cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Andrew Curtis This is the last week of my first semester teaching ds106; Jim Groom has reminded my plenty about what a marathon push this is for both student and teacher. Their blogs have fallen quiet as (I hope) they are going full metal on their final projects. Before doing any philosophical ear waxing on tyhe experience, two meta-ish things have bobbed up repeatedly as a means of looking at the work we are all doing. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the assignments or the branded #life spirit of it all. One of the pleasant (or least negative) aspects of this course is that we really do not spend much fi any time teaching software. You would think we’d have to cover a lot of grounds with students doing photography, visual design, audio recording and editing, video work, remixing… ...

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Daniel*1977 What needs to be done this week. All items must be done by midnight Sunday, April 29 You must write up 3 blog posts, detailed below, one summarizing … Continue reading →

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by Daniel*1977 What needs to be done this week. All items must be done by midnight Sunday, April 29 You must write up 3 blog posts, detailed below, one summarizing … Continue reading →

Getting back into the ds106 creative mood, I was inspired recently to create not only a new animated GIF but make it a new ds106 Design Assignment. Last week, Jim Groom and I watched The Conversation, a brilliant 1974 movie from the conspiracy genre (the slow slide into craziness of Gene Hackman’s character is brilliantly executed). But it was the menu screen for the DVD that made both of us say “HA!” in the background was a direct on shot of the tape machines that figure in the movie, and it was just all animated GIF- the only moving parts were the reels. Jim stayed up late after the movie pulling out the scene into a clean moving GIF. I had it mind to make this a new assignment Animated The DVD Menu: Convert a key scene from a movie into an animated GIF and include graphics elements to make ...

By removing the creative process and leaving only the results of that process, you virtually guarantee that no one will have any real engagement with the subject. It is like saying that Michelangelo created a beautiful sculpture, without letting me see it. How am I supposed to be inspired by that? (And of course it’s actually much worse than this— at least it’s understood that there is an art of sculpture that I am being prevented from appreciating). By concentrating on what, and leaving out why, mathematics is reduced to an empty shell. The art is not in the “truth” but in the explanation, the argument. It is the argument itself which gives the truth its context, and determines what is really being said and meant. Mathematics is the art of explanation. If you deny students the opportunity to engage in this activity— to pose their own problems, make their ...

Two more weeks to go for ds106; we are done with doing assignments for stars. This week and tonight’s session (detailed below) is: prepping for having your blog organized to showcase your work (see below) in[SPIRE] a participation effort to … Continue reading →

Two more weeks to go for ds106; we are done with doing assignments for stars. This week and tonight’s session (detailed below) is: prepping for having your blog organized to showcase your work (see below) in[SPIRE] a participation effort to … Continue reading →

It’s time I eat my own remix food and do a ds106 remixed assignment assignment. I drew the One Story / Four Icon [remixed]: What’s the Prequel?. Here’s mine, which I call “Young Whipper” based on the original work done by MC Guirk: The original assignment, one of the all time classics at ds106, is: The assignment is to reduce a movie, story, or event into its basic elements, then take those visuals and reduce them further to simple icons, four of them. Write your blog post up but do not give away the answer, let people guess! The challenge is to find the icons that suggest the story, but do not make it so easy. with the remix twist: or “What’s The Prequel?” What is the backstory? Prequels are the Hollywood rage as followups to movies, so for this remix, develop the prequel story and generate it in the ...

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by carlstr The photo I chose for this post actually has nothing to do with what (I think I will) write about, but came up in the photostream of something from the compfight search on “unexpected”. Get it? “unexpected”. Enough pre-amble. It’s been exciting to see the student work come in for this week’s ds106 work that uses my experimental assignment remix generator. We’ve been emphasizing that the focus of this exercise is less on what they create and more on how they go about interpreting and writing up how to do something like One Story/Four Icons [remixed]: What’s the prequel?. What we want is to see/read your thinking on this. Tow things have come in as questions from students. (1) How do I do this if it makes no sense? Well one option is to keep reloading the generator until ...

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Viktor Hertz In the video section of the course we have already entered into the fray of video remixes and discussed abut the notion of everything as a remix. … Continue reading →

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Viktor Hertz In the video section of the course we have already entered into the fray of video remixes and discussed abut the notion of everything as a remix. … Continue reading →

In the video section of the course we have already entered into the fray of video remixes and discussed abut the notion of everything as a remix. For this week, we are going to experiment with a new appliance in the ds106 cupboard- a remix of ds106 assignments. cc licensed...

so…. @jimgroom @timmmmyboy a gentle reminder, in case you need design help with this is.gd/7kCbd5 #ds106 #pleeeez — Lisa M. Lane (@LisaMLane) April 6, 2012 You may feel ignored as you have been asking a while, but it has not gone unheard. I’ve spent an afternoon climbing around the underbelly of the ds106 WordPress database, and am still not quite at the magic place where I can connect the feeds that are syndicated via Feedwordpress and the tags it applies on incoming posts. Until I can do that last mile, I at least have a starting point: The issue is part of a larger one where for now the process of adding feeds to ds106 is manual, and it is there we usually enter a tag for class sections (this applies the tag to all syndicated posts). The open online participants currently do not have a tag, so to test, ...

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by DonkeyHotey Today marks the 89th day of the ds106 Daily Create site. The TDC has been a typical ds106 roll as we go grand experiment, but it has more than rolled, it has rocked too. Below is a little bit of what has happened between tdc1 and tsc89- plus a plea for you to help us by adding new daily create challenges. This impetus was spawned a bit by the demise of the dailyshoot photography site which issued a regular challenge to do in photography. I fully buy into the idea that small acts of regular creativity is not only good practice, but good for the soul. I have no proof, just my own case study. For the start of classes in January, we hoped to create our own version, and to be more than photography, but video, audio too. Tim ...

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Just tonight on The ds106 radio, Scottlo was scoffing at the idea that the ds106 Kickstarter could fund a bus “What kind of bus can you get for under 2 grand?” Why a groovy Mystery Machi...

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by francescominciotti From YouTube Press Stats 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. 70% of YouTube traffic comes … Continue reading →

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by francescominciotti From YouTube Press Stats 60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second. 70% of YouTube traffic comes … Continue reading →

For the ds106 assignment One Archetype, Five Movies, Five Seconds Create a five second video of one archetype from five different movies cutting together one second of each. Examples could include: Prisoners, Thieves, Beauty Queens, Kings, Robin Hoods, James Bonds, Bank Robbers, Assassins, Bad Boys, Kung Fu Masters, Femme Fatales, Sports Heroes, High School Bullies, Rogue Police Officers, Brainiacs, Pregnancies, Principals, Mean Teachers, InspirationalTeachers, Gunslingers, Gangsters, Monsters, Bartenders, Warrior Princesses, Swordsman, Knights, Mad Scientists, Nerd Girls, Obstructive Bureaucrats, Sidekicks, Wise Old Men, Hardboiled Detectives, Tough Coaches, Swooning Ladies. I went for my familiar territory, cops from the 1960s-1970s who just don’t fit in. They clash with the bosses and the bad guys. They are heroic badness. Featured include: Al Pacino (Serpico, 1973) Steve McQueen (Bullit, 1968) Robert Blake (Electra Glide in Blue, 1973) Clint Eastwood (Magnum Force, 1973) Richard Roundtree (Shaft 1971 the original) Electra Glide in Blue is the ...

Wow, I needed a does of ds106 creativity, so I set out tonight to do the very assignment I submitted, Return to the Silent Era: The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form os the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track. As an example, see Silent Star Wars. Get creative and choose a movie that would look most unlikely to be done from this era. Presenting… 1901: A Spatial Odyssey: On my walk home tonight I was rummaging what movies of the future would be fun to retro back, and landed on 2001: A Space Odyssey. I used the “Stop Dave, I’m Afraid” segment where Dave Bowman ...

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Andy Rush, resident DTLT expert, creator of our video resource site just showed me a helpful tip for MPEG Stream Clip. I’ve previously suggested using the Export – MPEG-4 option … Continue reading →