The Melting World

Absence from this journal serves as a sign that my wheels are spinning again, too fast, you might say.

I just completed my first big media production for my New Media Studies class, and it took much time and experimentation. I am not happy with the quality of later scenes in the film (some parts are quite blurry, especially on the low res file), but I also learned a great deal this time around, so that is the main point, right? Right! Now I have to complete the other one early since I will be out of town for the third week of June (presentation and conference).

Anyway, if you’d like to check out my latest media experiment, go to Media Production 1, and choose either high or low quality (Dial-up vs. DSL/Cable modems). The second looks much better, of course. It’s on my homepage for the New Media class at UBC: Click here.

I also have an upcoming presentation at Future University in Hakodate on integrating creative thinking skills into the classroom to organize. I am arguing why such thinking skills are critical for students to be problem-solvers vs. followers/consumers in society. It is actually commonsense. Right now the imbalance of current educational systems (not all systems perhaps, however, but most) tends to stress the acquiring of knowldege as something put in the brain for safe keeping (banking system), but little instruction is given on what to do with that knowledge or how to explore using it. Or even if they do some activities, the students are just guided to learn only one way to use the knowledge, and options and self-discovery are not valued.

On top of these two projects, and the regular load of teaching and prepping and reading for classes, my son and I also succumbed to a bout of something flu-like last week, so this factor, too, put me far from this blog. Good news is that we were back on on feet and we managed to do a bit of hiking on Saturday. More on that in another entry.