Bus blogging 3

I'm trying to use this time to finish a reading for my class at NYU, Representation and Interaction Design for Eductional Environments. The current reading is about benefiits of video game design for developing instructional media. I'll drop some key points in here as I go through it.

Bus blogging 2

7:23 am
Eeeew, potty smell on every left turn...

Bus blogging

7:12 am
What, no wifi in Port Authority?!? Ah, taking the bus is the way to travel...sweet solitude as the world passes by. But wow Port Authority is so disgusting. Nuff said about that. Anytime I get on a Greyhound/Trailways bus it reminds me of my 18-hour rides between California and New Mexico, one parent to another, 30 years ago. Those trips always felt like journeys into undiscovered territory because buses take you through strange, unattractive parts of each destination. It's a feeling that persists now, even in Manhattan.

Vista and the user

I read this article, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, a week ago and I've been thinking about it a lot. It's long, but well worth the read. The main point is that Vista is a tool for Microsoft to corner the market on home entertainment.

Good Housekeeping gets my seal of approval

You know that magazine on the supermarket racks that you look at and think "Who actually reads that?" Well somehow--I actually don't know how--a copy of Good Housekeeping ended up in my house and I was surprised to read a couple of very good articles. One was about racism in the real estate business continuing to promote segregated neighborhoods. The other was about using Google to find fixes for common problems, like when your iPod crashes or when you need to clean a special fabric. I automatically turn to search engines to answer questions and I really agreed with the author of the article when they suggested taking a little time to find out how others have solved a problem you have by tweaking your keywords rather than throwing something away or spending a lot to have it repaired. Way to go, Good Housekeeping!

Diversity of Design

My 7th grade robotics class is working on making switch-controlled gates, modeled after the type of gate that lets you in and out of a parking lot. What has been really fun about this project is the diversity of engineering solutions my students are coming up with. This has to be a result of having my students all year instead of by trimesters like I did last year. The two following photos give an idea of different solutions they are coming up with for making gates. For these particular two projects the students had to learn about gearing down as well because in one case the arm was too heavy for the motor to lift it on its own and for the other the gate turned way too fast so the gearing down allowed it to go slower. What I loved about the student working on the latter is that I held just the gear in the position it would need to be and she immediately said, "Oh, I see how I need to attach it, I can take it from there." Obviously some excellent visual problem solving going on.

Tutorial on Using The Book

I was laughing so hard at this this morning and I hadn't even had my coffee. A monk from the middle ages gets tech support as he upgrades from the scroll to the book.


Here's the link and what it says on YouTube. "This video makes fun of moderns newbie computer users by illustrating - in a way fully understandable to them - how silly some of their questions are by creating a similar problem 500 years ago.

It's from a show called Øystein & Meg (Øystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel (NRK) in 2001. The spoken language is Norwegian, the subs in Danish. It's written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad."

How to Use Wikipedia (Not)

There's a great post up on Andy Carvin's learning.now blog about using Wikipedia for college level research. There are so many misconceptions about Wikipedia out there that this post is wonderful for its clear-headed positions as put forth by Andy and the people he spoke to. Even representatives from Wikipedia itself agreed with the new policy at Middlebury College that says students can't cite the web site in their research. They said Wikipedia is good for getting an overview of a topic and finding references to other reputable websites but it shouldn't ever be considered the definitive authority on a topic. The valuable thing to remember here is that it's both inappropriate to rely on it as the sole authority or ban its use completely. It has great value as an introduction to almost any topic but you've got to take it from there.

The Best Photoshop Teacher

The internet is the best Photoshop teacher. My 8th graders are finishing up their issue-related advertisements in Photoshop and while some straggle, others need something to work on. They were clamoring for me to teach them how to "Photoshop" themselves, or change their own features the way we've been looking at how it's done in media. At first I felt alarmed, like they wanted to look like the models we were supposedly deconstructing, but then realized it was a way for them to feel empowered in the face of the manipulating images and messages around them; they can finally begin to control something for which they are just considered an audience. Anyway, rather than try to teach them techniques I barely know myself I found some tutorials on everything from changing hair color to making an object pop out of a frame. The students have been incredibly focused as they follow these tutorials step-by-step on images of their choosing. In fact the by-product of the activity has been much-needed practice of following difficult directions. Here is the list of tutorials:
Beginner
Make a reflection of an image
Swap faces
Put cracks in a face
Separate a subject from its background
Create smooth skin
Make a grin look evil
Put a ghost in a picture
Stretch a mouth for cartoon effect
Make a photo look old
Replace a color with another color
Change hair color

Intermediate
Make a face wooden
Make something jump out of a frame
Make something jump out of a frame (another version)
Make line art from a photo
Make Warhol art from a photo

Teaching Critical Consuming

I'm so proud of my 8th graders. We've begun an extended project in which we use an Elgg community, each student with her own blog, to share weekly observations about media. They are assigned to post any thoughts, observations, or discoveries they have during the week related to media, whether it's about advertising or production. Already I've seen two gems: One student student submitted a video clip from a food blog about subliminal advertising on the Food Network (seriously, a huge red "I'm lovin' it!" splashed across one single frame of the Iron Chef) and another noticed that the characters on the OC were all talking very conspicuously on their Verizon phones. I have 28 students. It's like one big Media Awareness Detective Agency gathering mountains of data.