Pied Piper

The International Children's Digital Library is a fascinating project, whose intent is to make accessible to children from all over the world samples of children's literature. Thousands of children's books have been digitized and posted to their website in this way.

What is even more interesting about this website, is the fact that extensive studies and workshops were conducted in its design, in which researchers worked closely with young children to determine an interface that best suited a child's particular interests and searching needs.

For example, many children reported that they liked picking books based on the color of the cover, or whether the content could be named "happy" or "sad", and so these are filtering options available to browsers of the website.

As an example of what goes on at the International Children's Digital Library, I give you a classic tale: The Pied Piper, as written by Robert Browning. Obviously a digital copy of a very old version of the book.

http://www.childrenslibrary.org/icdl/BookPage?bookid=bropied_00150050&pnum1=52&twoPage=false&route=simple_0_0_Rat_English_0&size=0&fullscreen=false&lang=English&ilang=English

more fun with GIMP - Spicule

Today's adventure in GIMP took place when I selected a variety of pictures of "spicule" in various forms, and smushed them all together, giving me. . .

Cool, huh?

The truth about O'brien

 Miles Obrien, former  Chief of Operations

Vespasian, Roman Emperor 69-79 AD

Uncanny, right? They are both noted as extremely practical individuals, with good heads for management--Vespasian having pulled the Roman Empire into prosperty, and O'brien having kept DS9 ticking.

                     

Playing with GIMP

More playing around with teh ARTS today.

I started with three lovely pictures, of a desert, Kashmir, and Shizouka: 

http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/images/dry_desert.jpg

http://www.funonthenet.in/images/stories/forwards/kashmir%20winter/kashmir-winter-8.jpg

http://www.shizuoka-cvb.or.jp/tour_guide/share_imgs/wallpaper.jpg

THEN I PROCEEDED TO DESTROY THEM . . . 

Version 1

Version 2

Version 3

In The Garden

I got in the mood to draw a little (badly) and play with colors. And fingerpaint! Crayola fingerpaint is great for staining pages, if anyone wanted to know.