Here are the Benchmarks and Other Assignments that I am most proud of from the TIE catalog.

#1: The first one is from TIE 542, “Learning Experiences on the Internet, K - 12”, which introduced me to WebQuests. However this is not the WebQuest itself, see below, but a PowerPoint on “Why Teachers Should Have Their Own Web Sites”. I had totally forgotten I had done it, and when I revisited my LiveText site I was totally blown away by it! I hope that you will be too, as my scary graphics design skills come to the fore! (I must have had plenty of time on my hands for this one!)

Click here to download the PowerPoint, and then you will have the opportunity to open or save it, depending on your browser.

#2: Here is the WebQuest from the same class. It was my first introduction to html, so I basically plugged into the TIE 542 instructor’s template.

I hate to say that there are some problems with the graphics, and if I have a chance to tinker with them if I figure out what went goofy I shall! The educational content is there, the images just don’t appear on some of the pages. So click here if you would like to see if you could indeed practice photography as a hobby while stranded on a desert island. (Will open in new window.)

#3: Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees, and that is where a Benchmark Assignment in Progress lives, namely this web site. When I took TIE 542, “Learning Internet K-12”, in the Spring of 2007, it was only a 2 hour class and making a Web Site was not part of the course, so I had to make that up with a TIE 594 Independent Study class. It took forever for me to get it done, but the premise of the site was a stand alone teaching guide on how to make a test strip for the obscure technology of holography.

You may have arrived at this page via my holography index page, but if you are interested in seeing the instructional module written for TIE 594 click here.

#4: For a change of pace, here is just a straightforward research paper. This one was done for TIE 532, “Computer/Technology Systems and Related Peripherals”. This was the “Computer Person” assignment, and it’s the sad and tawdry tale of Alan Turing. He might be considered as one of the first nerds, and I got so wrapped up in his twisted life that I read a biography of him and what was said of him in a few other computer history texts that I may have went on with my logorrhea (it's like diahrrea, except with words) much more than I needed to. Click here for an interesting read.

#5: This is a classroom handout designed as the Benchmark Project for TIE 535, “Instructional Design Integrating Technology into the Curriculum”. I live in the technological world, teaching in a Digital Photography program, which would not have become reality if not for the onset of the digitization of images. All 3 departments at Harrington College of Design, Digital Photography, Communication Design, and even Interior Design rely on software to get their jobs done. (Photoshop/Lightroom, Illustrator/InDesign, and AutoCAD, respectively.)

So it was a challenge to integrate meta-technology (technology on top of technology) into a project, but this classroom exercise uses the Animation Palette in Photoshop to dynamically collage the images of the three categories of lenses, (normal, wide angle and telephoto, a concept as old as interchangeable lenses from the dawn of photography), and compare the differences in perspective.

Click here for the educational basis for the handout; click here to download a pdf of the handout that grew out of it; or cut to the chase to see the final product of the assignment by clicking here.

(Explanation of what just made your head spin: the animation sequences through the normal, wide angle and telephoto views of a scene in my Holography Studio. The size of the "head" of the Rainbow Projecting Robot is kept constant in all three shots; the change in perspective rendering is made obvious by the relative size changes of the foreground camera and the background laser museum. The telephoto lens's perspective is compressed; the wide angle lens perspective is foreshortened, making the forground huge, plus throwing a bit of barrel distortion on rectangular robot head!)

#6: Capitalizing on the genius of above handout, I used that as the core of a Professional Development Seminar for TIE 575, “Leading Staff Development in Educational Technology”. Instead of clicking here to download the video of my face to face in-person presentation which would take a digital 2 Gigabyte eternity, I opted instead to showcase my video editing skills with a Windows Movie Maker Movie made for the elective TIE 585AC, Digital Storytelling. So click here to download it.

Consolation Prize: For those of you who are disappointed in not seeing me in action in the Professional Development Video, I have added a Bonus video done by a student at Harrington College of Design, Eric Pierrot, who added some interesting footage to one of my classroom presentations. Click here to download it, and since it's a .wmv, Mac users need to add a VLC player or equivalent to enjoy it.

#7: And last but certainly not least is the HyperStudio Hyperstack from TIE 544, “Current Applications of Multimedia Authoring”. I put the most time of all the projects into it, and it paid off well, as the instructor of that class, Craig Cunningham, forwarded it to Roger Wagner, the creator of Hyperstudio, and he featured it in whatever. Now that’s a heck of a compliment for a job well done! And I hope you will agree when you see it, although there are some rough spots in it. Click here to download the compressed file of stacks, save it to your Desktop or Downloads folder, unzip it to find a folder containing the HyperStacks, and make sure that you have a HyperStudio player installed on your computer to enjoy the show by opening the folder and clicking on Muybridge2.stack! It's a little bit of work, but worth it! (Will open in a new window so you can return here while it's spinning its wheels.)

Thank you for your time and patience and hope you enjoyed my Greatest Educational Hits!

Ed Wesly, Career Education Corporation Educator of the Year 2011 Finalist