Abstracting « explore. create. share.

07Sep

Deep Dive MAET Style 47 Hour QF

After watching the Deep Dive videos about the design group IDEO (part 1, part2, part3), two “design groups” were formed (7 students in each group) to embark on the longest QF in the history of MAET.

Assigned on Monday morning of the final week of the MAET overseas program, these groups were asked to created the following by Wednesday morning at 8:30:

- Eight Web based multimedia introductions to each of the sections developed on the companion site for our text Sparks of Genius: http://sparks.wiki.educ.msu.edu/
(that is, the introductions could be any technology that can be embedded in a Web page (video, prezi, audio, combinations, etc.))
- These eight sections related to Sparks chapters as follows: Thinking Differently (chapters 1 and 2); Perceiving (chapters 3 and 4); Patterning (chapters 6 and 7); Abstracting (chapters 5 and 8); Embodied Thinking (chapters 9 and 10); Modeling (chapters 11 and 12); Playing (chapters 13 and 14); and, Synthesizing (chapters 15 and 16).

Project specifications:

- Each individual introduction should be one minute or less

- Each set of eight videos for each group should follow the same genre, approach, style, theme, etc. (that is, team 1 was to design a cohesive set of eight videos, and team 2 their own cohesive set based on a different approach)

- Each introduction should be designed to entice, encourage, compel, or otherwise convince K-12 teachers to read that specific section (collection of two chapters) of Sparks and the companion wiki pages

- Ideas for this project were to be focus grouped with year 1 and year 2 cohort students

Team specifications:

- Each team needed to determine a “lead adult” to lean on when guidance and structure are needed

- Each team will had $25,000 to spend in developing their project. This money could be spent on consulting with course instructors, or on focus groups with year 1 or year 2 students. (Creative questions cost $1,000 per question – technical or content questions cost $500 per question. Each 15 minute focus group with year 1 or year 2 students costs $1,000).

Evaluation:

- On Wednesday morning, all sixteen videos will be shown to a panel of experts. They provided a rating for each set of videos based on the following:

1. Overall creativity of the project
2. Creative use of technology in the project
3. Content accuracy based on Sparks
4. “Quality” as defined (or not defined) by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

- Students were told only one set of videos would be selected for integration with the wiki, and that they would be “rewarded accordingly”

Hints given to groups:

- Focus on creativity, technology, and teaching. Don’t forget about the technology piece in your project (both in use and message).

- Because eight sections will be similarly themed, the “idea” for how to present you arguments is critical. Don’t move forward until you think you have that nailed down. Use some of the strategies from Deep Dive to make sure it is a killer idea.

27Dec

Subverting presentations tools

Abstract: In a free-standing or Students utilize Google Presentation to create and post an online presentation that pulls away as far as possible from the traditional bullet-pointed lists of traditional PowerPoint presentations, relying instead on imagery and visuals to get the idea of their choice communicated.

Description: Design an online presentation that breaks the traditional (i.e. bullets and text notes) genre/format of the typical presentations (i.e., the typical PowerPoint presentation). Lest you think this gets away from your ‘bigger picture’ semester web project, you will be designing this presentation with the intention of linking it as an instructional resource on your Big Kahuna website (and, if desired or applicable, for your own teaching). You see, the idea is help each of you think ahead, and maybe provide you one more link for the Big Kahuna project!

By “breaking the genre conventions” of the medium, we simply want you to create a single presentation that applies to some aspect of your subject matter that is a more dynamic, moving, engaging, or aesthetically exciting than typical “straight-text and bullets” presentations that PowerPoint has traditionally employed. Features to include in this might be:

Less text/words than we would typically seen in PowerPoint.
More images: Take advantage of the visual medium here. There are some great image galleries available online, so consider using them, or any images you have captured with your own camera.
Think creatively about the use of transitions (wipes, fades, zooms, etc. etc.) and the pace at which they occur. Each of these transitions conveys different meanings, so the question is how you can harness these effects to powerfully convey your idea.
Possibly use audio or multimedia elements (only if you choose to, this is not a requirement). Narration or a music soundtrack can add an entirely different and creative aspect to a presentation, if it is applicable.
“Anything (well, almost anything) goes” here, so if you have any other ideas on ways you want to subvert the genre and make your PowerPoint more interesting, please feel free to try them.

Two free online tools to make presentation you can use is Google Presentations, launched as part of Google Docs & Spreadsheets or ZOHO Show. You could choose one of these tools to make your presentation and publish your presentation online. In the case of the original CEP 817 course, the presentation was additionally to be posted as a link on the student’s individual Big Kahuna or CEP 817 website space.

There is no slide limit or requirement as length will vary by individual, depending on what you want to teach your audience. It should simply be enough to encapsulate the main idea in an interesting way, but not so much as to overwhelm in a single presentation. This presentation could be an introduction to your big idea, an overview/summary of your idea, or it could simply focus on a particular aspect of your idea and focus on that in more depth.

Note: We realize that an online presentation, out of the context of the live presentation itself, can be a little difficult for the new/outside viewer to understand. If you feel that your presentation could be accompanied by a little explanation/exposition you are welcome to include some separate explanatory text, either on your website or in a separate notes file (posted wherever you like).

Examples of student work:

History of the assignment:

Suggestions for grading etc.:

22Dec

55 Fiction: Writing a short short story

Abstract: Students create an original 55-word short story and reflect on their thought processes in dealing with creative constraints, then share and vote for favorites to explore the transaction between developer and consumer of creative works.

Description: Your task is to write a short story. A really short story.

There are just two constraints. First, the story must be original. Second, your story has to be just 55 words long. That’s it. 55 words, no more, no less.

We did not make up these constraints. As it turns out, 55 Fiction, as this style is called, is a serious literary form. A quick search on Google for “55 Fiction” will reveal more sites devoted to this arcane art than you can shake a stick at. In fact if you think 55 words is restrictive, be thankful we did not ask you to write a story in 6 words (yes that is a genre of fiction too). The most famous and touching of 6 word stories is by, none other than, Hemmingway who wrote the following story: For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.

There is one additional requirement: Keep track of how you went about writing this story. How did you came up with the idea? How did your thoughts develop? What problems did you face? When did you see a solution? How did one idea lead to another? What did the entire process feel like? Frustrating? Liberating? A pain in the donkey? Take some notes of how the story evolved and reached its final stage.

Once you have written this story, post the story and a short writeup about the genesis of the story to the discussion board.

Note: We must warn you that writing such stories can be quite addictive. So don’t be surprised if you churn out more than one story. Feel free to share all or some of them. However, you HAVE to designate ONE (and only one) as being your official entry.

Follow-up activity:

Have the class vote on their favorite story, along with a rationale for why they picked the one they did. Debrief the activity with a discussion on why this art form teaches us quite a bit on creativity:

It is a creative act
It is a communicative act
It is an aesthetic act
It is constrained in multiple ways
- by the medium
- by constraints of time
- by genre or the self imposed constraint of fitting everything in 55 words
The designer is being limited in what he/she can do
The reader does half the work
Meaning making/Aesthetic quality
- Is a transaction
- Between the reader and the designer
Design can both be fun and frustrating.

Examples of student work:

By Joost Guttinger:

Love and Hate
4×4 Toyota Landcruiser Jeep, 1985, perfect condition. Not for sale (yet). Love. Taking the off-roads, driving to my favorite climbing spots and virgin waterfalls. Hate. Buying new tyres, bribing African policemen, and cracking my windshield after hitting a pothole too fast and too hard. My Toyota, Love and Hate, but mostly Love.

By Lisa Siesser:

I just purchased the black boots I described in my last conversation.
A last conversation about the future that we shared.
While you were thinking about a future that was not to be.
And we all avoided thinking about the future that is.
I think that you must have known I would be wearing them.

By Nycki Cuddie:

“Agobiada,” she thought to herself. Overwhelmed. Never before had this feeling struck with such vengeance. Five seconds of panic and two deep breaths, then she knew what she had to do. She looked up, a dazzling smile on her face, and walked nonchalantly into the room and pretended to be someone else for twenty minutes.

01Nov

The 60 Second Lecture

Abstract: Students create a highly focussed 60-second lecture on a topic in their fields along suggestions made in the context of online-courses.

Description: The 60 Second lecture is a trend that is sweeping through online courses (see this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education These lectures are gone in 60 seconds). As the article says,

“Take a 60-minute lecture. Cut the excess verbiage, do away with most of the details, and pare it down to key concepts and themes. What’s left? A “microlecture” over in as few as 60 seconds.” A course designer for San Juan College, a community college in Farmington, N.M., says that in online education, such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions. Skeptics, however, argue that lectures involving sustained arguments, such as literary analyses or explanations of complex equations, cannot be boiled down in this way. With these limitations in mind, the goal of this assignment is to create a 60 Second Lecture on a topic in your field. While boiling your topic down to its very essentials, consider the information provided on this page that lists handy tips for creating such lectures.

Examples of Student Work:

01Nov

Seeing Differently (Veja Du with Video)

Abstract: This is another exercise in looking at the world differently – of making the familiar strange and the strange familiar. This assignment is the moving-pictures version of the “Véjà du” assignment also listed on this page.

Description: There are many ways of creating a Véjà du-Video that makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar. For example, by taking a picture of an object at extended intervals (e.g. hourly, daily, weekly, depending on the rate of change in the depicted object) and editing these images together using[H1] …….., the object or scene can be brought to life in unexpected ways. For an illustration, see the “breathing apple” linked below. Conversely, slowing a scene down can bring out qualities that are usually outside of our awareness (the slow-motion view of a rain drop hitting the surface of a glass of puddle of water is an example). Other ways to go about this assignment are capturing the organic features of non-living things, such as the unfolding packaging materials in the “Packaging Life” video below, or drawing out stable patterns from moving scenes (as when a busy traffic intersection at night turns into a stream of bright lines when shown in quick motion).

Examples of Student Work: See these very interesting video examples of this on the site LikeCOOL. This site has everything from after-office neckties, to inflatable boxing gloves… but in between these crazy things are some cool videos. Here are three (in increasing order of coolness[H2] ):

Specific software?

Insert video links

Slow Moscow (ART) from Andrey Stvolinsky on Vimeo.

Ecological apple (experimental short) from Andreas Soderberg on Vimeo.

“Packaging’s Life” from Silvio Giordano on Vimeo.

01Nov

Picturing Words

Abstract: This assignment asks students to define 10 vocabulary words graphically with a concrete image that captures the words essence, thus breaking out of the infinite regress of using words to define other words.

Description: At the heart of the assignment is an “old school” task: “Define 10 vocabulary words, and learn their meanings.” But, inspired by Michael Hughes (a CEP 818 alumnus), we are adding a “tech” component in that the definitions have to be graphics that illustrate the essence of the words. How about that for breaking out of the infinite regress of using words to define other words!

Gather as much information about the range of meanings of the word to be learned as possible – be sure to get a thorough understanding of the word in order to match it up with the most fitting picture. You will most likely have to make a decision between multiple possible visualizations of the same (more or less abstract) term, such as “eclectic,” but your choice should be a deliberate one. Don’t just go with the first image that “somehow works.”

Post your ten images to your blog – we will discuss your choices and those of your classmates in class/via blog responses, to see firsthand the range of possible meanings a given word can carry.

Purpose: This assignment works on many different levels:

1) Students have to truly understand the word to come up with an appropriate picture.

2) Second, engaging in this activity makes the words (which are often quite abstract) “concrete” in their minds in a powerful kind of way. There is of course an interesting paradox here. Words, these black squiggles on a page are often the most abstract form of representation – receiving their strength from this abstractness. The word “eclectic” for instance is a really abstract representation of the idea of eclectic. Making the word concrete in an image gives it a “here-now-ness” that helps understand its meaning.

3) Third, and the flip side of the paradox, the danger of becoming too concrete via images, is undermined by the sheer variety of pictures that students have come up with to represent the same word, which is why students are asked to view and comment on each other’s work via blog posts and/or in class. This means that students receive a rich range of possible meanings of a given word, and through that the concrete and unique nature of “an” image is broken down.

4) Fourth, the assignment brings a layer of visual literacy to a standard “old school” purely verbal task, pushing students to think about issues related to the strengths of visual versus verbal representation.

5) Fifth, and finally, putting it online means that this assignment and student works can now be easily shared with others (as Michael did with Punya, as his students do with each other, and we are doing now via this website).

Examples of Student Work:

Here are some links to work that his sixth grade students have done. Some of the images the students came up with are just wonderful[H1] .

[H1]Some of these links may need verification

01Nov

Demotivational Posters

FILED IN Abstracting | CEP 817 | CEP 818 | Low | Medium | Short | Synthesizing No Comments

Abstract: In a twist on traditional inspirational or motivational posters with their serene photography and trite text, students combine images with text to create the opposite – a de-motivational poster that draws on and reverses recent research findings on what really motivates people.

Description: This assignment is inspired by Despair.com and the quirky, dark humor of its demotivational posters. Mocking traditional inspirational posters (“Team Work”/ “Perseverance”), these demotivational posters combine beautiful inspiring photographs with some deeply cynical or depressing message.

In groups of …, create your own demotivational poster in Google Presentation. Use ideas from course readings on motivation (if available) or watch the video, “Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us” (featuring Daniel Pink). Decide on one particular motivational mechanism, turn it onto its head, and create a poster with that new, scientifically valid, “demotivational” message. Use images from Flickr.

Examples of Student Work:

Summer 2011

29Oct

Storyboarding Challenge

Abstract: Using film-production story boards, students record and communicate their ideas for scenes on an educational topic.

Description: For this quickfire we will be looking at the usefulness of storyboarding. The storybaording process is a very important step in creating any type of planned video shoot. Storyboarding allows for the ideas about your video project to be expressed verbally and then put onto a visual board so everyone involved can see the tentative layout and flow of the video project. The storyboard allows for the identification of all the scenes or parts of the video, these can then be handled individually in smaller chunks and then put together to create the final video. Storyboarding will also allow for the ease of adjusting and modifying the video as you progress through the project.

A more detailed definition of storyboards… Storyboard Resources/Templates: AFI Storyboard Process

Step 1: I will put you in groups and hand your group a secret topic. (The secret topic can be ANYTHING, a math problem, case study, foreign language scenario, be creative, you can do this with any discipline!) – Alternatively, Chose Topic (change, creativity, design, leadership, learning, technology)

Step 2: On storyboard paper, draft the scenes of your planned presentation. Each scene should run 10 seconds. (Here is a storyboard you can use - http://bit.ly/1uKliQ – you can change the number of scenes and length depending on how much time you have.) You have 10 minutes to complete this task.

Step 3: Take your group storyboard and pass it to the group on your left. (This “surprising twist” in the assignment highlights the importance of communication and storyboarding!!)

Step 4: Now, you must execute the storyboard you were given. Record each scene (in sequence). You have 10 minutes to complete this task.

Step 5: If you have laptops, stitch the 3 scenes together – if not, turn the Flip in to the instructor.

Step 6: Watch the creations!

29Oct

Capture a Concept

Abstract: Students produce 30-second video clips reinforcing a discussion of compelling educational experiences.

Description: For this Quickfire Challenge we are going to explore several components of compelling educational experiences.

Form random Groups of 4
Each group will select a topic statement from the basket that is incomplete (change[H1] , creativity, design, leadership, and technology)
Each group will create a 30-second video that finishes the incomplete sentence.

Technical Requirements Specifications

Use a Flip Cam (or other small video camera that does not require rendering to view) to record up to 30 seconds of video on your concept sentence.

Video Length: 30 seconds MAX
Editing: No Editing required…linear 30 seconds is just fine.
Time: 1 hour to think and shoot
Presentation: 30 minutes (5 minutes for each group) to present video and talk about your decision process for shooting your video.

Examples of Student Work:

[H1] Incomplete sentences could be made available to instructors via a link

29Oct

Living Words

FILED IN Abstracting | CEP 810 | CEP 811 | CEP 812 | Low | Medium | Quick No Comments

Abstract: Using only the font, students express the meaning of a provided word.

Description: You will be given a word – use FONTS ONLY to create an image conveys the idea of that word. Use any image editor you are comfortable with. Then, post your word image to our Flickr group.

Goal: “think beyond the tool”

Examples of Student Work:

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Deep Dive MAET Style 47 Hour QF

Seeing Differently (Veja Du with Video)

Picturing Words

Demotivational Posters

Storyboarding Challenge

Living Words

LESSON ARCHIVE

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