Dojogirl is taking a Paint Shop Pro class at WebTech University. If you don’t know about WebTech, they are a source of free online lessons for making web pages (HTML & CSS style sheets) and graphics (Paint Shop Pro 7 & up.)

Courses are done by reading a lesson and learning concepts a step at a time. At the end of the lesson there’s homework to send to the teacher. Teachers can answer questions and they review homework, but for the most part the courses are self-taught using the prepared lesson. Classes begin every two weeks, and they are free to anyone, anywhere in the world. You just have to be able to read English and have a place to post your homework.

Here are the images Dojogirl modified for her first homework. The first part of the assignment was to copy part of an image and save it as a separate file. Here’s her original, courtesy of Pics4Learning. (You can click on the thumbnails to view the full size images.)

This picture was taken from a hotel window in Yosemite National Park. Unbelievable! I want that to be the view from my bedroom window!

Thanks to the photographer, ManYee DeSandies, for making the pic available. And if you haven’t been to Pics4Learning, do check them out. It’s a good source of copyright friendly images for educational use.

For the new image, Dojogirl selected the grouping of trees on the right of the original photo. My instinct would have been to select the lone tree on the left. I suspect my daughter’s artistic sense is stronger than my own!

For the next part of the assignment Dojogirl had to write text on each of the two images. The font is Abaddon from the Scriptorium, which is available as shareware from DaFont. The Scriptorium folks make a ton of great historical fonts (Celtic, Medieval, Gothic) that could be really useful for for school projects. (Another font Dojogirl really liked for putting captions on graphics was Bleeding Cowboys by Gyom Séguin, aka “Last Soundtrack“. She’s decided she must use it for the Halloween makeup designs she’s been working on!)

The final part of the assignment was to find a different image and to create a frame around it. Dojogirl is very much interested in sign language, as I was at her age. She has mastered the alphabet so far, and she opted to use an image of the letter “D” for this last part of her homework. The graphic also came from Pics4Learning. Thanks to Melinda Kolk of San Diego for this image!

Anyone who is interested in exploring sign language might have fun with the ASL Browser (ASL is short for American Sign Language.) The site requires Quicktime to be installed, so it might not work on all browsers. Those who do have Quicktime will be able to see brief video representations of signs, arranged alphabetically. Many of the accompanying descriptions give an explanation of what the sign represents or how it evolved. (Quicktime is a free download from Apple; if you don’t already have it installed you might try to download it. I can’t guarantee it will work on all browsers, but I believe it does in most.)

We’re getting a little graphic-intensive here, so I’m just going to put in text links rather than thumbnails for the last two images (same as the previous two, but with text again.) The unframed image uses the font Alfredo’s Dance by Raymond Buetens, and points towards the similarity between the sign for “D” and the sign for the number one. The framed image is “signed” using Aladdin Font by WSI.

Great work Dojogirl! Mama is proud of you

Image Sources:

DeSandies, ManYee. sunsetwawona.jpg. 10/01/2003. Pics4Learning. 9 Apr 2008 <http://pics.tech4learning.com>

Kolk, Melinda. d.jpg. Apr-02. Pics4Learning. 9 Apr 2008 <http://pics.tech4learning.com>

This work was created by Ruby and Dojogirl of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is a pervasive developmental delay (PDD) that occurs in about 2/10,000 children - mostly boys. Although some people believe Asperger’s is a completely separate condition, it is sometimes described as a mild or high functioning form of autism.

One of the difficult things about any PDD is that people who have it don’t look any different than other folks. My son was diagnosed with moderate to severe autism when he was two, but most times you couldn’t tell there’s anything different about him unless you try to interact with him.

At age 8 he still has behaviour issues, and is really just this year beginning to speak at the same time he is learning to read and write. But if you were to watch him leaf through a book, you wouldn’t see his disability. His face and body don’t look any different from another boy’s. When we go shopping or to the park and he has a tantrum people think he’s just badly behaved. It’s frustrating, and sometimes just plain embarrassing. I’ve been tempted to print up t-shirts with some smart quip about autism on them. Maybe people would stop wagging their fingers & start thinking about how difficult some things (like waiting in a line) can be for our Bug.

People who have Asperger’s are even more like the “average” person, which can be frustrating when it comes to social interaction and learning.

Below is a video of a teenager who has Asperger’s, explaining what life is like for him. I think he did a great job of illustrating his points. What he says about a cure for Asperger’s is especially worth hearing.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

Welcome to all my readers, both the old friends and the new! I’m feeling a little more at home here at my new digs, but still have to iron out a couple of technical issues such as sidebars that don’t want to update. I hope you like what you see so far, though

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This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!