The Teacher Toolbox

Dear World,

Meet Ima Swami - he is going to be pointing out many of the things that they don’t teach us at university and a few other life truths

Ahh Grasshopper… beware the teacher who refers to themself in the third person. They inhabit a strange alternate reality.

cheers

Adrian

PS Feel free to tell stories from your life that demonstrate this anomaly .

For me looking on in here in Oz, NECC http://www.necc2008.org/ is the choir i.e. most of the teachers who attend already use Read/Write tools to connect with the world and are aware of the need for a 21st C skillset.

So here is my message to the choir… print this out, leave it laying around so people will take it home to the ‘chalkface’

You’re not a typewriter! You’re not an electronic text book! You’re not an electronic text book! You’re not a games console! You’re not a glorified piece of @$%*ing cardboard!!!

You’re the all seeing all dancing tools that enable interaction with the world!

Adrian

PS Thanks for the inspiration Brad - Language Warning on this one people!

Stressbuster IX

“Once more into the breech dear friends, or close the wall with our English dead!”

Henry’s Victory would have been much more decisive had the battalions to the rear not misheard the command.

Today I was asked about the process I use when drawing my Stressbusters cartoons. So here is the process that I’ve developed over the last couple of months to give the strip a unique feel.

Check Out All the Stressbusters - to get an idea

1. My drawing tool of choice is my Wacom Tablet. I use it to draw all the lines as ‘Drawing with a mouse is like picking your nose with your elbow’

1a. I then use Inkscape’s calligraphy tool (freeware) set on a line thinkness of 1 and 2 to draw the characters. I find this creates line that gives the pics a nice feel.

2. I save each character, plant and background as an .eps file

3. I import each .eps file into Photoshop and colour it on a separate layer. I’ve been messing with the magic wand tool to select areas and then fill them with a gradient rather than straight colour.

4. I position all the characters and resize it all to about 400 pixels and save it as a high quality jpeg

5. Next I import the pic into Comic Life Deluxe Comic Life Deluxe $30 and add the text and speech bubbles. NB it is also available for the PC

From now on I’m still experimenting… I’m stuggling with file size verses clarity. When I export or save in Comic Life the pics turn out very blurry. So at the moment I do a screen dump of the Comic Life screen and optimise it for the web in Photoshop.

Stressbusters really are work in progress.

cheers

Adrian

PS Feel free to print them out and pin them on your notice boards.

Stressbuster VIII

Eric was about to find out that uncontrollable laughter was not the correct response to, ‘Has anyone seen fluffy?’

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After disarming his opponent early in the battle for the waterspout, Insey left himself somewhat unable to deliver the coup de grâce due to his poor swordsmanship.

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In a propoganda coup, what was widely reported as ‘The Last Great Act of Defiance’ was in fact only part of a more complex cunning plan.

hehehehe

Adrian

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Every day all over the Universe the same issues play out.

‘I want children, I want children, I want children!’

‘Look… I love them too dear… but you can never eat a whole one.’

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