TDC — Camp Magic MacGuffin

Archive for the ‘TDC’ Category

TDC 136

Monday, May 28th, 2012

Forgive my awkwardness, I hate talking into cameras.

So, the quick version of this is that my dad is a Charlottesville “legend” to anybody who graduated UVa in the 70s and 80s, or went to high school in the area and spent some underaged evenings on Frat Row.

Fun facts about my legend..

Born in 1949
Rumored to have played in a very short-lived garage band with Tommy Ramone
Locally known as Johnny Sportcoat
Has a few albums, the most fun being Sun Gin Chocolate (things that make him sneeze) which people misread as Sung In Chocolate.
There’s a documentary about the C’ville music scene
I spied some DS106 artwork in his office the other day which proves to me that this world is too small
He thinks he is hilarious

Here it is. And yes, that is a very flattering still of me…

Watch this video on YouTube.

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Remember to Create Daily

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Last session, I started well but fell away from The Daily Create I want to have a better track record this time. So far, 5 days in I’ve managed to keep up, albeit by using one video to do two days.

I follow @DS106TDC but the tweets are lost in the stream.

I though I might try to make a wee reminded web app from my iPhone. This is pretty simple, I just made a webpage, that grabs the latest item from the daily create RSS feed (I think I am using the atom one). I just show the title as a link to the page. The page has the various meta tags to play nicely with the iphone and looks like this:

The above pulls the page into an iFrame with an iPhone background graphic, so should show todays page.

I then added a splash screen and an icon, so that I could save the webpage to my home screen:

Should do the trick, if any other ds106 folk would find this useful just visit: http://johnjohnston.info/tdc/ on your iphone and add to the home screen.

If anyone want to make me a better icon, please do.

Posted in Default, html, magicmacguffin, openonline, PHP, TDC | Comments Off on Remember to Create Daily

Adventures in TDC136 (AKA what i’ll do to keep my face off camera)

Friday, May 25th, 2012

The video below, despite it’s unimpressiveness, was a feat of strength due to the multitude of obstacles overcome in its making. You might even say the creation of this “legend” was/is/will always be legendary.

Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating.

The truth:

1. I tried MPEG Stream (after reading about it on CogDog’s blog) to no avail…used the beta version to download from YouTube.

2. I tried YouCam to screen record YouTube and bring into MPEG Stream…to no avail.

3. I tried remotely accessing Camtasia on my work desktop…to some avail. I could record remotely but for some reason it didn’t detect an audio device.

4. This left me having to make my own soundtrack, which entailed a jungle wav, a tarzan wav, and a lion wav.

In addition to all this finagling, I used photoshop to make the opening image.

I uploaded the video at a 11pm and went to bed feeling triumphant if tired.

Posted in CampMagicMacGuffin, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC | Comments Off on Adventures in TDC136 (AKA what i’ll do to keep my face off camera)

Grandfather TDC 135 and 136

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

I am hoping to keep up with the Daily Create this class. As part of Camp MagicMacMuffin the task is:

Introduce Yourselves via this Wednesday’s Daily Create. Each week, you will be asked to complete a few of our daily assignment challenges at http://tdc.ds106.us/. We will ask that you do the video one on Wednesday (5/23); use it as an introduction and a chance to tell a story. How you do video is up to you; it can be done from your mobile device, or directly into the web cam using a site like YouTube.

Being on the other side of the Atlantic, and too lazy to look up the time difference I am not sure if Wednesday is tdc135 or tdc136, it is Thursday here now but tdc136 sohwed up yesterday about 4pm, so 135 was up on Wednesday too, there are the tasks:
Make a video of you showing and telling a story of an old photograph
Tell us a family legend about yourself or someone else in your family.

I though this video would fit both.

I think that daily creates should not be posted to blogs to stop choking up the main ds106feed, but as this is an intro and a new blog that I’ve set up especially for DS106 I am going to post it here anyway.

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The Legend of Hector

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

First week of camp and we’re already telling our stories. Today’s daily create was to tell a family legend to our other campers. My family, like most, is a little nuts and filled with crazy stories. I flip-flopped between the secret ingredient my Granddad used in his BBQ sauce (spit, by the way) and this one…Hector.

I won’t rehash the story…you get to watch it.

I will, however, add to the legend of Hector by telling a tale about my cousin Matt. At some point in the legend of Hector, Matt and my Uncle Jerry were in the basement near the double doors and when it came time to leave Matt’s shirt got caught on my Uncle’s belt buckle. He bolted up the stairs thinking that Hector had reached out to grab him. I laugh about this now but, make no mistake, Hector scared the daylights out of all the grandchildren more than once.

Resources used:

iMovie ’11
Flickr Image
MacPro
Blue Snowball Microphone
The delightfully deranged creativity of my grandmother

Posted in ds106, Magic MacGuffin, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC | Comments Off on The Legend of Hector

TDC: The Story of a Photo

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

After putting together The Daily Create earlier this year I’ve been lucky to have Alan Levine refining the backend of the site and loading up a bunch of assignments. The semester got so busy I didn’t end up participating all that much but decided to jump back in yesterday, and I’m glad I did. Yesterday was a video assignment to tell a story about an old photo. What I love about these types of assignments is that you get to see an intimate moment of the other ds106 participants as they tell a story on camera. I only wish we could figure out the Youtube feed, for some reason there are massive delays for some folks and even my video is still on available on the TDC site a day later.

In any case it gave me an opportunity to pull out one of many embarrassing photos from my childhood and talk on camera, plus I got to play around with the video feature of our shiny new camera. Here’s what I submitted:

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Boy Scout Saver: A Video Daily Create

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

Today’s Daily Create 135

Posted in Daily Create Assignment, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC, video, youtube | Comments Off on Boy Scout Saver: A Video Daily Create

Homesick? Not Me!

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

Day one at Camp Magic MacGuffin and the best way to stave off homesickness is to stay busy. In that spirit I did a little exploring of the landscape with some activities and unpacking some of my camp equipment.

First, I opted to jump in and play with The Daily Create #134. The challenge was to redesign an image of an animal. I opened my camp kit and pulled out GIMP to alter a photo of an animal (so not truly the task) because I’d never used photo editors short of the auto-correct feature in iPhoto. Here’s what I came up with…

My personal favorite from the task was the Dande-hedgehog from CoachK though.

I also unpacked Minecraft and bee-bopped around there to see what that platform/game has to offer. Admittedly, this product has a tremendous following. A quick YouTube search of “Minecraft” and you’ll be up to your ears in video tutorials that rapidly take you through different aspects of the environment. Back in Camp Magic MacGuffin, it appears that Minecraft will be used for community and storytelling. Here’s a little trailer about Minecraft to explain the platform.

I did purchase a Minecraft subscription for the experiment so that I can be fully immersed in the DS106 experience. I will admit though, I am always a little skeptical about virtual worlds for learning and sharing. There was a time when I played World of Warcraft and after some time could begin to see potential lessons in leadership, anthropology of gaming environments, social protocols and mores, etc. It took some time and creative thinking to get passed the game to see those things though. None the less, Minecraft is different than WOW (even if it were just in cost alone) in many ways including the ability to host and create your own world with a specific purpose. So, I’m all in on Minecraft. Perhaps I’ll create my own little world (apart from my own little world I live in regularly) and explore some possibilities for learning, teaching, and fun.

I jumped in on the Twitter feeds, browsed my fellow campers blogs and began watching the week’s assigned video for reflection. I just need to find the time to do all this camping.

As for homesickness, being active and immersed is the best way to stave off those “I miss home” blues. So, stay busy campers!

Posted in ds106, Homesick, Magic MacGuffin, magicmacguffin, minecraft, openonline, TDC | Comments Off on Homesick? Not Me!

The Daily Create (TDC) Archive: TDC 73, 75, 96, 98, 100, 101 and 102

Friday, April 27th, 2012

This is my weekly archive of the work I’ve produced for The Daily Create (TDC).

The Daily Create (TDC) 73 – Make a photo that emphasises yellow

I went with the obvious banana.

The Daily Create (TDC) 75 –Read a favourite quote, emulating the author’s voice. Tell us why the quote is meaningful

This quote epitomises the energy and vitality of youth.

The Daily Create (TDC) 96 – Make a 5 x 5 video

It was a strange day. One minute I was in domestic mode and the next minute I was out at a lake.

The Daily Create (TDC) 97 – A photo of a bumper sticker

Yeah, I’ve shopped at this online store before.

The Daily Create (TDC) 98 – Record one side of a conversation

A conversation I had with myself as I was leaving my office.

The Daily Create (TDC) 100 – It’s the 100th Daily Create

It’s not my parking spot!

The Daily Create (TDC) 101 – Take a photo in which the mirror is a major element

Car park corner mirror.

Posted in amidoinitrite, ds106, ds106_2012, ds106tdc, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC | Comments Off on The Daily Create (TDC) Archive: TDC 73, 75, 96, 98, 100, 101 and 102

The Daily Create (TDC) Archive: TDC 29, 30, 47, 54, 55, 60 and 61

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

This is my weekly archive of the work I’ve produced for The Daily Create (TDC).

The Daily Create (TDC) 29 – Something upside down that is never seen that way – Coffee cup

I have a clean desk.

The Daily Create (TDC) 30 – The place where you lose things in your house – Under the shelves

I always lose things under there!

The Daily Create (TDC) 47 – A photo that features your favourite colour – Red

I like red.

The Daily Create (TDC) 54 – Record the sound of an ordinary thing and make it hard to guess (TDC54)

Can you guess the sound?

The Daily Create (TDC) 55 – A picture of an instrument that measures something – Retractable tape measure

We use the metric system.

The Daily Create (TDC) 60 – Draw or digitally design a circle. Fill in the circle with the colour or colours that reflect the way your body feels today – Black

It’s a black hole.

The Daily Create (TDC) 61 – Make a video of you writing a line from a movie – Fight Club

I took the ‘I want you to hit me as hard you can’ line from Fight Club.

Posted in amidoinitrite, ds106, ds106_2012, ds106tdc, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC | Comments Off on The Daily Create (TDC) Archive: TDC 29, 30, 47, 54, 55, 60 and 61

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