National Math Trail Technology Tutorial
The Hardware
ScannersA scanner is a piece of equipment that turns images (drawings, illustrations, photographs) into digital information which can be shown on a computer screen. Scanners hook into your computer, and scanned photographs or other printed or hand-drawn materials are saved as files in the computer's memory.
Scanning is simply making a copy of a photo or anything that can fit on or in a scanner.
Some scanners are called flatbeds because they lay flat and you can set something you wish to
scan on top of the glass to scan. Other types require inserting material to be scanned into the
scanner, thus limiting the size and thickness of the material you are able to scan.
Scanning a photo or drawing is very similar to using a copy machine. Place what you want scanned upside down on the glass or plate, or inside the scanner, then close the cover. The software will offer an option like "acquire scan" or "import image". Click on the option and the scanner will start scanning. It will give you an image to preview and then a final version.
Save the file to a diskette or onto your hard drive. There is a folder in Windows '98 called My Photos, which is a good place to save your scanned photos to find them later.
To view a tutorial on everything you need to begin using your scanner in the classroom, click here.
Once you have scanned a photo or drawing, you can use programs like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft's Image Composer to brighten colors, crop, rotate or alter the images.
Some tips on scanning include: 1. Select photos or drawings with good contrast. 2. Scan one photo at a time. Then use your software to size it to fit your web page. 3. Save it in one of these two file types: jpeg (pronounced "jay-peg") or gif. These are the only two file types that can be used easily in web pages. 4. Keep your images that you are saving SMALL about 10k to 20k. You can go up to 50k, but the larger the image, the longer it takes to load onto a web page. Any image over 50K is too large to load quickly, and most people trying to view an image on their computer will give up if it takes too long to appear on their screen. In general, jpeg is better for photographs, and gif is better for illustrations that are mostly text. 5. Once you save the image as a jpeg or gif, you can either insert it in a web page (hotlink to html section) or attach it to an email.
Digital Cameras
A digital camera allows you to take a photo and then save it onto a disk or as a file in your computer. Once the photo is on your computer you can use software like Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro to alter, crop, rotate, or brighten your photo.
To see how a digital camera works and what's inside one, click here.
Another option for digitizing photographs is to take regular 35mm film and have it developed using Kodak's option called "Picture CD" Photographs will be on a CD and computer ready to be used with Kodak's software called "Picture Tools".
Video Cameras
Video cameras are obviously a necessity for making videos, but they are also used for audio. For a web page, video cameras produce better sound quality than microphones.
For filming tips, click here.
Once your video or audio is made, you will need to save it as a computer file. Your computer will need a special piece of hardware called a video card or graphics card. Computers come with video cards, but for video editing your computer will need a more powerful video card. For more information on what a video card is, click here.
Matrox makes a video card for video editing on home computers. When you purchase the video card, you will need to install it. Click here for a tutorial on how to install your video card.
You will still need software to view, edit, and store your video and audio recording onto your computer. Avid Cinema comes with a Matrox video card and can help you create a storyboard, edit your video or audio files, and alter the look and sound of your project. This software can be used with your camcorder, VCR or DVD player transferring everything to your computer.
Audio
Your video camera will also work well for creating sound files. You will need software to digitize the sound into a file format. Some file formats are .wav or .mid or .mp3. Any video software like Avid Cinema can also digitize sound files. The best quality sounds are now created and saved as .mp3. This is a layering of sounds to create compressed files that have great sound quality. Other sound files called .mid, or midi, are synthesized sounds of musical instruments. They create music on a computer that sounds like real musical instruments. The .mp3 file format is the best quality sound file and the most compressed. To find out more on what an mp3 is, how it works, and to create one yourself, click here.