Web2Learn

Re-examine your larger goals and make a plan:

• concrete objectives for this term:
• major decisions to be made
• action plan with schedule
• discuss your progress towards to date.

Gosh, I could have saved a lot of time if I had seen Diigo.com’s WebSlides facility. I created a Powerpoint that included daylighting principles and climbing wall examples, mostly drawn from Websites. I agonized over including images from Flickr.com before I had received the authors’ permissions. Many of the best photos are not covered by the Creative Commons, but the authors who have responded to my fair use requests have all been positive so far.

I could have avoided the copyright issues if instead of putting the images in my Powerpoint presentation, I just created this organized set of websites as “Webslides”.
http://www.diigo.com/list/nywcheng/arch384s09?v=p

It’s pretty handy as it keeps the list evolving as you add things. I have not included images, that would be good to try….

If you haven’t reflected about your midterm project, please do so in a blog post.

For this week also find an example of a designer’s website that has a strong organization and interesting content. How are the graphics displayed? Who is the audience and how is it addressing them?

Caitlin posed the question, “How can we take advantage of the Internet’s resources without wasting too much time?”
>>  Please post your first answer on your blog and then add blog responses for discussion on Diigo.
My Thoughts:  In the last year, my e-mail has grown exponentially.  I’ve unsubscribed to almost every listserv, but somehow the tide keeps surging.

- A major strategy I’ve adopted is that I try to address my most important “To Do” item before I open my e-mail.  Otherwise, it’s too easy to either be sucked down the rabbit hole OR if I cherry-pick, the mass of unanswered mail becomes too daunting.

- I register secondary services, such as Facebook, under a different e-mail account that I only check occasionally, and I ferret out the little notification options to reduce the mail deluge.

- I set an old alarm watch to beep on the hour to stay aware of time or and set an alarm to keep myself to a schedule.

- For Web authoring, blogging has kept me from being so compulsive. I used to work on my websites in a big charrette and then I’d be so exhausted that I’d leave them to languish forever.  Since the introduction of WYSIWYG visual editors on wikis and blogs, both my attitude and my workpattern is transformed:  it’s SO much easier to just add a quick thought.

But the cobWebs are still a problem : I just realized that almost nobody can see the ePortfolio or this blog post because they are not linked to my “official” website.  aka the really really old one.  My virtual self is really fragmented!  On the plus side, I was unable to find the silly image of myself that I posted on my first webpage.  Whew!

Agenda:

1. Discuss Wesch’s YouTube.  Should we all vlog about something?

2. Check-in about WPMU, Diigo

Later we will have Business & Arts Admin folks join our Diigo and comment directly on each other’s blog pages.

Assignment 5: over the next two weeks :

I.  Discuss on Diigo forum : How can we take advantage of the Internet without wasting too much time?

II.  Write a reflection on your design project that summarizes your progress to date (~400 words). Include an image of your presentation and scanned sketches that explore how to move forward or respond to criticism.

1. Concept & Development: In terms of the building design, what is working well, and what is not? What is basically sound but needs further development?
2. Visual Communication: In terms of presentation graphics, what effectively communicated your ideas? What was missing? What aspects of the presentation were unsuccessful (failed to communicate ideas, were problematic graphically, were poorly organized, etc.?)
   
3. Verbal Communication: How well did you introduce your major ideas?  What evidence did you explain to support your scheme?  What techniques were helpful for developing a useful dialogue?
   
4. Process: What activities helped you develop your design ideas? Where do you go from here? Are there some aspects of your studio themes that you still need to address? What do you need to do differently in the future?

Due date:  the reflective posting is due the Wed after your mid review.  Both assignments are due Wed May 13.

I was amazed at how fully Michael Wesch portrayed what happens on YouTube.  Posting a video can generate a conversation with the World.  It made me wonder about how publically we are living now.  Sherry Turkle of MIT  explains that the culture to get students to share everything online is partially motivated by the fact that someone can make a buck of that information.  That is, if kids get used to spilling their guts online, they won’t mind when their consumer habits are tracked and they subsequently receive coupons or marketing info.  I guess it would be naive to believe that the Web wasn’t driven by profit (and porn).

What brought home to me the Global Village that Wesch describes was an interaction on Flickr.com.  In writing about our school’s digital fabrication work, I found some amazing precedent images.   After I selected one as a highlight and put in a contact request, I was happy to find that the artist had developed a sculptural screen based on one of my teacher’s designs.   Amazing to get that contact from South America!  That is really the global village.

While finding creative designers on Flickr makes me want to post my visual work there, I have a wariness about putting it all out there.  I decided to put my Powerpoint lectures for my intro graphics class behind a password, because they represented so much work and I was afraid I might have a few copyrighted images included.  But I benefit so much from others who have posted (i.e. Open Courseware at MIT) that I feel it’s silly to worry about it.  At the same time, architects and academics have such a tradition of giving it away, when other people are charging for their time.   Everybody operates under different assumptions about value, and you can be sure that the architects are undervaluing their contributions.  I heard once that if engineers are told that there is a problem on the job, their natural inclination is to say, “it wasn’t MY fault”.  In the same situation, the architect starts apologizing.  Yikes, what are we teaching?

I realize from the lack of activity that this is midterms week so it might not be a good time to have high expectations.    Good luck, students!

Tulips for spring!

I was happy to learn that it is possible to customize headers in our Wordpress install – it just depends on which theme that you install.  The images work most consistently if you upload them at the EXACT pixel size requested : somehow the cropping is problematic.  Don’t know why my widget bar is now too wide:  somehow when I tried changing the page width to 1024pixels, it got messed up.

And I found a fun little Flickr.com flash flag and looking at everyone else’s photos, and making contacts and ….. which makes it all too evident how one could spend huge amounts of time online.  Click “what is this?” to see how to make a badge.

My experiments with galleries are on my Light blog.

In Fall 2008, 16 intermediate architectural design students used PBWiki for sharing and the Plone system for reflections about design studio competencies.
In Winter 2009, 36 first year grad students used the Plone system in a computer graphics intro
In Spring 2009, we have three cohorts currently in classes using ePortfolio systems:

• 87 first year undergraduates using the Plone system in a computer graphics intro taught by Jill Salter
• 66 second year undergraduates using the Plone system and Google Sites as a class wiki in design studio
• 5 hand-picked advanced students exploring Wordpress MU/BuddyPress and other Web2.0 tools with me (here)

Snapshot of results:

• Students in the computer graphics classes are receptive to learning technology; those in studio find it a distraction from their core mission.  In team-taught studios, compliance varies according to the instructor attitude.

• Response to reflective questions has varied greatly.  Those adept at graphics tend to be less interested in verbal assignments.  Introspective students with poor graphic skills can be much more expressive in writing than through drawings, models or computer graphics.  It helps the instructor to see that students understand concepts, even though they lack proficiency in generating visual results.

• Google Sites is very accessible and quick to learn, BUT you can’t backup or move the sites and they have a fixed quota limit!  Compared to PBWiki, which I have used  for 5 previous classes, Google has not set up a support infrastructure.

>>  Keep new requirements minimal.  Target sharing of artifacts that benefit the whole (i.e. site analysis, factual design data)  Provide strong documentation, support and examples for the eager to excel.

Studnets, For this week’s assignment, please look at Michael Wesch’s video explaining the YouTube phenomenon at the bottom of the page:
http://www.nmc.org/connect/wesch It’s shows in a compelling way how  communication has been transformed and enlarged.

By Monday, April 27, please write a blog posting (~200 word) tagged “web2learn” about the video addressing the following questions.  Then by Wednesday, April 29, write your reactions to others’ posts and pose a question for us all onto this Diigo forum…  http://groups.diigo.com/groups/web2learn

? In what ways can YouTube be useful to society?
? How can we employ YouTube, blogging and other Web2.0 tools to positively change design education ?
? How can we employ YouTube, blogging and other Web2.0 tools to positively change the design professions ?

Optional:
- Can you suggest a related article, website or video for us all to examine?

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

AGENDA

• Check-in on progress
• Diigo
• WPMU galleries
• Structuring your website for your learning objective

NEXT ASSIGNMENT:  Use Diigo forum to discuss the same website about the potential of new media to transform education

Michael Wesch http://www.nmc.org/connect/wesch

Howard Rheingold’s New Media Classroom
http://www.nmc.org/connect/rheingold