Isaac Fickey
Adobe PhotoShop Teaching experience
Participants/Students:
Emily Weber – 330-801-6077
Denise Fickey – 330-923-4142
Angie Helbig – 330-289-1432
Marilyn Weber – 330-929-9209
McKenna Rae Golden – Angie's 15 yr old daughter
Description
After taking Dr. Tsai's Multimedia/hypermedia class in the Spring of 2012, I found it a great opportunity to share what I had learned about photoshop with others that I know what be eager to use the software. I want to start off by saying this too a lot longer than I imagined it was going to. Teaching my mother and future mother in law a new technology was not the simplest thing I could have done. I had everyone come over to my house on Saturday May 26, 2012. I had spent the previous night on the computer making sure that I had remembered everything that I had learned on the software. We used my desktop in the living room and set up my two laptops on my near by dining room table. My desktop has an older version of photoshop while the two laptops have trial versions of the newest software. They differ a little bit, but no too much. The objective of the night was for everyone to customize a picture of there choosing after going through the different things that Photoshop can do. For the record, the teenager was the only one who actually remembered to bring a photo for herself that she had on a flash drive.
Impact
This turned out to be a lot more work then I had originally imagined but it also turned out to be a lot more fun then I had imagined as well. The participants were ages 15, 30, 35, 52 & 57 and all had different levels of technical experience, with the 15 yr old by far having the most! McKenna had already had experience with photoshop so she was a big help answer some of the endless questions. The great thing about teaching a group with software such as photoshop is that everyone has a slightly different way they want to use it so it's helps you learn even more about the software in the process. Just getting the basics down were longest parts of the afternoon/evening/next day (for Emily and Angie). I was pleasantly surprised how eager they were to get started and to work on different pictures, I was the same way after learning from Dr. Tsai though. I did not go through the steps for changing the formats of pictures so that they could be published on a website, I think that would be a week in of itself. The absolute best thing that came from this experience is 1- my Fiance can now use photoshop, which she has always wanted to but would never actually take the time to and 2- we have two beautiful pictures hanging on our walls that actually came from that session. One was made by my fiance Emily, which is a self portrait that now hangs in my office at home and the second is another beach picture that Marilyn made from our trip that we shared together. In a way, I feel I benefited the most because I absolutely adore my 2 new pieces of art!
Intent
The whole reason that I chose to use photoshop as a teaching experience is that my fiance got a fancy new camera for Christmas and has always had a great eye for photography. She had spoke about trying to figure out how to use PhotoShop for some time, so I knew if I told her that I had to do this for school she would finally learn it, and once she got started I knew she would be hooked. It really has sparked her juices to get into photography again, which is a great hobby for her that may even lead to more. Also, now that both sides of our Families know how to use the software, they can help others with it, which saves time for me, win-win...haha. In all seriousness, this is not only educational but like I said before, it can also be a hobby, and how often to do say that after taking a class or attending a lecture.