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When I did my presentation on Visual Literacy I mentioned a great resource we could use in the classroom called Book Cover Creator, which is an interactive tool on the educational website Read, Write, Think.

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/bookcover/

I didn’t end up using this tool for my Reading a Novel Cover lesson, but was still curious about it. So my son and I created a book cover tonight. It was actually ideal that I was discovering how to use  it with him, because I had to teach it as I myself was learning. And of course, he noticed elements that I missed. My son has only been on a computer a few times and figured it out right away, so it’s obviously a very intuitive tool.  So if you want to try it and you’re pressed for time or have a class with varrying levels of  computer literacy I would say you’re safe to use this tool. It was really fun!

This is what we created!

And this is what we were inspired by….

And acutally, my son wanted to name our picture the same as the original, so I had to introduce the concept of copyright!

Works Cited:

Wells, Rosemary. Morris’s Disappearing Bag. USA: Viking Juvenile Press, 1999. Print.

Read, Right, Think. “Book Cover Creator.” ReadWriteThink.Org Web. Accessed Nov 26, 2012.

OK. So I have been inspired by coursework that has prompted reflections on space and place, movement and pause. And identity. I created this visual short video/slide show with the help of a friend using Premiere editing program from Adobe CS. (You know me — eager, enthusiastic, creative… and in need of a little digital support!)

The ideas that were set in motion by this media project come to dock in the personal blog post I created, combining my reflections with images —

The video is embedded in the blog post.

www.picklesandpopsiclesticks.blogspot.com

cheers!

www.tagxedo.com (2007) Retrieved Nov 26, 2012

In light of Teresa’s son getting to preform, it made me think of a video I found on Youtube that melts my heart…enjoy!

Last year in a seminar class on contemporary theatre I wrote a paper comparing Sarah Kane’s postdramatic play 4:48 Psychosis to the theoretical ideas of an avatar/internet theatre. What I was particularly interested in was the idea of how we as living, breathing human beings can become consumed by the virtual world of video games. Personally I’ve always had a love for The Sims franchise, while other people are committed to games such as World of Warcraft, or any RPG games. In my paper I asked myself whether it would be possible for there to be an ‘avatar theatre’ where as audience members we can become so invested in a virtual theatre performance that we physically react to the happenings of the virtual world in the same way that we do in the living theatre.

In Gabriella Giannachi’s book Virtual Theatres she calls the new virtual stage a

‘hypersurface’:

The hypersurface is where the real and the virtual meet each other. It is materiality and textuality, real and representation. It is also the site of virtual performance. Through hypersurface, the viewer can enter the work of art, be part of it, as well as interact with it. (Giannachi, 95)

As I was reviewing this paper the above quote stood out to my for this course in particular. Multiliteracies seem to allow us to ‘enter the works of art’, if we consider graphic novels, e-literature, and now video games… these multimodal ‘hypersurfaces’ allow us to enter an alternate dimension of learning. Video games allow us an application of strategy, inquiry, and interactive modes of multidimensional learning. If I think back to some of the video games I’ve played in my many years I could have clocked enough hours to master ad new skill, like playing the piano. But I also think back to games like Sim City where you have to think like an urban developer as you create a sustainable city with all the proper amenities such as schools, police departments, and shopping centers. I also think back with joyous memories to games like “Math Circus”, or the wide range of Magic School Bus games. Since these video games offered an integration of facts, applied skills, and entertainment I think back to those video games happy with what I learned.

Since I personally am no technical wiz and could not put together a video game specific to my own lessons I wonder if anyone knows of any games that already exist which would help assist popular texts. I remember seeing a trailer for a game about Dante as he travels though hell… but it was very convoluted and based around other topics we discussed earlier in the course; the character of Beatrice for example was over sexualized and the goal of the game, to save her… I believe that all literary merit went straight out the window and was traded for how gory can the monsters in hell be. I think that video games would make an interesting example for students to relate plots of stories too, however. Huck Finn? Brotherly companionship? Mario and Luigi?

Also, if you haven’t seen this YouTube video it was one of my points of inspiration about ways in which we have become consumed by the online world and how visceral our feelings may be. The kid in the video had his World of Warcraft account deleted by his mother… this is his reaction:

Works Cited:

Giannachi, Gabriella: Virtual Theatres: an introduction. Routledge, New York. 2004.

wafflepwn, GREATEST FREAK OUT EVER (ORIGINAL VIDEO), YouTube. uploaded: May 3,

Brendan

Personally, I am not a big “gamer” so to speak. I know friends, and my brother who spend hour upon hours playing games on their computers, or game consoles through the TV. I have never had the pull towards them. As a child I played Mario on Nintendo, and other forms of Mario like Mario cart, and other such games that I cant even remember the names of. I also remember getting a 168 games cartridge that we had to blow on to make it work. People of my generation I am sure have fond and frustrating memories of blowing on the bottom of video games to make them work, or hitting the top of the Nintendo so get it to unfreeze. Now people are playing games online, or using a compact disk, where they can save their games, or talk to people all over the world, and join forces to concur whichever game of their choice.
Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of my experience. I have lightly dabbled in Sims, when it first came out, and the odd game on Facebook, which I lose interest in in about 2 weeks. I find that they don’t keep my attention, and I would rather relax and watch TV or read a book, then play a game, that I struggle with more times then not. Therefore, I was intrigued while reading J.P. Gee’s “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.” I liked that he has taken chances to learn the games that his son is playing, and that he finds the good side of video games. It is my belief, and something that I happen to childishly do, is that if someone tells me its bad and not to do it, then of course I do it. We all touch the stove as children even though its “hot!” as humans we are curious and challenging the boundaries of our parents discipline. I see the appeal of video games, but I am also a very social person and the thought of sitting at home, alone, for hours playing a game just didn’t appeal to me as a teenage, nor does it now.
Gee connects the article to teaching in a way that I hadn’t thought of before. He says “…that learning is or should be both frustrating and life enhancing. The key is to finding ways to make hard things life enhancing so that people keep going and don’t fall back in learning and thinking only what is simple and easy” (6) How has this theory not translated into schools? How come we struggle to keep teenagers engaged in material, yet they can go home and choose to play a game of strategy and skill for hours? Are we making school too simple and not relatable for them, or are we just seen as glorified babysitters, to keep them occupied, and only the University driven benefiting from school? These questions were coming to me as I was reading. I do with that he had talked to some teens and expanded his research, (which he may do more into the book. Which I would like to read in full, I just don’t have the time right now.) but to create a reason that kids spend so many hours playing a game that requires skill, thought, problem solving, creative thinking, rapid hand movement and many other skills that we associate with school. Yet we have kids checking out of learning and going home to play “games that are longer, harder, and more challenging” (6) then any schoolwork that they will ever encounter. These games are based on “good learning principles” (6) and they are selling off the shelves like crazy. However a classic novel in a high school may be carted around in a teens backpack without ever being cracked.
So I pose the question…how are we as teachers going to be able to keep kids as interested in our classes as they are to their games? Can we use video games in our classes to teach different genres/subjects/themes etc? Also, if you are a “gamer” so to speak, please tell me the appeal because I really don’t understand it!
The Tagxedo below is of the same game console as above, using the name of games from a-l. It was very interesting, in relation to what Gee said in his article that the main words were: Adventures, kid, challenge, and dragon were the ones that stuck out for me. This just more then reinforces his point of view and what we need to be striving for in classes.

Resources:

Gee, J.P. (2007). “What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy.” New York: Palgrave/Macmillan. Chapter 1. Retrieved Nov. 25, 2012

Gee, J. (2005). “Good Video Games and Good Learning.” Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 85(2), 33-37. Retrieved Nov. 25, 2012

www.tagxedo.com (2007) Retrieved Nov 26, 2012

Hello all,

I mentioned in class that my son Ben is one of three boy trebles in the following performance, which will be held at the Orpheum on 7 December: http://www.vancouverchamberchoir.com/concerts.php?idm=201 .

A pre-concert recording session will be held at the CBC this Wednesday and Ben has to be in the studio by 7:00pm. The CBC has asked that the boy trebles are accompanied by an adult. I have a few options here:

1. Find him another adult chaperone.
2. Leave our class at 6:00pm and schedule another lab session for the last hour from 6:20-7:20.
3. Leave our class at 6:00pm and bring in a guest speaker from 6:20-7:20.
4. End the class at 6:00pm and allow you to use the last portion of the class to work on the final project.

Can you let me know which of the above three options you prefer (OR propose your own suggestion) by responding in the comment thread of this post?

Thanks,

Teresa

I decided to get creative and splatter some paint to correspond with the little poem I wrote:

Web

tangled

with

possibilities

perils

friends

fictions

inter

connections

inter

net

I am also working on a digital (multi-media) project…. coming soon!

So I know most people won’t have done a lot of video editing in this class, but last year when I directed a show in Halifax I thought it would be a fun project for my cast and crew to make a trailer for our play.

It was a really enjoyable experience for us and even though it was more of a joke, movie trailers can be a great way to consider themes, genre, stock characters, and many more things. At Killarney the grade 10 students are doing “TV Channel surfing projects” right now. They have to choose opposite style TV shows and commercials and represent them onstage or in a film.

While this video isn’t a great representation of the seriousness of the play I’m interested in your thoughts as to what it could be about? If anyone gets a chance to watch and respond I’ll post again with more details about the play and another video that was made about our show. Don’t cheat! It’s cool!

Ps. This was all made on my iPhone and on iMovie.

ALSO! I JUST DISCOVERED THAT MY VIDEO IS BLOCKED IN GERMANY!!! HAHAH COOL!

Brendan