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Archive for the ‘magicmacguffin’ Category
Audio Weekly letter home 5
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012The Daily Creates…Not Quite Daily
Tuesday, June 26th, 2012At ds106, we are in the midst of two weeks of audio training…learning…creating…and in my case, FUMBLING!
I’ve been super busy with work, deadline looming. Too many extended days has kept me away from my daily participation in The Daily Creates. Truth be told, I did them pretty much all at once. I know that’s not the purpose behind them, but I vow to do better this week.
tdc 164—Take a picture of construction.
This Site Under Construction
I kinda feel like I copped out a little on this one. I pass many construction zones on my commute to work, but I have never been able to stop and take a pic. In my frantic attempt to complete my required number of Daily Creates this week, I tried to get creative on construction. First I thought of doing “cardstruction” but was unable to find a deck of cards to work with AND I noticed someone else had already used that idea. Wanting to be original, I did an internet search for sites under construction and I found this neat front page of a webpage under construction! I took a screenshot, converted to a jpeg, and now I have a picture of construction! Haha!
tdc166—Take a photo of something that makes you sick.
Jager!
So I’m thinking about things that make me sick for this challenge. And I’m wondering…why in the world would anyone want to photograph of something that makes them sick! Ha! When I think “sick”, I think literally getting sick, vomiting. Well, I vomit when I have the flu…or when I was pregnant, but I can’t really photograph THAT, so what else makes me sick? Too much drink! The truly foul offender, Goldschlager, is no longer allow in my home, because the shear sight or smell of it makes my stomach flip! Well, Jagermeister can be just as vulgar and I had some in my freezer. And it was pulled from the depths of its frozen home for a quick photo shoot…and then back to the freezer it went, without even cracking it open. Nothing special about the photography here, just point and shoot from an angle.
Dust Bunnies Living on the Edge
Another prime example of ds106, changing the way I look at things! I tried to take the challenge to heart and really look for something that I hadn’t noticed before. I started roaming my house, focusing on the rooms I spend the most time in: living room, kitchen, even the front porch. But I found a surprise in my bedroom! I changed my usual range of vision and looked high and low. Up high, near the peak of the cathedral ceiling, there is a ledge. I never go up there, it’s about 9 feet above the floor. For the same reason, I don’t display anything up there either, because then I’d have to climb up there to clean it. Well, I think I really should climb up there for the first time in 6 years. Apparently there is so much dust accumulating up there that even the dust bunnies are ready to commit Harry Carry. They are closing in on me, waiting to accost me in my sleep! I had to make some adjustment to the camera to capture the image. Without fiddling with the settings, the first few images didn’t show the fine details of dust. Zoom, adjust, and shoot, then I got it! Maybe I’ll have time to do some deep cleaning after my summer classes are over. This is a little embarrassing!
Creative Commons: Irrigation System of Knowledge
Monday, June 25th, 2012
cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by englishspartan : www.flickr.com/photos/31151097@N06/4173243665/
This is the Creative Commons poster I created. When I think of CC, an irrigation system comes to mind. We want to be able to share our creative works with everyone, because it will feed more creativity and knowledge. When we don’t share our knowledge with others through teaching, application, etc… it becomes stale and almost useless in my opinion.
Mid-ISTE
Monday, June 25th, 2012The last few days have been busy. A good busy though. ISTE is off and rolling. I started Saturday with SocialEdCon, one of my favorite events. When things slow down a bit I’ll get my thoughts and reflections for that organized. Yesterday was the official kick off for ISTE12. During that event the award winners were announced and I got to be up on the big stage. Pictures were taken but they are on the laptop which won’t stay connected to the internet here so they’ll come later. Today I’ve been hanging in the Bloggers’s Cafe talking with teachers from around the country. These conversations are thought-provoking and fascinating, but they also frequently serve to remind me that I have a great job in a fabulous school. That’s a good reminder to receive. I feel lucky to be here, learning with and from these brilliant folks.
Evidence of Strange Activities at Camp
Monday, June 25th, 2012I think it’s probably obvious to anyone who is following camp and watching our weekly videos (particularly this week’s) that Alan and I are feeling the stress of directing Magic MacGuffin. I apologize that we aired our metaphorical dirty laundry today, but you can’t imagine how crazy it is to corral all the things that are involved in running camp this summer.
I feel like it’s time for me to start being more open about the things that are going on that concern me. I’ve mentioned several times in videos that I haven’t really seen Alan around camp for the last several weeks (since he returned from headquarters, actually). Despite attempting to set up meetings at various camp locales, I can never seem to pin him down.
Yesterday, I noticed his backpack on the ground next to the central campfire. I took a look for him, but couldn’t find him. On a whim, I dropped a digital recorder that I happened to have handy into the front pocket. It’s a pretty nifty device that transmits wirelessly back to my iPad. Unfortunately, I was only able to capture the first 45 seconds or so of his activity — presumably something happened at the end to interfere with the signal.
I’m putting this here because I need everyone’s help understanding what I’m hearing and determining what to do next. I’ve known Alan professionally for several years, and I was eager to direct camp with him this summer based on his stellar reputation as a teacher, technologist, and generally good guy. But, honestly, after the last few weeks (and seeing the evidence I’ve begun to undercover), I’m not sure what to think…
What I ‘Really’ Do
Monday, June 25th, 2012In the past few months an internet trend of “what people think I do” has become viral. Of course I had to jump on the bandwagon and make my own meme, how could I not? I based this on my life. How different people perceive me. I have always been the type to keep a part of myself hidden from the world. I just feel safe not exposing myself completely. I find this interesting. What my friends think of me, is different than what my parents think of me, and what strangers (feminist) think of me, what outsiders (society) thinks of me and of course what I think of myself (which can be far from reality).
To create this meme, I utilized a website called “http://uthinkido.com/.” I also used photoshop to alter some images, and adjust the image’s size to fit the websites upload requirement. The website however, did all the work for me. I inserted the “what … think I do” and uploaded the photos.
Early Demos from My New Fake Band
Monday, June 25th, 2012
In a few different broadcasts over the past year, I’ve messed around with some of the various filters and effects available with the free version of Nicecast and found its dials and visual interface both a lot of fun and helpful in the makeshift studios I’ve set up in my classrooms and house.
With a new one-man-band on the horizon, an extension of a #ds106 Visual Assignment, I turned to Nicecast and recorded a live session that yielded the following tracks. Ladies and gentlemen of Camp Magic Macguffin, I give you Dactyloceras lucina!
Not generally in my “wheelhouse of sound,” I was going after a certain, heavy, atmospheric texture that seemed appropriate for my randomly generated band name and album cover. “Goth soul,” Alan Levine calls it, which GNA Garcia clarifies as “rhythmic Emo-noise,” which is what I think I managed to create.
Dactyloceras lucina – Untitled Jam 1 by Bryanjack
The stupidity that keeps us from knowing any better by Bryanjack
A DJ is Born
Monday, June 25th, 2012Bolger, Hamlisch and Crosby
Monday, June 25th, 2012
Every once in a while, while writing a blog post, all of the text disappears. It happened to a student during one of my classes this week. The same thing seems to have just happened here. For both the student and me, it happened while typing the undo keystroke sequence.
As I was six or seven paragraphs into a rather detailed explanation of the process to assemble the GIF above and I’ve already spent more time than I should have in masking several layers to isolate the action in the scene, I’ll save that discussion of that process for later.
The reason for making the GIF in the first place is that I mentioned the 1975 episode of the Tonight Show from which this dance scene between Ray Bolger and Bing Crosby took place while recording a segment the latest Totally Fun and Good podcast. As there is still more recording to be done for that episode, maybe I’ll try to describe the process used on this GIF there.
Expand Creative Commons
Monday, June 25th, 2012
For this Design Assignment, I chose to make a creative commons image. I have falling in love with Creative Commons. I made the image below using powerpoint, which is a tool I have been using for a very long time. Surprisingly powerpoint has many interesting features that can be very resourceful. This image is actually of myself, it was taken by a friend who is a professional photography who allowed me to alter the photo in a specific way. On powerpoint, I used “Word Art.”
This particular picture was captured and used in a local magazine describing the role of Muslim women in society. The photograph, in my opinion, is pretty awesome. Even most photographers watermark their photographs to restrict others from using their images without permission. However, Creative Commons allows for the removal of those restrictions and gives people the freedom to express themselves while sharing their art globally. Maybe one day I will submit my work to creative commons to share with others.
