“A picture conveys more than what a thousand words can say”.
But imagine if there were no pictures. How would one convey the information that one wants to? This is how I felt when I realised that I could not upload the pictures that I have onto my blog directly. Neither did I know how to upload pictures. You see, when it comes to technology, I am not very bright. I am one of those people who thinks that she will have to go to the same cyber café where she first opened a ‘hotmail’ account since it is not accessible anywhere else.
By now you must have realised how tech-savvy I am. And to add further to my bruised self-confidence, I am training to be a teacher in a country where every thing is based on computers. The first thing that Greg spoke about during our workshop was creating a blog. Then he spoke about adding pictures. By then I think I had passed out from sheer terror. However, I have noticed that Greg always follows what he preaches (thanks for small mercies). So, not only did he speak to us about following the integrated inquiry planning stages, but also ensured that he followed them during the workshops.
So, the first thing that I got to learn was that I had to create a blog and add pictures. The second step was getting us to find out more about this. So, I spent some time looking at the blog website and feeling sorry for myself. By then I had decided that my classmates were talking in a language that I did not fully comprehend what with all the ‘blog postings’, ‘cyber safety’, ‘privacy settings’ and other jargon floating around the workshop.
But then I had nothing to fear since help was at hand. When we had done all that we could to ‘find out’ more about blogs, Greg got us to discuss our findings. The more I listened to my classmates, the less scared I was about the entire workshop. Indeed, I think it was during this stage that I had decided I would work on the blog rather than create another ‘WebQuest’ for this paper.
Once I had got over the fear, I got down to writing about ‘Inspiration’ tools and had even created a ‘Concept Map’ on ‘Inspiration Tools’. But I had still not figured out how to add this on to my blog post. Greg then got us to follow the below steps to publish our pictures. The steps are as follows:
1)Choose the picture that you would like to post and align it carefully on the screen so that it is visible
2)Use the ‘PrtScrn’ tab on the keyboard to take a snapshot of the screen
3)Open a new MS Paint document and paste the snapshot of the screen on to the document using the command ‘CTRL + V’
4)Delete those sections that are not required
5)Save your picture and automatically the document will be converted into a .JPG file
6)Upload your picture using the ‘upload’ tab on your blog
7)Align the pictures so as to increase aesthetic appeal
8)Post your information onto your blog
Once we had completed the ‘Going Further’ stage, Greg got us to discuss further about the use of MS Paint and Blogs in schools in the ‘Making Conclusions’ stage. We then spent time discussing how we could take it further for teaching purposes in the ‘Taking Action’ stage.
Now, I sound like a pro when it comes to using MS Paint for publishing pictures on my blog. I am glad that I had the opportunity to learn so much about blogs and MS Paint because it helped me to help my students when I was on my practicum at MacLeod College. Indeed, I follow the same planning stages as stated by Greg in my classes as it helps students to gain knowledge and understanding at a pace that is comfortable to each one of them.
