The documentary assignments for the video projects was hard for me to come up with an idea at first. I kept trying to think of the ways I use technology throughout the day, for me that's mostly for school and to watch television and movies online. I couldn't think of anyway to make that interesting until I started thinking about the reason I constantly have a movie or TV show on in the background as I go throughout my day. The reason I do this stems from me being afraid of the dark. I have been since I was a little girl and in the documentary go into more detail of the reasons for this. I choose to use some appropriated footage in the introduction to give an atmosphere that could get people to relate to times they were scared. For this I used the introduction to the show Are You Afraid of the Dark? and the movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. To show how this phobia effects me throughout a night and relates to using technology in the form of TV and computer I showed examples of a night in the life of me. I think that this worked well because I was able to give a commentary over the video footage to explain myself.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Growth Cycle
For my own created Scratch project I decided to do an animation that might be a little easier than the game I created first. I drew the visual pictures on my own and used Photoshop to make the different fonts of the letters.
Click this link to go to the Growth Cycle Animation
Click this link to go to the Growth Cycle Animation
Apple Picking
For this Scratch project I used a couple of other peoples scripts who had created a bubble popping game. I took the parts of their scripts that I could understand and that worked the way I wanted to and modified it into a game where you catch the falling apples. In the game you have 60 seconds to catch as many falling apples as possible, and when you click on them the graphic will change to a basket of apples when you have succeeded in catching it.
Click this link to go to the Apple Picking Game
Click this link to go to the Apple Picking Game
Monday, November 28, 2011
Gay Marriage Legalized
Remix Video
I tried to upload the video but it didn't work...
So here is a link to the video that I think will work
Remix Video
Literacy Sound File
When I started this project I wasn't sure what to focus on. I think one of the first things that came to mind was when I remember starting to play computer games, especially since the programs I was using were based on learning. I focused on using my mom as a first hand resource to gather information and used the recording of my conversation as the basis for my story.
This was actually the last project I finished because I wasn't sure in what direction to go. So to begin I started off the best way I knew how... chatting on the phone with my mom. We definitely don't need an excuse to talk at all but having a definite topic helps us stay focused. My mom continued to tell me stories of when my brother and I were little kids and learning to read and lots of stuff that we would love to do and games we would play. That was definitely the best way for me to go about getting this information. I used the audio files from the conversation with her to frame my story and add in my own commentary to embellish what my mom is saying.
This was actually the last project I finished because I wasn't sure in what direction to go. So to begin I started off the best way I knew how... chatting on the phone with my mom. We definitely don't need an excuse to talk at all but having a definite topic helps us stay focused. My mom continued to tell me stories of when my brother and I were little kids and learning to read and lots of stuff that we would love to do and games we would play. That was definitely the best way for me to go about getting this information. I used the audio files from the conversation with her to frame my story and add in my own commentary to embellish what my mom is saying.
Simkins and Gill Readings
Simkins:
In the Simkins reading something that really stuck out to me was when they were focusing on discussing RPGs, role playing games. In the article the definition of RPGs branched beyond video games that were based in role playing into the ways that role playing comes up in many different learning aspects of life. The examples ranged from middle and high school through to careers in the military. Specifically they included;
"When a young person represents Uganda in Model U.N., they are role-playing for the purpose of learning. The same can be said for a history student participating in a mock trial, emergency service workers participating in an Incident Command System exercise, or military personnel participating in war games."
This opened up a new idea for me based on game play and particularly how common role playing games are. From an outside participant of video games, mostly a viewer of someone else playing, I have some experience with the way some role playing games work. Two of these games include Civilizations, which has actually been brought up a lot in the course of this class, and Skyrim. The role playing that they are referring to in the article most directly relates to the way Skyrim is played. In the game you choose your player from a wide range of species and can alter the appearance as well as what kind of player you would like to be. From watching this game being played I have noticed the ethics that are discussed in the article. By choosing your character you are deciding which nation to be affiliated with and what your proffession will be; thief, soldier, etc... I have been watching a player participating as a thief affiliated with the rebel nation. Within the game he steals and kills people, however depending on if he is in a town or in the woods and if he was attacked first or the one attacking there are different consequences that occur. These provide an ethical standpoint that the player either knowingly or unknowingly has to take into account.
Going back to the beginning of the article and if these could be used as a teaching method I am going to come to the same conclusion that I have throughout this class, I think they could be viable options for a learning experience for children. I don't know how they could be incorporated into a classroom setting, the only one that I think definitely could be use in a class would be Civilizations to teach aspects of history and the tools necessary to advance a society.
Gill:
In this article there is a good point made about the younger generation who is now in schools, they call them the "culture of interaction or Net Generation". The younger generations adapt to technology better than the teachers that are supposed to be teaching these students technology. Some call them the "Game Generation". "The Games Generation workers rarely even think of reading a manual. They'll just play with the software, hitting every key if necessary, until they figure it out" This trial and error method allows people to cognitively develop the skills the need to use software. Instead of reading a manual and following steps, they figure out their own directions which I think sometimes makes the process more concrete in their minds.
This article talks about how playing video games can lead to developing skills that can be used in other computer tasks. In my opinion I think this holds true just from watching how people who play video games and understand how different combinations of key strokes on either a keyboard or a game controller will allow certain things to occur in the game. The same is true for how to work with computer codes or different sort of website creation.
In the Simkins reading something that really stuck out to me was when they were focusing on discussing RPGs, role playing games. In the article the definition of RPGs branched beyond video games that were based in role playing into the ways that role playing comes up in many different learning aspects of life. The examples ranged from middle and high school through to careers in the military. Specifically they included;
"When a young person represents Uganda in Model U.N., they are role-playing for the purpose of learning. The same can be said for a history student participating in a mock trial, emergency service workers participating in an Incident Command System exercise, or military personnel participating in war games."
This opened up a new idea for me based on game play and particularly how common role playing games are. From an outside participant of video games, mostly a viewer of someone else playing, I have some experience with the way some role playing games work. Two of these games include Civilizations, which has actually been brought up a lot in the course of this class, and Skyrim. The role playing that they are referring to in the article most directly relates to the way Skyrim is played. In the game you choose your player from a wide range of species and can alter the appearance as well as what kind of player you would like to be. From watching this game being played I have noticed the ethics that are discussed in the article. By choosing your character you are deciding which nation to be affiliated with and what your proffession will be; thief, soldier, etc... I have been watching a player participating as a thief affiliated with the rebel nation. Within the game he steals and kills people, however depending on if he is in a town or in the woods and if he was attacked first or the one attacking there are different consequences that occur. These provide an ethical standpoint that the player either knowingly or unknowingly has to take into account.
Going back to the beginning of the article and if these could be used as a teaching method I am going to come to the same conclusion that I have throughout this class, I think they could be viable options for a learning experience for children. I don't know how they could be incorporated into a classroom setting, the only one that I think definitely could be use in a class would be Civilizations to teach aspects of history and the tools necessary to advance a society.
Gill:
In this article there is a good point made about the younger generation who is now in schools, they call them the "culture of interaction or Net Generation". The younger generations adapt to technology better than the teachers that are supposed to be teaching these students technology. Some call them the "Game Generation". "The Games Generation workers rarely even think of reading a manual. They'll just play with the software, hitting every key if necessary, until they figure it out" This trial and error method allows people to cognitively develop the skills the need to use software. Instead of reading a manual and following steps, they figure out their own directions which I think sometimes makes the process more concrete in their minds.
This article talks about how playing video games can lead to developing skills that can be used in other computer tasks. In my opinion I think this holds true just from watching how people who play video games and understand how different combinations of key strokes on either a keyboard or a game controller will allow certain things to occur in the game. The same is true for how to work with computer codes or different sort of website creation.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Janna Levin
I found the lecture with Janna Levin really interesting, I'm glad that I was able to go. The part that I thought was so interesting was the intellectual and scientific community that shes apart of that is located on the seventh floor of a building in Brooklynn. Combining the work of architects, designers, artists, geneticists, biologists, computer scientists, and Janna Levin as the one theoretical physicist in an organic space that puts emphasis on collaboration is what she called the Third Culture.
Throughout her presentation the part that really grabbed me and made me want to know more about this was her examples of the types of work that they do. She focused on explaining about five different projects that are going on, some of them which occur simultaneously. The projects that more closely relate to art practice integrated with technology were the works called the Gravity Harp and Corine's World. The Gravity Harp was a collaboration between an engineer, electrician and designer to create a scientific instrument to perform along with Björk. The resulting harp was a beautifully crafted instrument that used the science of pendulums to create the strumming of a harp that corolated with Björk's song. Corine's World was a series of window installations in Barney's NY, a store in Manhattan. It was created to give homage to the life of the editor of Vogue Paris, Corine. It included three video installations depicting different films of Corine.
Gravity Harp
The Gravity Harp reminded me of a project that I was assigned in Design II. We were asked to make an instrument, but the parts had to come from things that weren't meant to be used in the creation of instruments. So, instead of guitar strings we had to come up with something else, like different gauged wires. It was really cool seeing what everyone came up with based on their knowledge of instruments and what ideas they could imagine.
Anyway, I really enjoyed her presentation about that group and how the merging of science and art can be beneficial and have very interesting outcomes.
Throughout her presentation the part that really grabbed me and made me want to know more about this was her examples of the types of work that they do. She focused on explaining about five different projects that are going on, some of them which occur simultaneously. The projects that more closely relate to art practice integrated with technology were the works called the Gravity Harp and Corine's World. The Gravity Harp was a collaboration between an engineer, electrician and designer to create a scientific instrument to perform along with Björk. The resulting harp was a beautifully crafted instrument that used the science of pendulums to create the strumming of a harp that corolated with Björk's song. Corine's World was a series of window installations in Barney's NY, a store in Manhattan. It was created to give homage to the life of the editor of Vogue Paris, Corine. It included three video installations depicting different films of Corine.
Gravity Harp
The Gravity Harp reminded me of a project that I was assigned in Design II. We were asked to make an instrument, but the parts had to come from things that weren't meant to be used in the creation of instruments. So, instead of guitar strings we had to come up with something else, like different gauged wires. It was really cool seeing what everyone came up with based on their knowledge of instruments and what ideas they could imagine.
Anyway, I really enjoyed her presentation about that group and how the merging of science and art can be beneficial and have very interesting outcomes.
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