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Hatchet Jack Gets an Idea!

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Today is a big day! We have bunkhouse assignments and we are busy working on our bunkhouse name and gettin all situated! How exciting! I love this time of the year! I am like all unicorned out!

I even had an idea for an assignment. There I was, staring at Twitter in my browser and I noticed the “trending” words and hashtags. I was instantly teleposted (that was a spelling error but I really like the word so I am going to stick with it) back to one of the early assignments I had enjoyed at a camp in the past that asked us to make a poem of a playlist. So I figured I would make a song/poem out of the current trending topics in Twitter. 

So I did.

This is a #BattlefieldAmerica hello wake up!
I got a soul like #WhitePeopleLunches all bread and jam
and I only want more of #MoviesICanWatchAnyTime
Is this is just a momentary moment of Hard Knocks
like the #SignsOfAStrugglingStripper
who wins the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
Or is this a battle works like the Chrome OS and that is like a trip man,
Like a trip on LSD
where I meet Serena Williams
and I whisper I could Die In Your Arms

Not sure if it is a poem or a song or what? But it was fun and while I whittle away some moments here before lunch I thought I would share this. I’ll add it to the ds106 sit as soon as the powers that be get it rockin’ again….

I am very excited to have such a fine group of campers join in our adventures this summer! We are a luck bunch in the yet to be names Bunkhouse 4. My personal favorite possibility thus far is “The Hatchet Hotel” but that ain’t quite as happy as I suppose we should be? And it ain’t just my bunkhouse, it is all of ours.

Posted in bunk4, counselor, ds106, Hatchet Jack Stuff, magicmacguffin, openonline, WritingAssignments, WritingAssignments588 | Comments Off on Hatchet Jack Gets an Idea!

Neurosis Revealed

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Week 2 at Camp Magic MacGuffin and The Daily Create has us revealing what sounds drive us batty. For me, particularly, this is really more about revealing neurosis than a slight irritation.

For as long as I can remember, certain repetitious and rhythmic sounds drive me completely bonkers. My wife is convinced that this might be a symptom of deeper and darker problems (not really….I think). Here’s a quick list:

  • Clock ticking (any rhythmic ticking sound)- I actually cut the speaker wires for a more modern clock that artificially generated the clock ticking sound on a wedding present we received.
  • Wind Chimes - Forgive me if you like them. This tick is almost exclusively applied to little/high pitched jobbers (I’m okay with the lower toned chimes – those are actually cool). I’ve been known to ask neighbors to take them down. 
  • Loud crunching while eating – This isn’t for the average everyday well-mannered eaters out there. This is for the barnyard escapees. This tick prevents me from enjoying crowded movie theaters. I’d much rather be in a matinee or renting the DVD. 
I’ve been meaning to talk to a professional about these problems but I find the proactive approach of stopping the sound or avoiding the sound more effective. In fact, for this sound file, I had to search far and wide to find it. I also don’t find my irritation with these sounds that irrational.
Let me assure you I am a mostly normal, only partially neurotic, completely well-mannered guy. You won’t have to worry about me repairing your clocks or cutting apart your wind chimes (but I advise a better safe than sorry approach to your favorite things).
By the way…I also don’t eat in front of mirrors…that’s not part of The Daily Create though.

Posted in bunk2, Magic MacGuffin, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC | Comments Off on Neurosis Revealed

TDC 5/29/12

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Annoying Noice–record a sound that sets your teeth on edge.

Posted in bunk5, magicmacguffin, openonline, sound, TDC | Comments Off on TDC 5/29/12

Letter home from camp

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

29 May 2012

 

Dear Mummy and Daddy,

 

Camp is so strange! There are no towel-warming racks in the bathrooms, and there are open pits with fires burning real wood. We actually see our food being cooked, and are expected to hold raw meat over the flames. I really don’t think this is how Cook does it. I was given something called a “marshmallow”, and it caught fire and everyone laughed at me.

 

We are expected to exercise each morning with a Personal Trainer, except that we all have to use the same one. This makes it hard for me to stay motivated, especially since it’s obvious the Trainer spends more time sitting at his computer and eating potato chips than working out. His tummy shows under his Geek L8r tee shirt, and it’s pretty gross. Don’t these guys understand mobile? He needs a treadmill like Daddy’s, with the computer built right in.

 

I brought my water skis and my micronized insect repellent in my Louis Vuittons, but haven’t had a chance to use either. They told me there were bugs, but it seems like they are connected to a “UMW blog system” or something – I haven’t been bitten by anything yet. 

 

This week I stayed inside the big cabin you rented for me (thanks, mummy!) since my iPad screen is too glossy to use in the sun. I made some animated gifs of dancing, since you know I love dancing, and I longed for the camp we used to go to in the Catskills when I was little, the one where that gorgeous guy taught us the Monkey and the Mashed Potato. I chatted with a guy in the class named Scott Lo (it’s so cool – he has a full last name but doesn’t use it), and we might plan a dance in the Rec Room (they call it Second Life) in a few weeks. He asked if I could pick the music, but really, these people really seem to appreciate 80s culture in a way I never could (honestly, The Warriors? gag me with a spoon!), so I think I’ll just dance.

 

I went to a lecture – can you believe it? The presenter was Michael Wesch, and I’ve seen some of his early films, so I thought it would be fun. He said some really interesting things, like that professors use a thousand points of light just to do PowerPoint. I remembered that awful prof I had last semester who used those slides all full of words. Luckily, my friends and I were able to use our phones to create a project to help children in Haiti during class or it would have been a complete bore. Considering our family’s name is on the building, don’t you think we could do something about that? 

 

 

Oh, and please send more of my La Roche-Posay sunscreen. They seem to want us to go outside here. 

 

 

Love,

 

Your Baby

 

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Week 1: Letter from Camp Magic MacGuffin

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

A little behind moving my stuff into camp this week and will play a little catchup with my Family Legend – it’s coming.

I did manage to get the Camp Magic Macguffin PA system hooked up and plugged into my stereo last week and managed to pop in a cassette to make a recording.

Camp Magic Macguffin PA System: Week 1 Clips

 

Posted in bunk2, counselor, magicmacguffin, openonline, Play | Comments Off on Week 1: Letter from Camp Magic MacGuffin

TDC #137: Trace of My Face

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

I’m good to my word. I’m working hard to keep up with The Daily Creates. They just haven’t been posted because I’ve been so darn busy! By the time I get done with things I HAVE to do during the day, I hop online to write at 750words and then promptly pass out. Luckily, all the hard bits of moving are over, and that means more time to sneak in fun things like this!

TDC137 Face TraceCC Attribution_NonCommercial_ShareAlikeClick here to see this photo on Flickr.

I was very excited about this assignment after seeing everyone’s really creative output. I don’t personally have an iPad (which is how most people seemed to be doing the assignment), so I considered going out to buy a Bamboo tablet, which would give me greater finesse over my digital art work. I’m still considering it… However, my mom offered to let me use her iPad, so I saved about $60 by springing for a $17 stylus instead. I’m thrilled by how it turned out. I may be getting a hand-me-down iPad soon-ish, anyway.

Posted in Daily Create, magicmacguffin, openonline, TDC Drawing, tdc137, The Daily Create | Comments Off on TDC #137: Trace of My Face

Kool Aid Animated GIF tutorial

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

This is the first part of a three or four part sequence on making an animated GIF and converting it to a texture file for Second Life. All we cover here is creating the GIF. The next video will deal with the Second Life side of things.

As has been the case for many folks who’ve passed through the ds106 system, Jim Groom’s tutorial on using GIMP and MPEG Streamclip proved invaluable in helping me to figure out how to this.

What follows are the steps I followed in making the animated GIF featured in the tutorial:

  • Select and download video as mp4 from YouTube
  • Open video in MPEG Streamclip; select in and out points; trim clip
  • save trimmed clip as image files (frames) – adjust frames per second depending on length of clip and desired GIF quality
  • Open frames as layers in GIMP; crop and resize image as desired
  • save image as GIF; select Animate; select delay rate between frames as appropriate
  • Open GIF in web browser
  • Return to GIMP and adjust as desired
  • Load finished GIF to blog for the world to enjoy

I hope this tutorial is of some benefit. Feedback and suggestions for improvement are, as always, much welcomed.

Posted in animate GIF, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, Tutorial | Comments Off on Kool Aid Animated GIF tutorial

Hello Muddah; Hello Faddah – 5/27 (albeit late)

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

This letter is late because I enjoyed my Memorial Day weekend free of distraction and thinking. This was a boon to my sense of normalcy but disruptive to my dissertating and ongoing learning. So, let’s recap Week One at Camp Magic MacGuffin.

Daily Creates


Jumping into the work I completed a few Daily Creates. I love this quick project list, a lot, it allows me to get in and get out quickly and with more energy. The Google Hangout Campfire this week held to take aways for me about the Daily Create:

  1. Limit yourself to 15 minutes of work on these project.
  2. Check in the morning and let it incubate all day

Mike Wesch


I watched the Mike Wesch video and it wasn’t anything terribly surprising. What we’re finding is that social media and instructional technology in general can foster a lean forward/collaborative learning experience for students and teachers. Too many saddle instructional tech and social media with a disconnection between faculty and students. These videos, however, showed that when used correctly, wrapped with the right instructional design, and focused on socially constructing knowledge instructional technologies can propel learning and connection forward.

Throughout the videos I reminisced about a similar point made by Ze Frank at a recent TED conference.

Not as learning-focused but it shows how meaningful connections can be made. In a learning environment, these projects and connections become powerful engines for learning.
Lurking

Like a lot of new experiences, I spend some time lurking and getting to know the experience through observation. I’ve read and responded to comments from others, read blogs, viewed projects, etc. No more lurking.
Death by Zombie

I got into Minecraft this week and bumped around. I felt it wasn’t appropriate (nor was it available) to use my real name. It was pre-Hector story and so if you see Gorlington (a WOW holdover) bumping around there say hello. I took a wild roller coaster ride into the swimming hole (there’s some coal down there) and tooled around an NPC village. I managed to get killed a few times by zombies.
I’m eager to find the bunk houses and explore the Magic MacGuffin Minecraft world this week.
The Outside World

I’ve been parts of many conversations about distance learning in the last several weeks as we begin to investigate closely the quality, academic freedom, liberal education values, etc. One element that continues to come up is the idea of creating community. Wesch’s video, Frank’s video above, and my experience all tell me that creating a community is more possible now than ever before. It is a matter, though, of finding the voice of the community and making it sing loudly to the world.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite parts of Frank’s video which comes at the very end. This week being particularly busy both at camp and outside camp, there will be times when we need to chillout. Perhaps there is no more fitting example of how technology and media can form community than the story from the video above. Here’s the full song to help you chill this week.
Hey, you’re okay; you’ll be fine. Just breathe.

Posted in bunk2, Magic MacGuffin, magicmacguffin, openonline, weeklyletter | Comments Off on Hello Muddah; Hello Faddah – 5/27 (albeit late)

Creativity Abounds: First Letter Home

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Dear Kitty,

It has been a great week at camp! Glad you have been patient with me while I work on all my new things for camp instead of playing with you. Perhaps I’ll craft you a new cat toy for all your patience.

This has been a banner week for my creativity and I feel an excitement I haven’t felt in awhile. I took pictures, made videos and made some drawings. I think the face trace I did inspired me the most even though it was the create I looked forward to the least. It got me drawing again and inspired me to start a collage wall in my room to get myself creating.

I had fun watching my friend’s like Jeff and Jerry get right in there and start creating too. It is very cool to see people jump out of their comfort zones. I look forward to getting know the rest of the campers.

Well, I have more art to make so I’ll sign off for now. Hope you aren’t too lonely and please stop throwing up your food in protest.

Your Best Buddy,

Shannon

Posted in bunk1, ds106, Letter Home, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Creativity Abounds: First Letter Home

Week One of CMM is a Wrap!

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

Whew. We just finished the first week at Camp Magic MacGuffin. For my letter home, I did this video. Hope you enjoy!

In addition, here’s a quick (~10 min) tutorial about installing WordPress at Hippie Hosting that I threw together for our UMW students — maybe others will find it useful, too.

Posted in magicmacguffin | Comments Off on Week One of CMM is a Wrap!

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