Apologies for some radio silence, it has been an up and down week, I was starting to feel better at the weekend, but after a couple of days on my feet back at work I was really feeling it. It’s okay when I wake up but by the end of the afternoon I’m really aching. Anyway, this is the last word I’m going to say on this, it is very dull to hear about other people’s ailments, so it’s just a case of getting better, pacing myself and checking in with the doctor. We’ll get there.
Instead, let’s take a check on the semester, we’re almost at the end of it, it has been bumpy for various reasons, not only missing a few days here and there, but travel and still some covid-related sickness with the students. I think what I’ve found really challenging has been teaching two new courses, it takes a while for a curriculum to find its shape and it will take a few iterations to get it right. I’m already looking forward to adapting and updating my courses for the next time that I’ll be teaching them.
Here at home we are headed to the end of the year, festivities, concerts, a few trips and soccer tournaments (yes, even in December). The weather has turned sharply cold, although the sun is out, it is crisp and bright outside, there is a cat sunbathing on the fence outside.
I don’t really have any new photos either because I haven’t been out that much, so this week there are a few bits of art from over the years, mostly in the hope that it will inspire me to pick up my sketchbook again. I really am in the doldrums1.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
We’re at the business-end of courses now, I just need students to commit to their assignments and get everything completed in time. Students in the Digital Realities (XR) course have been working on final group projects. Because this is an introductory course, we’re not looking for completed works, instead we’re asking them for pitch decks, videos, mockups, prototypes, and challenging them to see how far they can get without committing to actually building the thing, so removing the need to develop. Having said that, some of the projects are pretty close, another semester and I think we’d have working products. Perhaps I’m being overly optimistic here, the devil is always in the detail, the students aren’t testing as vigorously as they would in the real world, but the projects themselves are real enough.
The emphasis has been on storytelling, I hesitate to use the word “narrative” and although I’ve always encouraged students who want to create experimental, non-linear works (that’s my bag), I do want those stories to be engaging and I suppose, straightforward in terms of having character, pace, emotion. Immersive Technologies are those that center the audience, gives them agency, and invites them into the experience, not in a passive way, as a viewer, but an embodied participant, so that you could easily feel that someone within that space might speak to you or touch your hand.
Next week we’ll wrap up the courses with presentations, the students will still have some time to complete their written work and make changes to earlier drafts, although not many of them take the opportunity to do this, even when I’ve provided formative feedback. It’s my job to see that students get an A, if they fall short then I usually feel that I’m at fault.
Life Lessons
The world continues to be a weird and strange place. I am addicted to TikTok and need to find a way to control my habit. I’ve tried setting limits but I usually override them when the alert pops up. At the moment my feed is a very specific mix of vinyl record collectors, political commentary, movie trailers, video and filmmaking tips, occasional architectural or urban design content (yes, there’s a whole sub-genre about pedestrianization, crosswalks, right turn signals). I keep getting pushed to content about “Karens”, bad cops, dogs, unblocking storm drains (again, I had no idea this was a thing), and school board meetings where they discuss book banning or anti-trans actions.
I really don’t like these patronizing and degrading “acts of kindness” where some teenager pays for someone’s shopping or pretends to beg only to reward a kind samaritan with a big wad of money. If this ever happened to me I would be furious, and again it fits in well with America’s upside down philanthropy, I happen to believe rich people’s taxes should fund food drives, homeless shelters or life saving operations for those who can’t afford it, instead of large donations that can be written off against taxable income. I also think it perpetuates this idea of a rich benevolent savior, ready to step in and use their wealth for good (while still paying their workers crappy wages).
Don’t get me wrong, charity is a good thing, we should all give when we can. I suppose my frustration is this, in the UK at the moment Leonard Cheshire, a company that supports disabled residents in care is having to close some of its homes, because the donations that they receive can’t make up for the shortfall between the cost of caring for one its residents and the funding it receives from local councils, whose budgets are being cut even further by a series of austerity measures imposed by government. Charities are being asked to fund essential costs which should already be covered. It’s obvious when “difficult decisions” need to be made, that it is those in care that suffer most.
Lost and Found
I came across a few things this week that might be helpful.
If you want to change the language preference in Canvas, for instance you teach one course in French but others in English, then you can set it just for that course. You can do this as a student or instructor. It is a neat trick although depending on your computer’s default language settings you might still get red spellcheck lines under certain words.
I put my name on the waiting list for scrintal which looks like an interesting research tool, it helps you by creating networked notes that tie to specific sentences, so that you can keep all your references and bookmarks in one place.
The call for papers for the Playful Learning Conference is out and I will try and write something around the work that I’ve been doing in design-thinking and media production, something like that.
Jason Kottke has returned from his sabbatical and started posting again. It’s great to have him back, and just in time too, he recommended a great gift list at The Kid Should See This.
Although I primarily use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit video, I have been trying out CapCut to see if I can recommend it to students. It is pretty intuitive and simple to use and the results are similar to using native apps within tiktok or reels, perhaps with a few more elements you can control. It also has an extensive library of sounds and music that you can use. It’s pretty quick, which I think is its best feature, I always hoped that quicktime might become this sort of lite-editing tool.
I made a quick unboxing video of the Photoolex Tofu light, which is totally ace, you can thread to a tripod, the whole thing is magnetic, it has a ton of cool presets such as police lights, lightning, night club, fireworks, tv static…you could make a whole film with it. The new ones that are coming out soon look even tastier.
Thank you
So you see, bit by bit. I’m getting there, with the help of a few foot exercises prescribed by the NHS.
I want to say thank you btw to some of the new people who subscribed, this is becoming quite a lovely community of people, still I won’t bombard you with discussion threads, instead I’ll try and give you a few audio pieces before the end of the year.
I’m already looking forward to next semester, there are some amazing projects on the horizon and I’ll also be supporting students with some incredible independent projects.
I just need to get some momentum, get into the right headspace.
There’s a line around the equator where there isn’t much wind, and as a consequence sailing boats are often stuck there, riding the currents and streams, they are listless for days on end.