Design Foundations

All Mercy 9th graders will be required to take a unique and marvelous course designed by our talented Art Department Chairwoman, Susan Smith. The students will get a rich exposure to technology within the context of artistic design:

The course will expose students to  both traditional fine art and computer art techniques. Students will learn the basic elements of art (color, texture, form, value, line, shape, space) and the principles of design (balance, contrast, emphasis, unity, pattern, rhythm and movement).

The students will gain their digital experiences in our brand new iMac lab using professional grade Apple and Adobe software. Their digital experiences will include . . . .

* Photo editing (the importance of resolution and image size, using adjustment layers to
improve lighting and color as opposed to using auto adjustments, filters, various saving
formats, montage and layer options).

* Recording video

* Recording audio

* Storyboarding for multimedia projects

* Properly transferring digital files and organizing them for use in multi-media projects. Explain differences in storage options (cloud storage such as Dropbox, memory cards, external hard drive, shared network drive)

* Drawing and painting with various electronic devices using applications such as Brushes on an iPod and Art Rage on a tablet

*Video Editing (proper import of files, using a source window to split, trim and re-size clips, using a timeline, adding effects and transitions, exporting video in various formats

Not only will students acquire skills they will find useful in high school and beyond, but the course allows for all sorts of opportunities to build an exceptional design and multimedia curriculum. Stay tuned!

FinalCut Pro X Training

Our new multimedia lab is getting its first workout, today. Five teachers and and administrator are receiving FinalCut Pro X training from Charlie Grover, a lead

Charlie Grover training our teachers

trainer from Macprofessionals. All of the teachers of our new Design Foundations course are in attendance.

Posted "Live" from the iMac Lab, 8/15/12

Evolution of a Multimedia iMac Lab

The Custodians stripped the floors over several hot summer days and then waxed them.  Electricians were brought in to re-wire the room

The Mom's Club Bought New Desks.
                                                                                  

The Dad's Club paid to have the room cabled.

The computers arrive and our crack team of Gary Bank and Tom James install expanded memory and the purchased software.  The iMacs are running on the brand new "Mountain Lion" OS.

Voila!

Our New Multimedia Lab

After considerable reflection, we have recently come to a final decision about our new multimedia lane equipment. This lab will complement the high powered P.C. lab where our fine school newspaper and yearbook is currently designed. It ins high-end Adobe software.

The new lab will host 26 Apple iMac computers. Such classes as Design Fundamentals (which all 9th graders will be taking), Graphic Design, and Broadcasting. But of course all students will have access to the lab when classes are not scheduled for its use. We are thrilled to be building a lab with the following hardware and software configuration:

Hardware:

1.5-inch: 2.7GHz

2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

1920 x 1080 resolution

8GB memory

1TB hard drive

Software

Final Cut Pro X

Motion

Compression

Adobe CS6 suite

iWork

Microsoft Office Suite

We are hoping that this high powered lab will play a role in developing an even more robust multimedia curriculum in the not too distant future.

Mid-Term Report on Mercy 2.0

The New Mercy iPad Case

The adoption of the iPad as a 1:1 device is the featured piece of Mercy 2.0. While the staff has unboxed their devices, we are not selling the new iPads to our students until May 14.

Nevertheless, more quietly other major elements of Mercy 2.0 are underway or have already been completed

A New Multimedia Lab will be built this summer and has been almost completely been paid for by donations. "Witte's Wish" and a generous donor have purchased the 26 new iMacs. The Mom's Club is buying the furniture and the Dad's Club is paying for the new cabling.

A Required Fundamentals of Design for ninth graders will be using the new lab and will provide a baseline curriculum of essential visual and skills. This course and a revamped Speech curriculum will five students hands-on experiences slide software, video, audio, and web design.

Moodle and Power School have been moved to the Cloud allowing us to down size our IT Department through retirement. More importantly, these essential applications (Moodle for the Curriculum and Power School for our student data) will receive regular updates and state of the art back-ups. The new versions also integrate with each other and Moodle has Google App features.

Google Apps for Education are now hold an essential (and branded) place in our instructional development. These powerful, plentiful and free apps will be completely deployed this July after all of us have switched to Gmail.

Professional Development proceeds apace. After our two days with Lucy Gray we decided to immediately institute a series of after school workshops on specific "apps". Forty teachers and staff stayed after school for the first one on Tuesday. What is more, staff will be investigating iPad and Google apps through the summer and reporting back to the collective through Google Groups. The next big in-service is then scheduled for August 23.