Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Week 4: Digital pictures

Well, I got some pictures uploaded at the lecture on Wednesday afternoon. As a university student and perspective teacher I an a collector of data. It is telling that much of the data I have collected is actually in picture form. One always thinks of pictures being somewhat stagnant and restrained within their own story. I made a movie using Microsoft Movie Maker and used still pictures to do it. After I put the stills together with sound a real story all of a sudden came to life. The use of individual pictures in conjunction with programs like Microsoft Movie Maker can make for an entertaining and educational learning experience for middle phase learners.
Jennah Ritter (2010) comments that MovieMaker, "technology would be extremely beneficial towards students after being on an excursion". I used pictures in my movie to great effect and believe that a series of still pictures can be better than a series of movies in education. I added through a comment that MovieMaker, through a picture series, and used to document field trips, could also be used to help teachers reflect on the field trip and also to use as a teaching tool for other students.

The plant at the top of my blog is called Heliamphora nutans (Sun Pitcher Plant). It is an extremely rare plant from Mt Romania in Venezuela. These plants grow in the cloud forests that are located on top of huge slabs of rock called a Tepui. The highest waterfall in the world originates on top of a Tepui and is called Angle falls and plunges about 1000m. The Sun Pitcher Plants are often living literally in clouds that blow over Mt Romania and grow on bare rock; this makes them extremely hard to grow. The interesting thing about these plants is they are carnivorous and get the nitrogen they need by hydrolysing proteins from insects that get trapped. They trap insects through a passive pitfall trap. Insects are drawn to nectar excreted on the little red cap at the top of the leaf. The nectar is secreted by nectar secreting glands and these glands are located in ribs that move longitudinally down into the plant. The insects follow these and eventually slip into a reservoir of water at the bottom of the funnel. They cannot escape from the reservoir as it is lined with downward pointing hairs. The plant secretes pepsinase into the water in the reservoir that acts enzymatically to digest the insect.

The picture in the bottom left of the blog is a photograph of the seed pod of a plant called Proboscidea louisianica, the unicorn plant. It is a native of North America and is primarily a weed of cultivated areas. It has become naturalised in Australia and the seed pod pictured is a burr that entangles the feet and faces of grazing animals often leading to death. The interesting thing about this plant is that it is carnivorous, capturing small flying insects that get stuck on the leaves. The other interesting thing about this plant is its stigma (female pollen capturing organ) is thigmotrophic (responds to touch through movement).

The picture in the bottom right is a photo of a rain forest scene taken at Otway National Park in Victoria. Victoria has large tracts of wet temperate rainforest. These forests are very dense and wet and provide for some extraordinary biodiversity and spectacular scenery.

The picture of the beach scene is of Bells Beach in Victoria. Bells Beach is a famous surfing beach with rolling sets of tube waves as can be seen.


Jennah Ritter. (2010). E-learning journey: week 5-moviemaker. Retrieved from Jennah's Blog: http://jmritter.blogspot.com/

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