On Wednesday we woke up to a flurry of snow, not enough to cause a panic, but a reminder that winter is on the way, and autumn better get on with it.
On Tuesday it was Halloween, and after weeks of indecision, our kid finally figured out a costume, and set off as a vampire to walk the streets of the poshest neighbourhood in Pittsburgh, just a mile away, where people sat on their drives with firepits, sipping hot apple cider, and giving away mountain-loads of candy.
The rest of the week, I’ve been trying to avoid eating leftover chocolate bars and snacks, and finding wrappers down the backs of sofas. The boys are pretty happy with their hoard. It should last them until the weekend.
Stephan
Teaching & Learning
I welcomed two groups to the room, both languages classes, the first to explore different places in virtual reality, where they visited cities, and described as much as they could about their journey in the target language, in this case French. Again it took a while to get everyone set-up, and it really is challenging when students are not accustomed to headsets and the basic UI components of VR. I’m now wondering about a sort of induction class, that almost everyone needs to take, just so that they have familiarity with the room. I encourage my colleagues to send their students, but it is still the case that the majority of learners are finding out about us for the first time, and have no idea what we do.
We’re hoping to counter this, with a rebrand and refresh, an exercise that we’re doing with a local Pittsburgh-based company called Bootstrap. It is refreshing to get the outside view on this, and it feels as if we’re making great progress. We're hoping that new branding will better communicate who we are to our audience, which consists mostly of students and other visitors. We’ll grow into a name, one that is succinct and engaging, one that isn’t formed from an acronym, or only works in an academic setting. I can’t wait.
I should just mention the second group who came to the room, to get some helpful hints and tips on creating video with a phone. It was a bit unexpected, and a busman’s holiday. I haven’t taught this sort of session for ages, and we had a relatively large class, but had a lot of fun, and some it seemed to be sinking in. We talked techy things like camera settings, framerates and compression, but also craft, such as framing, capturing movement, shooting for the edit.
Life Lessons
The news has been difficult to watch, which is an understatement. I’m one of those calling for a ceasefire, to enable people to escape the conflict, allow humanitarian aid to reach those most at need; and I’m struggling to understand how asking for these things is seen as complicit, as tacit support for Hamas. This thoughtful and compassionate article from our Dean for Humanities Richard Scheines, highlights how slogans, such as those written on CMU’s fence, that have stoked tensions between the students, are often reductive, and of course don’t express the complex feelings that people are experiencing, that are shaping views and opinions on the conflict.
News is still suffering from a pervasive rationalism, that reduces stories into two sides, and while viewers may still perceive the truth as being at the halfway point between two extreme points of view; more and more we’re being asked to take sides, or being signposted to where our views should lie according to our ideologies, in a very general way saying; well if you agree with this, then you should agree with that. Where is the space where understanding is formed, why can’t we be uniformed, but seek to be informed. I’m not sure I’m putting this right, but I worry. Suffering is terrible, it needs to stop.
Lost and Found
I received some good reactions on the AI stuff I posted last week, and I have a few more things to share with you, that you might find useful. I’ve noticed, perhaps because of an explosion of AI apps, that developers are using the moment to launch a whole bunch of new tools and platforms, that, while not LLM-based AI, are similar enough to try to ride the wave of all the others.
If you are using Chrome, there are literally hundreds of extensions to support language learning, including Tactiq, which is a real-time transcription tool for google meet and zoom. I’m regularly using transcripts in YouTube, to quickly search for particular words or phrases. It is a really quick way of getting to the content that you’re looking for, I can read quicker than I can watch, and I can click on particular words to jump to that part of the video, you should give it a go.
Also, another useful tool I found is Read Aloud. I found while looking for ways to turn a video into an audio file, so that I could listen to a YouTube talk on my phone, like a podcast. It is a screen reader, but a really smart one that can pretty much handle any file you throw at it.
I found my solution by the way, was to use 4k Downloader, which is free, and brilliant, to rip the audio from a video, and save in iCloud where I can play it easily. Honestly, it has the appearance of ransomware, but it functions exceptionally well, and I’ve used it for years, even upgrading to the paid-for version every now and then.
Also (spoilers)…
I also wanted to mention that I went to see Killers of the Flower Moon, the new film by Martin Scorsese, that details the murders of Osage people in 1920’s Oklahoma. If it sounds glib to say that it’s a long film, then you should know that my criticism stems from wanting fewer scenes of the two white men at the center of this, played by DiCaprio and DeNiro, plotting their part of what became the “Reign of Terror”, and more from the native actors portraying citizens of the Osage Nation. Lily Gladstone, who plays Hokti in Reservation Dogs, is at times the narrator, but often understated in terms of her importance to the film. She is its heart, and for me the movie often lost pace when she was not on screen.
It was interesting reading native reactions to the movie, I have to say it would be harrowing to see depictions of ancestors being brutally killed, only to know that this was part of a litany of atrocities perpetrated by colonists, often sanctioned by law. In the film, we see the formation of the FBI, sent to investigate the killings, only after a white man, sent to Washington is assassinated by those who wished to hide the truth of what was taking place.
I also had another thought, that Te Ata Thompson Fisher, the storyteller and actor who spent time at Carnegie Tech in the 1920’s, and is the subject of a new project I am supporting; would have been studying at the same time that these murders were taking place, and would have experienced those same conditions, the racism, the danger of those times.
Thank you
We have a busy weekend ahead, and although it is definitely colder, I’ll wrap up and go for bike ride. I’ve felt a little more productive than usual, getting some writing done, even a bit of reading. I’m listening to my new records, tempted to see what new stuff is in the secondhand bins, but I’ll wait.
Okay, I think that’s all for now, take care of yourselves. Batten down the hatches if you’re in the UK, and dig out your winter clothes if you’re nearby.
Cheers.