Jon_Module2

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For the course selected in Module 1 examine this course to see if you can identify each of the instructional strategies – information-about, part-of, kind-of, how-to, and what-happens. Did these instructional strategies include the prescribed instructional events? If some of the prescribed instructional events are missing see if you can design some of these missing instructional events. If some of the instructional strategies are not included in this course see if you can prescribe the inclusion of the missing instructional strategies.
 * Assignment:**

Most of this course is a long series of “how-to” component skills using the demonstration instructional strategy. This can be pretty easily seen just by the titles of the steps such as: “Duplicate the Background Layer” and “Select the Healing Brush and Set it To Use The Pattern”. Each of the component skill “how-to” examples has all the appropriate content elements of steps and sequences. The nice addition the author makes is to add images that show where the appropriate interaction with the application should occur. This helps direct the focus of the learner to the locations they are supposed to be working with.
 * 1) Identify each of the instructional strategies**

Unfortunately this tutorial really stops just short of having “what-happens” examples to explain what’s going on with the photo. Since most of the “how-to” stages have images of what happens after you complete the steps the learner can infer some of the consequence that is going on. I’ll explain in the next question/answer how this could be modified to improve the educational strategy.

There is a little “information-about” going on throughout the tutorial as well. The author shares several facts about the name of tools, short-cuts to implement them, and various procedural tips. Much of this could also be extended to have a greater value to the learner by having on-demand elaboration. For instance, the author could define what a pattern is then allow the user to select the work to get more information about the tool. Within that information could be addition content information as is “nice-to-know”.


 * 2) Did these instructional strategies include the prescribed instructional events? If some of the prescribed instructional events are missing see if you can design some of these missing instructional events. If some of the instructional strategies are not included in this course see if you can prescribe the inclusion of the missing instructional strategies.**

There is some assumption that the learner will be performing this tutorial in sync with the author, and therefore that the entire tutorial is a concurrent //Show// and //Do// of the “how-to” component skill. This is strengthened by wording such as “we need to do this” or “okay now you finished that”.

To improve the learning I would add some “what-happens” & “information-about” component skills within the individual steps. For instance, in step 2 when the learner is guided to use the “Dust & Scratches” filter we have a unique opportunity to build up their mental model. The author might say:

Typically the “Dust & Scratches” filter is used to fix old or damaged photos like the one below. The filter is essentially looking for color that is dissimilar to what is around it and attempts to remove it by blending it with nearby colors. You can see below that several of the white flecks and cracks in the image are removed in this fashion. Unfortunately, it also has the side effect of blurring the entire image because varying degrees of color are all over the place and naturally occur in photos. I will show you a way around this problem as we proceed! || **After** ||
 * **Before**

The reason we are using this filter for our picture is that face stubble appears as flecks of black on an otherwise colorful face. Similar problem! Can you think of other examples where this happens?

With Layer 1 selected apply the filter. In the option box you will notice a Threshold and Radius value. We will avoid using Threshold for this tutorial, but if you want to learn what it does take a look [|here]. Changing the radius determines how far the filter searches for differences among pixels. Generally the larger the radius is set the blurrier the image will be. You can see this pretty clearly in the images below. Trying playing with the Radius value to get a feel for how it impacts the image.



It’s important we increase the Radius enough to blue out the stubble, but not so much that we lose the shape of the face. We will use this modified image to color over the original version so keeping as much of the face shape as possible will ensure we keep the face’s defined look. Now select a Radius that fits these conditions. I ultimately decided on a Radius of 4.



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