It's been a while since I've blogged, mostly due to the intense effort I've been putting towards finishing my 894 culminating experience work. The semester has flown by, especially the past month.
Our focus in 830 has been on developing and designing our group project, which I feel will be a great resource for future 830ers and anyone who is interested in learning more about Web 2.0 and some of its specific technologies. Our group has worked well together, dividing work between us based on individual interests and expertise.
Our final product is in the form of a Wiki, so that future students can continue to edit and add to the ever-growing world that is Web 2.0. Each of us took on the challenge of researching and detailing the most relevant information on a given technology, and created a learning scenario for users to participate in.
I've enjoyed this class, although it wasn't exactly what I had expected it to be when I signed up. I feel confident and very knowledgeable about Web 2.0, and enjoy the fact that I am comfortable with such prevalent technology.
To each of my classmates, thank you for contributing to my knowledge through your presentations, and for keeping the class light and fun. To my final project team, I enjoyed working with each of you and feel proud of the product we've generated. And to Dr. Foreman, I enjoy your enthusiasm and feel like this class has given me a strong foundation for Web 2.0 technologies.
So now I graduate...I'm excited and a bit sad all at once. Being back in school over the past two years has been an incredible experience, and I will be a bit sad to end this experience. At the same time, I am excited to be back into the work force, and to put my knowledge into action...
Keep in touch, my friends...
Ben
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Week 11 (?) - And spring break.
The week off was a good break...my mind feels refreshed. My body renewed. My blog revitalized....
The week before break, we had some good presentations in class. I hope that I was able to enlighten a good number of you about digg.com, and that you have found it to be a useful Web 2.0 technology. Peter's presentation on Social Networking was fun, too. I've used a number of those sites before, but it was a good opportunity to learn more about them.
I've begun doing a lot of work towards our group projects, and creating an informational bit and a "how-to" on Wikis. It has made me consider how many practical uses there are for Wikis and I've even though of a few that I'd like to create.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the Web 2.0 conference. I'm looking forward to hearing from people about their experiences there.
See y'all in class!!
The week before break, we had some good presentations in class. I hope that I was able to enlighten a good number of you about digg.com, and that you have found it to be a useful Web 2.0 technology. Peter's presentation on Social Networking was fun, too. I've used a number of those sites before, but it was a good opportunity to learn more about them.
I've begun doing a lot of work towards our group projects, and creating an informational bit and a "how-to" on Wikis. It has made me consider how many practical uses there are for Wikis and I've even though of a few that I'd like to create.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the Web 2.0 conference. I'm looking forward to hearing from people about their experiences there.
See y'all in class!!
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Week 9/10 - our crazy globe
week 9 - WEEK OFF
week 10 - had a couple presentations on Global Information Systems and also Google Earth, both very cool technologies.
I've been using Google Earth since it was first widely released and I'm a big fan...of course the first thing people want to do is to find their house, their school, their favorite park, etc. I'm fascinated with the ability to check out satelite imagery from my home....
Our group divided up tasks for our group project and came up with action steps for each person to complete over the spring break.
In the past week I've been spending a lot of time researching for my presentation on digg.com. Cool site...lots of great digital media to check out.
week 10 - had a couple presentations on Global Information Systems and also Google Earth, both very cool technologies.
I've been using Google Earth since it was first widely released and I'm a big fan...of course the first thing people want to do is to find their house, their school, their favorite park, etc. I'm fascinated with the ability to check out satelite imagery from my home....
Our group divided up tasks for our group project and came up with action steps for each person to complete over the spring break.
In the past week I've been spending a lot of time researching for my presentation on digg.com. Cool site...lots of great digital media to check out.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
week 8: vlogging
What kind of world do we live in where "vlog" becomes a common word?
I'll answer that. We live in a world complete with accessible communication technology, so abundant, that just about anyone with a computer and a video camera can easily produce a video blog. And we live in a world that is so adaptive to new technology, that we are constantly coming up with new words, like "vlog", to accomodate these developments.
I enjoyed seeing the video blogs produced by the class on the various chapters of Pink's book which were covered in week 8. Everyone seemed to uniquely interpret both the chapters and their ideas of how they should be represented on video. The results were a lot of fun.
I enjoyed learning from Erika's presentation on Google Docs, and feel that it is a service I will now be using more regularly. I enjoy being able to access certain documents from wherever I am, and thought that Erika showed some good examples of how it can be used purposefully.
It was also my groups first opportunity to meet with Dr. Foreman to discuss our project. I am excited about the opportunity to take a number of Web 2.0 technologies and synthesize them into a group learning activity for future 830 classes, as well as Dr. Foreman's students and teachers in Africa to learn from.
I'll answer that. We live in a world complete with accessible communication technology, so abundant, that just about anyone with a computer and a video camera can easily produce a video blog. And we live in a world that is so adaptive to new technology, that we are constantly coming up with new words, like "vlog", to accomodate these developments.
I enjoyed seeing the video blogs produced by the class on the various chapters of Pink's book which were covered in week 8. Everyone seemed to uniquely interpret both the chapters and their ideas of how they should be represented on video. The results were a lot of fun.
I enjoyed learning from Erika's presentation on Google Docs, and feel that it is a service I will now be using more regularly. I enjoy being able to access certain documents from wherever I am, and thought that Erika showed some good examples of how it can be used purposefully.
It was also my groups first opportunity to meet with Dr. Foreman to discuss our project. I am excited about the opportunity to take a number of Web 2.0 technologies and synthesize them into a group learning activity for future 830 classes, as well as Dr. Foreman's students and teachers in Africa to learn from.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Week 7 - Recap and Video Blog
On we move into week 7 of the semester, and further and further we move into Web 2.0 technologies. This past week in class we got some great demonstrations from John, Kate, and Leo on some really helpful and fun tools.
Kate got us started with an overview of Second Life. Now for years we've been talking about virtual reality (or virtual insanity as Jamiroquai would say.) But I truly have never seen anything that approached virtual reality until I got my first taste of Second Life. It truly does present an alternative reality that provides incredible capabilitites.
Leo's presentation on Tagging was really well done. Not only did he provide an excellent overview of what tagging is, but showed a great range of examples of how it can be applied both on your local machine and on the great wide web. I certainly learned a lot of new organizational techniques, and will continue to apply tagging to many of my technical endeavors.
John presented video blogging, and in addition to describing what it is and how it's done, he also revealed a lot of information on different blogging sites, and specifically the positives and negatives of various formats, including 3rd party hosting, streaming, or downloading. It gave me the confidence to create my own video blog this week on Daniel Pink's chapter on Empathy, from his book "A Whole New Mind."
Enjoy my video blog below...
Kate got us started with an overview of Second Life. Now for years we've been talking about virtual reality (or virtual insanity as Jamiroquai would say.) But I truly have never seen anything that approached virtual reality until I got my first taste of Second Life. It truly does present an alternative reality that provides incredible capabilitites.
Leo's presentation on Tagging was really well done. Not only did he provide an excellent overview of what tagging is, but showed a great range of examples of how it can be applied both on your local machine and on the great wide web. I certainly learned a lot of new organizational techniques, and will continue to apply tagging to many of my technical endeavors.
John presented video blogging, and in addition to describing what it is and how it's done, he also revealed a lot of information on different blogging sites, and specifically the positives and negatives of various formats, including 3rd party hosting, streaming, or downloading. It gave me the confidence to create my own video blog this week on Daniel Pink's chapter on Empathy, from his book "A Whole New Mind."
Enjoy my video blog below...
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Week 6 Thoughts - Visual Stories
Week six's class focused on a theme of story. Each student created a story using just 5 pictures, and each story gave slack to multiple interpretations. Nowhere was this more evident that when Dr. Foreman asked each student to write the story that came to mind when viewing John's photos. It was interesting to hear how different students interpreted the pictures' meaning, and all of the photo stories were amusing and emotive.
As a class, we also spent some time navigating through the flickr site to user-test the interface and design. Everyone seemed to agree that there were a number of aspects to the design that weren't very intuitive. Personally, I felt that the site was adequately designed, and I didn't seem to have very much difficulty figuring out how to tag a photo to a map, but I did agree that many of the steps could have been simplified.
Carmen and Areej presented Eluminate, a software available for group presentations and conferencing. It seems to have a good interface for both users and presenters, and hopefully more and more of this type of software will become available at affordable prices. It's too bad that the trial period had expired before their presentation, but I think the class got a good chance to understand the basics of the program.
Finally, Darren, Peter, and I decided to work together on our final group project. We hope to come to some understanding of what type of project we will be doing in the next week or two...
As a class, we also spent some time navigating through the flickr site to user-test the interface and design. Everyone seemed to agree that there were a number of aspects to the design that weren't very intuitive. Personally, I felt that the site was adequately designed, and I didn't seem to have very much difficulty figuring out how to tag a photo to a map, but I did agree that many of the steps could have been simplified.
Carmen and Areej presented Eluminate, a software available for group presentations and conferencing. It seems to have a good interface for both users and presenters, and hopefully more and more of this type of software will become available at affordable prices. It's too bad that the trial period had expired before their presentation, but I think the class got a good chance to understand the basics of the program.
Finally, Darren, Peter, and I decided to work together on our final group project. We hope to come to some understanding of what type of project we will be doing in the next week or two...
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Man, it burns...
A five frame story of my adventure at Burning Man 2006
The Man Lives
Desert Art
Cocktail Hours
Caveman need dinner
The Man Lives
Desert Art
Cocktail Hours
Caveman need dinner
The ultimate bonfire
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Is Pink in his right mind?
Daniel Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind,” discusses how our society is changing to one where “right-brain” activity (art, creativity, design, humor, context, empathy) is becoming increasingly more important to our advancement and development. Whereas “left-brain” activity (dubbed L-thinking, including logic, language, sequence, details, etc) has been distinguished as the primary contributor to society’s advancement in the industrial and information ages, these specialized brain activities are decreasing in demand due to abundance of materials, outsourcing of labor to Asia, and the automation of computers that can replicate L-Directed thinking.
Pink declares that R-directed thinking will become the leading force in our next stage of civilization. Gone are soon the days of humans (or at least Americans) being needed for computer programming, medical diagnosis, or balancing accounting spreadsheets. As our natural social progression pushes labor to the east for lower wages, and replaces workers with computer software, our population must begin to hone its creative aptitude. Pink points to evidence that this process is already well underway. Design degrees are becoming as valuable as business degrees, and perhaps more. Many schools are looking for alternatives to standardized, high stakes testing in favor of developing creative assessment. Large corporations are turning their backs from their L-Directed thinking and are en route of “outside the box” thinkers to lead their futures.
Pink proposes that this transformation in society is already well underway, and those who are unwilling to adapt will endure a hard-hitting fate. He offers a number of suggestions for how we can compliment our L-Directed thinking with some essential R-Directed skills. These suggested proficiencies, which Pink terms “The Six Senses,” include:
• Design
• Story
• Symphony
• Empathy
• Play
• Meaning
Understanding these six senses and knowing how they will increasingly guide our lives and futures, is our only hope, as Pink would imply. In reading about the importance of design, I certainly felt a bit of redemption for choosing such a field to pursue as a degree of study and career. However, Pink discusses design as if it was a new concept, or somehow didn’t matter much in the past. While I saw a lot of value in everything he said about the importance of good design, I couldn’t get around the fact that I feel design has always been about both utility and significance.
Ultimately, I enjoyed reading the beginning of this book, although I think I have a problem with the disjointedness Pink suggests between Left and Right-Directed thinking. I don’t see a single action that any of us perform which doesn’t utilize both sides of our brain, and defining entire professions or people as one or the other doesn’t sit well with me. In a sense, I felt like I was reading some sort of Right-Brain propaganda, aimed at the liberation of the creative mind. But I believe that creative minds have always been the ones to move our civilization forward.
Pink declares that R-directed thinking will become the leading force in our next stage of civilization. Gone are soon the days of humans (or at least Americans) being needed for computer programming, medical diagnosis, or balancing accounting spreadsheets. As our natural social progression pushes labor to the east for lower wages, and replaces workers with computer software, our population must begin to hone its creative aptitude. Pink points to evidence that this process is already well underway. Design degrees are becoming as valuable as business degrees, and perhaps more. Many schools are looking for alternatives to standardized, high stakes testing in favor of developing creative assessment. Large corporations are turning their backs from their L-Directed thinking and are en route of “outside the box” thinkers to lead their futures.
Pink proposes that this transformation in society is already well underway, and those who are unwilling to adapt will endure a hard-hitting fate. He offers a number of suggestions for how we can compliment our L-Directed thinking with some essential R-Directed skills. These suggested proficiencies, which Pink terms “The Six Senses,” include:
• Design
• Story
• Symphony
• Empathy
• Play
• Meaning
Understanding these six senses and knowing how they will increasingly guide our lives and futures, is our only hope, as Pink would imply. In reading about the importance of design, I certainly felt a bit of redemption for choosing such a field to pursue as a degree of study and career. However, Pink discusses design as if it was a new concept, or somehow didn’t matter much in the past. While I saw a lot of value in everything he said about the importance of good design, I couldn’t get around the fact that I feel design has always been about both utility and significance.
Ultimately, I enjoyed reading the beginning of this book, although I think I have a problem with the disjointedness Pink suggests between Left and Right-Directed thinking. I don’t see a single action that any of us perform which doesn’t utilize both sides of our brain, and defining entire professions or people as one or the other doesn’t sit well with me. In a sense, I felt like I was reading some sort of Right-Brain propaganda, aimed at the liberation of the creative mind. But I believe that creative minds have always been the ones to move our civilization forward.
Leslie's discussion and design flaw presentations
Week 4 brought us an interesting mix of discussion topics, from the delicate state of wireless politics, to the growing future of mobile technology, as presented from the point of view of Leslie Rule. Leslie lobbied the class to get active in the pursuit of free wireless internet throughout the city of San Francisco, and informed us that many of the voting officials are still not on board with the issue, and could use our persuading. I know if I lived in the city, I would have made a few phone calls to the appropriate people on my way home from class. Quite honestly, however, I find I unlikely that many people are motivated enough to find the right numbers themselves, and probably won’t be making any calls unless they have the right peoples numbers in front of them already.
The discussion regarding free wireless service throughout the city segued into a discussion about mobile learning and locative media. Since class that day, I’ve run into a number of situations where I think such technology would be very useful and enriching, and I believe in it’s merits. In terms of its practical application to a wide audience, I still think it’s far outside the radar of what people are thinking about in terms of the development of instructional media.
Class then transitioned into individual presentations on found design flaws in everyday objects. I found there to be a pretty good diversity of objects selected, and all who presented made a number of valid points in terms of poor design. The primary flaw in design among the group seemed to be in terms of visibility, and how the object lacked the visual clues to determine certain functions or traits of the objects.
The discussion regarding free wireless service throughout the city segued into a discussion about mobile learning and locative media. Since class that day, I’ve run into a number of situations where I think such technology would be very useful and enriching, and I believe in it’s merits. In terms of its practical application to a wide audience, I still think it’s far outside the radar of what people are thinking about in terms of the development of instructional media.
Class then transitioned into individual presentations on found design flaws in everyday objects. I found there to be a pretty good diversity of objects selected, and all who presented made a number of valid points in terms of poor design. The primary flaw in design among the group seemed to be in terms of visibility, and how the object lacked the visual clues to determine certain functions or traits of the objects.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Make your brain spin (design flaws in a fan)
Our assignment for this week was to find a design flaw in an everyday object. My first attempt to pinpoint a design flaw around my home was futile, as I was simply looking for something that didn't "work." In my mind, I perceived that everything I saw functioned the way it was supposed to. If it didn't work, I would have thrown it out some time ago.
Then I sat down to read chapters 1 and 2 of Donald Norman's book, The Design of Everyday Things. I quickly acquired a deeper understanding of what contributes to a flawed design. It is not just limited to things that don't work, but rather anything which doesn't work intuitively to the user, or that doesn't work as well or as easily as it could.
When my girlfriend and I moved into our new home last August, we were happy to learn that the previous tennants were going to leave their ceiling fan in the dining room. The landlord commented to us that the fan worked at different speeds, and had different settings for the warm and cold seasons. We were just happy to have something that worked to circulate air through the room, as it was a pretty warm week when we moved in.
In the past few months, we haven't used the fan once. As I was looking around my place trying to identify a flawed design, I looked at the fan, and thought to myself, "why haven't I used the fan lately? Doesn't it have a setting for winter months?" I realized at that point that I had no clue as to how I would find the right setting, as there are no markings on the fan itself as to what settings should be used during which months.
Hanging from the fan are 3 chains. None of these actually give the fan it's power, that's done by the light-switch on the wall. While none of the chains are marked in any way, I was able to figure out what each switch does. The far right chain turns the light on and off (as long as the light switch on the wall is powered on.) The middle chain changes the fan's speed, from low, to medium, to high, and back to off. The left switch changes the direction of the fan's rotation, which presumably is to create a different air flow in the summer or winter months.
Thinking about it more and more, there are a number of design flaws. One flaw is the lack of visual cues to the three hanging chains. Without testing each one, a person would have no intuitive idea as to what function each chain performed. Norman discusses visibility as a significant factor to good design, and frankly, my ceiling fan would be just as easy to operate with a blindfold on.
Another challenge to operating the ceiling fan is changing speeds, or turning the fan off. If someone were to approach the fan while it's moving, they would not likely be able to tell if it's spinning on low or medium, medium or high. Some might have no idea how many speeds it has. So in order to turn it off, you have to pull the chain an unknown number of times. The problem here is that even when it is off, it continues to spin from the momemtum of the previous setting. So then you wait, and wait. Often times I'll be waiting for it to finally slow to a stop, only to realize after waiting for a while that I've pulled the chain one too many times
and set it back to low speed.
Finally, the whole summer vs winter modes. I'm afraid I'll never figure this one out without doing some focused research. Even once I determine which chain reverses the direction of the fan, I hae no idea which direction is meant for summer and which is for winter. Since we "inherited" this fan from the previous tenants, we don't have any sort of owner's manual, and we're left without a clue as to which direction is preferred for which months.
It's enough to leave your head spinning....
Then I sat down to read chapters 1 and 2 of Donald Norman's book, The Design of Everyday Things. I quickly acquired a deeper understanding of what contributes to a flawed design. It is not just limited to things that don't work, but rather anything which doesn't work intuitively to the user, or that doesn't work as well or as easily as it could.
When my girlfriend and I moved into our new home last August, we were happy to learn that the previous tennants were going to leave their ceiling fan in the dining room. The landlord commented to us that the fan worked at different speeds, and had different settings for the warm and cold seasons. We were just happy to have something that worked to circulate air through the room, as it was a pretty warm week when we moved in.
In the past few months, we haven't used the fan once. As I was looking around my place trying to identify a flawed design, I looked at the fan, and thought to myself, "why haven't I used the fan lately? Doesn't it have a setting for winter months?" I realized at that point that I had no clue as to how I would find the right setting, as there are no markings on the fan itself as to what settings should be used during which months.
Hanging from the fan are 3 chains. None of these actually give the fan it's power, that's done by the light-switch on the wall. While none of the chains are marked in any way, I was able to figure out what each switch does. The far right chain turns the light on and off (as long as the light switch on the wall is powered on.) The middle chain changes the fan's speed, from low, to medium, to high, and back to off. The left switch changes the direction of the fan's rotation, which presumably is to create a different air flow in the summer or winter months.Thinking about it more and more, there are a number of design flaws. One flaw is the lack of visual cues to the three hanging chains. Without testing each one, a person would have no intuitive idea as to what function each chain performed. Norman discusses visibility as a significant factor to good design, and frankly, my ceiling fan would be just as easy to operate with a blindfold on.
Another challenge to operating the ceiling fan is changing speeds, or turning the fan off. If someone were to approach the fan while it's moving, they would not likely be able to tell if it's spinning on low or medium, medium or high. Some might have no idea how many speeds it has. So in order to turn it off, you have to pull the chain an unknown number of times. The problem here is that even when it is off, it continues to spin from the momemtum of the previous setting. So then you wait, and wait. Often times I'll be waiting for it to finally slow to a stop, only to realize after waiting for a while that I've pulled the chain one too many times
and set it back to low speed.
Finally, the whole summer vs winter modes. I'm afraid I'll never figure this one out without doing some focused research. Even once I determine which chain reverses the direction of the fan, I hae no idea which direction is meant for summer and which is for winter. Since we "inherited" this fan from the previous tenants, we don't have any sort of owner's manual, and we're left without a clue as to which direction is preferred for which months.
It's enough to leave your head spinning....
Monday, February 5, 2007
A review of the Web 2.0 presentations
I really enjoyed the presentations from last semester's students on Podcasting, Flickr, and Video Podcasting / Video Blogging.
All of these were concepts I was previously familiar with, but all the presentations brought to mind some new uses and additional information that I wasn't previously connected with.
I have recently gotten into subscribing to various audio and video podcasts through iTunes. In terms of audio podcasting, I enjoy a few certain radio segments, and a pretty entertaining weekly "debriefing" of one of my favorite network television shows, 24. As a subscriber, each new episode is automatically downloaded every time I log into iTunes, and I usually sync my iPod to take these new podcasts "on the go."
I also really enjoy a couple video podcasts. I subscribe to a video podcast called LearnFlash.com, which provides free lesson examples of flash animation. Because I'm learning Flash, I'm always inerested to see what new use the guys demonstrate. Sometimes it's well beyond my level, sometimes it's right on.
I haven't used flickr much, because I have gotten so used to other photo-sharing sites like Ofoto (Kodak) and Snapfish. (Sometimes shutterfly or photobucket.) I didn't really see much of a great advantage to flickr over these sites, and I just don't have the patience to re-load all my photos and albums to a new site. Maybe I'll become inspired with further knowledge.
Anyways, the presentations were nice to hear, and it's motivating to hear that these people really didn't have a great deal of knowledge about their subjects previous to their class reseach. I'm confident that I'll be able to take away a lot of new insight to many of the emerging Web 2.0 applications.
That's it for now...until next week!
All of these were concepts I was previously familiar with, but all the presentations brought to mind some new uses and additional information that I wasn't previously connected with.
I have recently gotten into subscribing to various audio and video podcasts through iTunes. In terms of audio podcasting, I enjoy a few certain radio segments, and a pretty entertaining weekly "debriefing" of one of my favorite network television shows, 24. As a subscriber, each new episode is automatically downloaded every time I log into iTunes, and I usually sync my iPod to take these new podcasts "on the go."
I also really enjoy a couple video podcasts. I subscribe to a video podcast called LearnFlash.com, which provides free lesson examples of flash animation. Because I'm learning Flash, I'm always inerested to see what new use the guys demonstrate. Sometimes it's well beyond my level, sometimes it's right on.
I haven't used flickr much, because I have gotten so used to other photo-sharing sites like Ofoto (Kodak) and Snapfish. (Sometimes shutterfly or photobucket.) I didn't really see much of a great advantage to flickr over these sites, and I just don't have the patience to re-load all my photos and albums to a new site. Maybe I'll become inspired with further knowledge.
Anyways, the presentations were nice to hear, and it's motivating to hear that these people really didn't have a great deal of knowledge about their subjects previous to their class reseach. I'm confident that I'll be able to take away a lot of new insight to many of the emerging Web 2.0 applications.
That's it for now...until next week!
Friday, January 26, 2007
Our first class
Today's class was mostly an introduction to the course content. I'm excited to set up my first blog and to begin diving into the greater world of Web 2.0. It was great to see so many familiar faces from last semesters 800 and 801 classes, and I'm excited for this course.
Towards the end of class we did an exersize in Visual Interfacing, where we had to represent a picture with words or words with a picture. Certainly, as the subject was passed down the line of students, from words to pictures back and forth, there was some alteration of meaning. It was an interesting exersize in personal interpretation, and shows how individuals all interpret things differently.
Towards the end of class we did an exersize in Visual Interfacing, where we had to represent a picture with words or words with a picture. Certainly, as the subject was passed down the line of students, from words to pictures back and forth, there was some alteration of meaning. It was an interesting exersize in personal interpretation, and shows how individuals all interpret things differently.
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