Images and Energy

For a teacher, the summers are a special time of recharging, reflecting, and resting after a hectic year. But last week many of us at my school gave up a week of our summer to learn more about technology and how to use technology more effectively in our classes to energize our students. Under the experienced guidance of Thomas Daccord from Alan November learning, I downloaded, registered, and explored a variety of programs, and websites. I learned about blogging, flickr, wikis, google earth tours, voicethreads, and lots of other programs.

And I also rediscovered the power of image. A single image. So much of what I do in the English classroom is word based -- connotations of a single word, symbolism of a word phrase, structure of repeated metaphors. But all word based. I can get incredibly excited by a single phrase and the way that phrase creates meaning through association and conflict. Yet this last week I watched my colleagues get excited by pictures they sent back and forth to each other. They not only sent images to each other, but they also recorded little messages and stories to accompany those images. The atmosphere of the room shifted from silent passivity to vociferous engagement -- laughter, smiles, quips. And yet we were all still learning and focused.

I decided I wanted to create my own images using a digital camera and then manipulating the images in Adobe photoshop or ArtRage.

The image above is a result of experimenting with a picture taken of a hydrangea blooming in my garden. I uploaded the image as a tracing image in ArtRage and then played with various tools. Not that anyone needs to know that, but in case I forget how I made the image later. It took me at least 4 different tries before I got something that looked okay. At first I just had a blank background but the the blossom looked lost. But the image started to look better when I used layers to establish background, outline of petals, color of petals, and dots for the centers, and then metallic glitter for some variation.

So this image is both a concession and an acknowledgment.

Caesar: Within His Time -- Still Extraordinary

When I was traveling back from Turkey, we stopped in Heathrow, London for a 5 hour layover. There I found Adrian Goldworthy's biograpy of Julius Caesar, titled simply Caesar.
He writes in a lively, engaged tone instead of the dry, objective tone of a historian. He weighs the contemporary evidence -- letters, commentaries, histories -- and always keeps emphasizing that Caesar was not inevitably successful in politics or war.
If you have watched HBO's series Rome, you might find this biography worthwhile.

LOTR Video

from YouTube: "How the Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended"

St. Peter's Church in Antioch

On the trip to Antioch, we saw St. Peter's Church, which is high in the mountains above Antioch. In this cave church (which once had a mosaic tile floor and murals on the wall), St. Peter and others met and worshiped as Christians. Anyone coming to this church is granted a plenary indulgence for all sins. In other words, if you make pilgrimage to this church, you are forgiven all your sins.
In the middle ages, people would make a pilgrimage to this church, buy a St. Peter's medal, and pray for forgiveness. In the middle ages, a pilgrimage to St. Peter's would be incredibly dangerous -- over the stormy seas, through treacherous mountains, through strange cities, and past bandits and robbers. Anyone surviving the pilgrimage and returning home would be famous!

A Trip to Turkey

From June 3-11, I took 4 EA students to visit the Gundogdu School in Adana, Turkey. We had a terrific trip and met wonderful people, who were hospitable, friendly, and welcoming. This picture was taken in Antioch and shows one of the streets in the old city.