The webpage of woodcarver David Ware

My latest woodcarvings

New home for our caravan

Arrived today at the new home for our caravan at Llwyn yr Helm, Brith Dir, near Dolgellau in the North Wales mountains. Beautiful setting in the heart of Wales. Tiring journey and sorting out of various bits and pieces in and around van but well worth it. Photos to follow on my photo blog. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Manipulating Digital Images

It’s taken me awhile to post this item on my blog for reasons which I hope will become apparent to readers.

On Friday morning, 30 September 2011 on Daybreak, the early morning ITV news magazine, I listened to a news item about the influence of digital images on young people.  The news item reported the emphasis being placed by Government on the need to educate children in schools about the uses made of air brushing and other digital tools to enhance and manipulate images of celebrities.  The report showed a teacher discussing with a class of young children, “before and after” images of Brittany Spears in a bikini.   I was immediately struck by two thoughts:

Firstly - it’s about time!  Have those in power only just realised the impact of this kind of thing on the learning of children and, lets be honest, many adults too?  Its not new and, no doubt, has been going on since the advent of print media.  In and of itself, manipulating and changing images is not a problem.  There are, for example, lots of perfectly valid reasons for changing images; and we all want photographs to show us at our best don’t we?  Brittany Spears is no exception!  What matters though, is whether viewers are aware that images can be changed, and know of the use to which the changed images are being put.  This is particularly important when the purpose is to influence opinion, attitude or behaviour, hide the truth or misrepresent people or events.  Maybe its time for images such as those that appear in the glossy magazines to come with warning labels, just like we do with food!

Secondly - I felt justified in the programme of teaching I began more than 5 years ago with pupils in a special school to deal with issues of reliability and validity when using the Internet and other media.  I used before and after images of celebrities to develop pupils awareness and understanding of ways in which they can be manipulated or mislead and their skills in using computer software to change images in a variety of ways.  I felt this was especially important given the increasing importance of multimedia computers and other digital devices in pupils present and future lives.  The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the work and I was congratulated by a number of teachers within my own and other schools for the innovative work I was doing.  Brilliant? Well … not entirely!  As teachers, we can never assume that others will place the same value on our work as we do.  Despite my success with this work, I was threatened by my employers with disciplinary action for using inappropriate images with pupils.  The two images specified in the threat were those I reproduce here.  Both had appeared on the Internet and in well known magazines at the time and one was similar to those images of Brittany Spears used in the news item on Daybreak. 
 

The threat was eventually withdrawn but not before I experienced significant stress and anxiety about my future and status as a teacher.  It was this that was a significant factor in my decision in 2010 to resign from the job I loved doing and the kids I loved teaching. 

Readers will understand that the news item on Daybreak brought back many unhappy memories of that time.  I worry for the poor teacher in the news item on Daybreak and others developing similar kinds of programmes with pupils and hope they have better informed managers.

Check out Avaaz.org

I've just joined an amazing organization called "Avaaz", which means "voice" in many languages. Check it out here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/?sbc

Cymru am byth!

Hope everyone has a very happy St David's Day. Celebrate along with Welsh people everywhere - wear a daffodil, perhaps eat a leek and give a thought to the red dragon of Wales. Cymru am byth!
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Passion Based Learning

Marc Prensky on Passion-based Learning - Ewan McIntosh | Digital Media & Learning

Well worth a read and a listen! Adds yet more weight to the ideas in Ken Robinson's book "The Element" - finding the passion that drives an individual to learn!

Technology: significant benefits but …

A friend of mine was recently bemoaning the large numbers of people who appear to have lost the art of conversation and being with people because they spend much of their time accessing various electronic devices such as music and video players, mobile phones, portable gaming consoles and the like.  To be honest, I had to agree and added the difficulties that I’d experienced with interrupting people concentrating on surfing the Internet, playing the latest console game, listening to music or talking on the mobile phone.

 

The technology is clearly bringing significant benefits for many people but only the other day, I was reminded of the negative impact of the technology on learners in schools.  I asked a group of older students to carry out some research as part of an assignment for a course they were following.  Two things happened. 

1. When we discussed possible sources of information, the first thing mentioned was – no prizes for guessing – the Internet.  The Internet has justifiably gained ground as a important source of information.  However, a significant number of the group failed to identify books as a source of information and most failed to identify other people – some even refused to acknowledge books and other people as reliable and valid sources of information!  There is clearly something wrong with what we are doing with ICT in schools if pupils regard the Internet as the only source of information and see it as a source that doesn’t have to be questioned.
2. The second thing was perhaps more worrying.  I asked them to organise themselves so that each person took responsibility for researching an aspect of the task which they could then feed back to the rest of the group in whatever form the group decided was appropriate.  Many of them were reluctant to do this, could not see the point of this way of working and simply wanted to get back to their computers to use the Internet and “get on with the work”.  Few wanted to visit the school library to do research and even fewer were prepared to take responsibility for questioning the people identified as a source of information.

The Internet and other forms of technology are set to become ever more important and quite right too.  However, if one of our responsibilities as teachers is to prepare learners for life after school, then it follows that we have a duty to know the technology, its benefits, limitations and drawbacks and help pupils use it appropriately, safely and securely. How we do this is subject to debate but failing to do so is inappropriate, ignores significant opportunities for learning and many would claim, dangerous.

Long live learning! Long live technology!