tutorial – Jason Toal

March 14, 2016

GIF JAM

Animated GIFs have been featured on this site as regular media assignments in the EdMedia program as a means to practice techniques in photography, videography and web publishing to name a few. The GIF JAM occuring for the EdMedia Monday this March 14th will showcase sources of GIFs, excellent courses and tools for making GIFS and open a discussion about how they can be used for educational purposes. ON this post I will try to cover some of the history of the GIF, review past educational GIF projects and point you to some next steps for using GIFs in your course, or just for playing around.

GIFstory

To kick things off lets go back the beginning and review some GIFstory. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format and its important to remember how integral the characteristic of this format have led to the GIFs proliferation.

You can read this piece from the website Mashable for good synopsis on the history of the GIF and also check out this 6 min documenary covering the rise of the GIF to from its inception in 1987 to today.

GIFs Today

Today GIFS can be found everywhere. The popular website Giphy has become the defacto clearing house for sharing and showing all the latest, and the GIF Keyboard is popping up on many social media platforms including twitter and facebook. I have posted a few of my favorite sites and recent pages below, but you do not have to look far to find an animated GIF these days.

Eg. of Cool GIFS

https://www.pinterest.com/sinremite/illustrated-gifs/
Old Paintings, Grotesquely Reanimated | GIF Six-Pack – http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/old-paintings-grotesquely-reanimated–gif-six-pack?utm_source=tcptwitterus
GIF Six-Pack: ‘1984’ and the Surveillance State – http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/gif-six-pack-endless-sci-fi-to-celebrate-1984?utm_source=tcptwitterus
Artsy GIFS (cinemagraphs) – http://cinemagraphs.com/
http://bionicteaching.com/gifseum/
Stereoscopic GIFs – http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/learn-how-to-make-stereoscopic-gifs

GIFs in Education

As a form of cultural expression you may be surprised to learn that the animated GIF has a strong and growing place in the landscape of educational media. Several of our past EMP participants have created GIFs for Physics, Physics, Archives, Library, Mathematics, to name a few. The assignments I’ve created have been design to test technical knowledge and use the media theory.

GIF assignment 1:

GIF assignment 2: (as OERS)

There are many great courses on the internet dedicated to the animated GIF so for further exploration please check out these pages.

GIF MASTERS

@eleanor_lutz

http://tabletopwhale.com/index.html

http://tabletopwhale.com/2014/11/03/how-to-make-an-animated-infographic.html

How to make GIFS

https://giphy.com/create/gifmaker
http://giphy.com/posts/how-to-upload-gifs-to-giphy
Make GIFS from video: http://imgur.com/vidgif

November 25, 2015

Introducing… The ‘Faculty Showcase’ and some new posting tips

We consider everyone who passes through the EdMedia program (EMP) to be ‘faculty’, so in this case we are referring to all our participants who have completed an Educational Media project with us, whether they be faculty, staff or students. The “Faculty Showcase” is a new page on the site that will feature all the Open Educational Resources (OERs) that have been created in our program.

The showcase gathers all the posts on this blog that use the category “OER” and displays them on a ‘pinterest like’ grid that can be easily scanned. As I was going through our existing content it was apparent that in order for these posts to look their best, it would be helpful for authors to follow some simple steps to guide their work. These tips are relevant for all posts and pages on the site.

How to post your content to the Faculty Showcase.

Make a “New Post” and select “OER” as the category
Upload and insert an image of your content into the post.
Embed your media
Upload and set a ‘featured image’
Publish

Well that is the point form version of the steps, but I will add some more details below. Continue reading “Introducing… The ‘Faculty Showcase’ and some new posting tips”

November 4, 2013

Lynda tutorials at SFU

For those SFU staff and students looking to learn some new media software, the SFU library has made available full access to the online subscription of Lynda.com tutorials for 2013. You can connect through the libraries launch page, but will have to create a user ID to access these materials.

For our edmedia proteges, this means free access to online resources to learn Adobe suite, Final cut Pro, and many more. There are only a couple months left in this trial so get in there quick!

“SFU Library is delighted to announce that it has an expanded subscription for 2013 to lynda.com with an unlimited number of users .

I f you are unfamiliar with lynda.com , here is a brief description:
“Thousands of video tutorials from expert authors covering hundreds of titles such as Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Flash, Final Cut Pro, design principles, digital photography, print and web design, digital video, animation, creative inspiration, and much more.”

Here is a link to the lynda.com : http://cufts2.lib.sfu.ca/CRDB/BVAS/resource/10456 .

Note : New users will need to create a profile the first time they use lynda.com . After that, they will be able to create their own playlists and organize courses.

Over the course of this year, SFU Library will be gathering data and feedback on lynda.com to help determine whether this is a resource of use to departments and units across SFU. At the moment, there is no guarantee that we’ll be able to continue subscribing to lynda.com after 2013.

If you have any feedback on lynda.com , please send it to lib-lynda@sfu.ca . “