a blast. The children are so beautiful at being themselves. As a photographer, I get really amazed at some of the creative poses the boys and girls make as they are playing with teddy bears, china, and clothes. I will attach a few photos here and there are so more on our website at http://www.teaparty4u.com where you will see a small sampling of some of the great kids we were able to learn about.

I recently purchased a new lens for my Canon digital SLR. I bought a Canon L-Series 70-200mm zoom lens. It is a beauty. It has USM which is a ultrasonic motor that provides fast and quiet autofocusing. I used the lens last night for the first time in a portrait session. The results were great. I bought a neutral density filter for it and that was very cool.

The lens is a great addition to my other lenses. I have another favorite lens that is the Canon 28-135mm Image Stabilizing Zoom lens. It is great for portraits. I bought the new lens primarily for outdoor work due to it’s sharpness and autofocusing capability.

I also have a regular 50mm lens and the lens that came with the camera, an 18mm-55mm lens. I like this lens for general use, but don’t use it much in the studio.

I have a Tokina 17-35mm lens, but I don’t use it much since it is difficult to focus on distant objects. I also have a 75-300mm Canon zoom lens that I love for the sharpness and also the telephoto capability. It is the equivalent of almost a 500mm lens when used with the smaller digital sensors.

I think lens are a great asset to any photographer and it is great to have a variety of lens to use.

Thanks for listening.

Michael
Michael Leyba
Portraits by Michael
http://www.michaelleyba.com
http://leyba.wordpress.com

TERMS:

ASA:
There is a term for film speed that photographers have used for many years. It is called ASA. It stands for the American Standards Association. It was established to develop a standard by which films could be compared as to their rating for light sensitivity. It is also related to digital sensors as well. Camera manufacturers calibrate the cameras based on the ASA standards. A digital camera can have a large range of ASA speeds. For instance, my Canon 30D camera has a range from ASA 100-3200.

DIN:
The German equivalent to ASA is called, DIN for Deutsches Institut für Normung.

ISO:
There is also an ISO for International Organization for Standardization and most digital cameras refer to this as their film speed setting.

GOST:
The Russians had their own standard for film speed known as GOST.

NOSTALGIA:
I miss a film speed that used be available. Many remember it fondly. It was ASA 25. It was available on Kodachrome Slide Film. This film speed was very low, but had great quality. The film seemed to last much longer than Ectachrome slide film. The chemical processing was different than Ectachrome slide film.

I would love to have a setting of 25 ASA for my Canon camera. The reason is that it is great for use in bright light. I would rather have this setting than use a neutral density filter if it is overall slow speed I would like to use and I don’t want to overexpose the photograph.

EXAMPLES:

For shooting in low light I would use the lowest ISO available that will get you the highest shutter speed to get a clear image. The higher the ISO the grainier or more noise will be in the image. I tend to want to shoot with ISO 400 for low light. When I go above that the quality of the image is degraded. It is worse of low lighting situations. If is a must then I use higher ISO settings.

For shooting in bright light I would use the lowest ISO for sure. This would mean in most cameras of ISO 100 setting.

People around the world are taking photographs every second. Thousands, millions of images are being taken by people with cameras, cell phones, and video cameras all the time. They are photographing their family, friends, and other things in a constant attraction to new sites, events, and happenings.

At night time at certain events you can see cell phones held high with the screen bright and their owners trying to capture videos and still pictures. It is a world full of images.

At the museum of Elysee (Musée de l’Elysée) in Lausanne, Switzerland there is currently an exhibit that is collecting photographs from people around the world to document this phenomenom. I found out from the blog at http://standardcatastrophes.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/want-to-have-your-photography-exhibited-in-a-musuem/. Check it out.
The actual site is located at http://www.allphotographersnow.ch/index.php

I think it is interesting to think about all the photographs taken these days. The technology is such that a witness to an accident or crime will have the ability to capture events like never before. The Rodney King beating in Los Angeles was over 15 years ago and the eyewitness happened to have a video camera trained on the scene of a freeway beating. Now, there could be several motorist who could capture the beating with their cell phones.

The next generation will have to learn to identify the fact from fiction with the easy manipulation of video and photographs that now proliferate and will only increase in technology ability and ease in the future.

I believe a visual media class would be an excellent course for school students. What do you think?

Thanks for listening,
Michael

Michael Leyba
Portraits by Michael
http://www.michaelleyba.com
http://leyba.wordpress.com