Facebook & Education > Overreacting Prof's at it's Finest.

Starting things off with a little facebook-lulz courtesy of The Onion

ahh... Facebook... Facebook, Facebook-Facebook Facebook! I don't have one.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. The way I see it is that I already spend too much time on MSN, why bother add to my time categorized 'not doing work'. OKAY, I like the word Facebook: the only reason for this initial paragraph. Names aside, I have dabbled under various aliases to see what it's like: I should have enough experience with the interface and website in general to provide some insight on this problem.

The whole situation is well. It draws out a lot of "O_O" from within me... A sense of 'What Just Happened', a 'May I have the last 5 minutes of my life back' moment for the ages: why in the world did this happen in the first place? Within the nooks and crannies of the internet are illegal acts taking place, and the ones who get in trouble are the students: because of the ease of finding the so-called 'problem'. A few things come to mind when reading the article, in particular the passage in the article:
"Avenir's professor, however, stipulated the online homework questions were to be done independently and felt the actions violated the school's academic policies."
and on the flip side:
"Supporters say the online clique was no different from any kind of homework help or tutoring circle."
jeez... This is turning into one big he said, she said type. Nonetheless, I still find that the professor is at the wrong: this kind of thing goes on in real life, day in and day out. The contradicting vantage points are clearly of a show of support: a third party should have checked the facebook group to be sure. The biggest case that the Ryerson University came up with, in my eyes is in what the students said:
"Avenir said the group used the online forum to compare notes and share homework tips and questions."
Basically: due to the online nature of the facebook group, anyone who happened to stumble across the group can easilly take said notes and homework questions and utilize it without others being any-the-wiser. I would think that some password would be required to access the group though.

I feel that the information provided are too biased to make a fair decision. If the only excuse presentable would be that 'study groups have formed in person for a long time, whats the difference with it being over the internet': the simple solution would be for the professors to either disallow / allow both variants. It is a double standard.

Facebook, with its Super-Pokes and Mega-Wall, may or may not be a useful educational tool. It is constantly being updated with new addons, and keeps on changing with user-made interface options. It would have difficulty as a educational tool considering the anonymity of the internet, the ease to surf through groups and the general way of speaking. Sure Facebook Groups have forums, but correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't having a Study Forum work all-the-same? My lack of knowledge of Facebook probably had negated some points made above: comment away and help clear up some misconceptions I may have.

When Graphic Artists Get Bored... Media Students Write About Their Work.

Many of the images on the video really intrigued me on different levels. From a standpoint of just a pleasing and interesting look to it, like the swimmer to the left. There were images that were slightly witty and creative, things that I would never have thought of morphing or changing: even if I were able to, such as the Earth about to bite the Moon at the middle. There were also images which excelled at a realistic standpoint (in a sense where although you can clearly tell that they are not real, it is hard to tell where the original image ends and the photoshopped portions begin (if that makes any sense)) such as the frog to the right. But the one that I was interested in the most was the most was:

(Above spoiler will open in a new window)

Appetizing, isn't it?

Yes! I found that this particular image portrays all of the above elements I liked about each photo manipulation. It is incredibly hard to distinguish between the additional changed things and the original: you don't even know what the person used to build from (the kiwi or the rat). It has a nice clean (slightly disturbing, but in a good way) image. It definitely is creative: making me swear off all haired fruits from this day forth.

Now that we have thusly and thoroughly admired said image: it is time... to an-a-lyze! There are quite a lot of possibilities this could be created, with varying degrees of difficulty and technique involved. The person may very well have paved way through an entirely different field of genetic splicing, but assuming that the title of the video holds true, this is highly improbable. What I believe is that said artist must have used the kiwi as a base. Afterwards, he proceeded to cut it into three pieces and arranged accordingly. Afterwards, using the clone stamp tool, the artist shaped the rear area and face to a more mouse-like shape, and used an image of a mouse: skewing the ears, snout (and possibly eyes) to match as best he could to the angle of the kiwi. Maybe the head of the mouse was cut off completely (the shading on the head's features slightly differs from the rear and middle sections). Afterwards, the artist would add the feet (looking at regular mice, the front foot would not naturally be that close to the head, meaning it was most likely added onto this photoshopped piece of work). Then, the artist would finally gradiate a shadow as the second last layer from the background. and use the eyedropper tool to find matching colors to use to create the goo on the last layer before the white background.