Watch: “Mirage” by Ladytron
It’s Ladytron. And a new music video from Ladytron at that!
It’s Ladytron. And a new music video from Ladytron at that!
Engadget asks the question that makes up the post title as it regards product names in the gadget world and comes up with a four prong answer. They categorize things into the columns of good, safe, meaningless or bad – examples, being Kindle, iPhone 4, Nokia N9 or Epic, in that order. The reasoning is pretty spot on and I especially like the acknowledgement that with enough time and consistency, even a meaningless naming scheme carried forward by a strong brand can produce recognizable monikers like BMW 328i. Or maybe I just like the fact that crossing over into automotive territory was necessary to make the point?
Well, hello there, work blog. It’s been a tremendously busy middle of the semester – to say nothing of this past week – and I know I haven’t posted much lately. I wanted to get back in the swing of things and comment on the Scholarly Storytelling workshop that I co-presented at Media Commons Tailgate 2011.
Scholarly Storytelling kicked off with around 20 people in attendance. The audience was mostly made up of campus staff with a few faculty members and one student thrown in to the mix. Several folks have worked on media projects before and the majority were there to learn how to make the projects they are developing or assigning as academically rigorous as possible. Therefore, it was the right crowd.
Ryan Wetzel and Anne Behler did the bulk of the presenting of materials, owing to the fact that Ryan has been developing and refining the workshop in conjunction with the Knowledge Commons project. My role was to present the collaborative tool we would be asking them to use – and, in theory, that they would then encourage students to use on real projects – during the hands on portion of the event.
We chose to emphasize building a collaborative project notebook, research collection and eventual storyboard using Spaaze (view the sample board we made for the workshop). Spaaze is basically an infinite cork board that allows users to pin on it numerous types of media gathered from all over the internet. This blank canvas really does lend itself well to the way that we see students organize their materials and presents an opportunity for faculty and support staff (including us) to check in on group progress.
It’s also darned cool. Hannah Inzko has been a champion of Spaaze for some time now and it was great to put it to a practical application in the workshop.
The response to Spaaze was generally positive (view a workshop example board) – though we did find some holes in its iPad implementation. Lots of questions about ways to integrate it into specific projects were asked of us as well as whether or not we could support it by teaching students how to use it in the classroom.
The other items that seemed to gain a lot of attention actually came before the Spaaze demo and hands on session, though. Ryan and I had developed a novel way of citing source material in a video. By numbering each source and then displaying the number subtly on screen during its use we were able to link the materials unobtrusively. We then placed the numbered sources in a Google doc (again, allowing for student collaboration in collecting materials) and used a QR code at the end of the video to take people directly to the citations.
This was a revelation to many and worked so elegantly that I plan to offer it as a suggestion going forward when consulting on new projects. I’m also going to be rolling out the workshop across the Commonwealth beginning on November 29th at Greater Allegheny where I will be co-presenting with head librarian Courtney Young. I’ll check back in with an update on the shortened version of the presentation!
At the suggestion of both Dave and Hannah at work, I finally got around to watching PressPausePlay – and I must say that I’m duly impressed. I actually just stopped the film moments ago to look up more about Japanese visual artist Takafumi Tsuchiya. You can see his amazing 2011 show reel below:
TAKCOM SHOWREEL 2011 from takcom™ on Vimeo.
Since I will most likely forget by the time I get to reading it, I want to remind myself publicly to pick up a copy of 1Q84. This NPR review explains why.
Its mention coincides nicely with Kate’s question: “Did you see the time-lapse video of Tokyo set to the score of Blade Runner?”
android dreams from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.
The answer to which is now “Yes.” What a perfect companion to Murakami’s book.
Chris had shared with us some videos that were recently posted as examples of good gamification concepts in education over at the Gamification Wiki. This one in particular was highly inspiring, as it discusses the use of a physical game to teach elementary students about geopolitical issues. Fascinating interviews with the children and a real gem of a presenter.
It could be the chill in the air right now and the general disappearance of all things green and alive, but I’m really into Zola Jesus again and her new album Conatus is delightful. This comes from there:
ZOLA JESUS “VESSEL” MUSIC VIDEO from FUTURE PRIMITIVE FILMS on Vimeo.
Though Autoblog is decidedly on the fence about these ads being run in print by Ducati’s Ecuadorian operation, I can say without hesitation that I like them unequivocally. It’s nice to see products like motorcycle’s being sold with a more sophisticated approach than just the usual humor, girls and big budget action sequences. Bravo, Ducati Ecuador, for not assuming your customers are grunting oafs.
I was just proclaiming how I didn’t have any reason to miss TV…and then this ad came on. Damn you, cable programming!
Today I taught the first, experimental workshop on adding QR codes to paper résumés. Behind these QR codes are video introductions, basically compressed cover letters that give an overview of a job candidate’s professional experience, training and unique attributes.
I opened the session at Shenango with a warning that the content was entirely untested – and a QR code that pointed to “Weird Science” by Oingo Boingo (because there is nowhere that 80s music is inappropriate). I demonstrated to the six students – and one Career Services staffer – just how easy it is to scan a code and be taken to any and every kind of content.
The VideoResumes.pptx (downloadable) presentation next walks the audience through shooting, editing and uploading a video intro to YouTube, etc. I had a student volunteer come to the workshop in full suit and tie and serve as a real life example. We cleaned up his recording in iMovie, sent it to the web and generated a real, working QR code to add to a mock résumé.
The attendees loved what they saw, how easy it was and how powerful the implications were. We rounded out the morning by talking about other applications of QR codes like linking to portfolio sites or adding them to business cards, which also went over extremely well. Heidi Friedrich from Career Services even hopes to have the presentation given at an upcoming regional PSU Career Services meeting which I think would be a great fit.
Now, to find more 80s videos to spice things up…