U Tech Tips » David Gran

Paint The World With Light

David Gran — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:53:44 +0000

Paint the World With Light is the first digital media challenge from The Student Creative, a book of student light paintings from around the world. The goal of this project was to have students use long exposure photography to show the unique character of their own communities.

Paint The World With Light by The Student Creative | Make Your Own Book

When you purchase a copy of the book, you paint the world with a little more light; all of our profits go towards the Jacaranda Foundation, a school for AIDS orphans in Malawi. For more information on this and future projects, visit the Student Creative Website.

For more information on the Jacaranda School, please visit the Jacaranda Foundation’s Website.

As a sad postscript, I would like to add that this book is dedicated to the memory of my mentor at Teachers College who passed away last week. Renee Darvin was a fierce advocate for Art Education, whose passion for the arts affected thousands upon thousands of students through her work as a teacher, a professor, an administrator, and Director of Art Education for the city of New York.

We’ll miss you greatly Renee, thank you for everything.

Where the Web Went Right

David Gran — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:39:33 +0000

A Rant

The other day, I was catching up on some of my news podcasts which are always a day or two late for me (hey, how’d that election in Massachusetts turn out)?

One of my favorite podcasts is NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook, but my one big beef with his show is that in the interest of being ‘fair and balanced’ (now there’s a loaded phrase), he often lets some pretty nutty folks say some pretty nutty things without too much challenge. I often wonder if they do this simply to prove that they don’t have a liberal bias*.

The show I was listening to recently was one of those shows. In an episode titled “Where the Web Went Wrong”, author Jaron Lanier was on the show promoting his book “You Art Not A Gadget**”, the central thesis of this is that participatory communities online create a ‘hive mind’ in which we are sacrificing our creative energies in the service of companies to which we owe nothing.

In this discussion, he lambasts ‘Web 2.0 proponents’ as religious cultists who contribute their time and energy, not for their own personal gain, but in the interest of creating a god-like singularity of utopian participation. I like to share my thoughts about art education with the greater community for my own personal interest, and all of a sudden I’m handing out flowers at airports and promoting a socialist agenda?

Well, I do live in China, after all. I can see how that could be confusing to some.

While some of the points that Lanier makes are just plain wrong and some just plain silly (and quite often both), some fall into the realm of the “wha…?” One of his most awkward points is that people feel free to “mash up” the creative efforts of others, but that the ads that regularly appear on the sides of the webpages that these mashups appear are somehow sacrosanct, and ‘above’ being modified for creative use. This idea is based on two false premises: (1) That ads are not mashed because we hold them with some sort of respect, and (b) there is anything useful in these ads to ‘mash’. Sidebar ads aren’t seen as ‘holy’, they aren’t even seen as ‘useful’ for a creative endeavor. At most, I’d say they were seen as a minor inconvenience or annoyance. In fact, I’d argue that they aren’t even seen at all. We don’t have ads on this site and if you think back to the last site you were on, what were the ads for? Do you remember? I don’t either.

Further, it shows a fundimental misunderstanding about the purpose of a mashup, which is to celebrate or satirize the derivative work in a way that creates something that we haven’t seen before.

With a nod to the serendipity gods, I happened to find this wonderful Mashup of the movie UP over on the always fascinating Learning IT on the same day that I listened to this podcast.

I could just listen to that song all day.

If there is any doubt in your mind that mash-ups are somehow by definition ‘less creative’ than their derivative works, this video should dispel that notion. It also should dispel the notion that the creation of projects like this one are in service to some corporate monolith that feeds off of our creative juices. Pogo, the 21 year old creator of this mash up is now being wooed by corporations to make Mashup videos for them… the one above was commissioned by Pixar itself.

That is not to say that the commissioning of a work validates it above other creative works. Lanier is right in one way- that we should be compensated for our creative efforts and hard work. However, he is mistaken in thinking that everything that we do needs financial compensation. If before the internet, the quiet creative endeavors that we pursued resulted in only our own satisfaction, that was compensation enough. Now that everyone has the ability and opportunity to share the processes and products of our creative expression doesn’t mean we all need to get a paycheck for everything we do.

“Web 2.0″ (or whatever you want to call it) isn’t where the web went wrong, its where the web went right. Before the concept of participatory media overtook online activity, the internet’s main purpose was another in a long line of the one-to-many forms of media (h/t to Howard Rheingold) following radio, TV, and movies. Before web 2.0 tools put content creation in the hands of the masses, what was the internet? A place to buy all kinds of stuff and occasionally get entertained.

So basically, it was the mall… Without all the walking.

And that was just what we all needed, wasn’t it? More shopping, less exercise.

*Good luck with that, Tom.

**Yeah, no. I’m not going to promote it here. You can find it with the google.

We’ll Need A Crane

David Gran — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:34:03 +0000

Here’s some wisdom that might sound familiar:

There is a world of difference between the modern home environment of integrated electric information and the classroom. Today’s… child is attuned to up-to-the-minute “adult” news… and is bewildered when he enters the nineteenth century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules. It is naturally an environment much like any factory set-up with its inventories and assembly lines.

That was Marshall McLuhan… written in 1967. Before 1:1, before podcasts, before Smartboards, before DVD players, before cell phones, before VCRs, before the internet, before fax machines, before personal computers.

As Adrienne Michetti pointed out in this recent post, technology must be reforming our curricular goals. More than 40 years ago, McLuhan was arguing not just for a technology integrated classroom, but one that isn’t fragmented by the irrelevant contextual limitations of the school day.

Adrienne concluded her post with the question about how to move this forward. The difficulty in solving this 40-Year-Old Problem might also be revealed in McLuhan’s book (The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects) ; he quotes Alfred North Whitehead:

“The Major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.”

We’ll need a crane.

Quote from:
McLuhan, Marshall, and Fiore Quentin. The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Digitized Edition. San Francisco: Hardwired Press, 1967. Print.

Note: To show the relevancy a little clearer, I removed the word ‘televised’ at the first ellipsis.

Choosing a Video Camera

David Gran — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:46:00 +0000

Its that time of year again. Time to put together our orders for next year- it always comes long earlier than it should, but that’s the story of working overseas. As a video teacher, I’m frequently asked for suggestions about which cameras to purchase. Students sometimes want to purchase their own for use in my class, or teachers want to buy cameras for their classes. I always begin by recommending to both that they figure out how much they want to spend and then look for the best camera in that price range. To this end, both Amazon and CamcorderReview.Com are useful resources. Amazon is a bit easier to navigate, and I find customer reviews often more insightful and practical than professional reviews. Camcorder Review.Com organizes its cameras buy price, brand, and media- a fantastic way of breaking down your various options.

There are a few key features to look for in buying a video camera, and these will vary depending on your own needs. First, a microphone jack. In my opinion, this is more important than video quality. Here’s why. Most cameras you can buy now, even the low end ones, will give you a decent quality video. Likely it will be less decent in low light -but that can be a good thing if you’re teaching video. I want my students to be conscious of the light they’re shooting in, and they learn a lot more about how light can affect the mood of a piece if they have to set it up themselves. A camera with poor low-light capabilities means that not working with their own lights is not an option.

Second is video quality. Ok, that sounds like a contradiction from the first point, but it really isn’t. If I have to choose between good sound and good video quality, I’ll choose good sound- as Filmmaker Robert Bresson wrote, “When a sound can replace an image, cut the image or neutralize it. The ear goes more toward the within, the eye toward the outer.” – the visuals provide contextual information for action, but sounds provide contextual information for feeling. However- a student who is conscious of lighting and sound together can only be inspired further by a high quality video image.

With video quality in mind, these are the elements that I like in a camera:

3CCDs: A short explanation; most consumer camcorders have one CCD (Charged Coupled Device) that receives all the light, 3CCDs break the light up into red, blue, and green and give you a much better image.

24p: Some newer cameras have the ability to shoot at 24 frames per second, rather than the standard 30. In this case, less is more. 24 fps cameras allow you to get that ‘filmic’ look – your videos will look more like what you see in the films and less like what you see on reality TV shows (within reason of course, 24fp doesn’t guarantee good ideas or good videography skills, nor does a Cannes nomination come in the box with the camera).

Manual Focus: This feature is great for creating an even more striking ‘film look’ through control over the depth of field.

HD: I’m a little less impressed with buying an High Definition camera for the sake of it being HD- many devices that you’ll play your video on won’t have HD capability. That being said, most cameras that have 24p and 3CCDs also have HD.

Low End: $100-$400 range

Mid Range: $400-800 range

High End: $800-1200 range

Low End: Sanyo’s Xacti
Forget the Flip.

Sanyo’s Xacti camera has three things going for it that make it a better buy:

1) Removable storage: With the flip you’re locked into 120 minutes. Although that’s more than enough for most people, with the Xacti you can swap out SD cards.

2) The Xacti goes under water. It works up to 5 feet under water, great for swimming pools or snorkeling. Word of caution though- if you use it in salt water, you must clean it by soaking it in fresh water or the salt will corrode the insides. Found that out from a friend who will be a reader of manuals from now on, I suspect.

3) Its ergonomic. I have been waiting for a camera that actually fits comfortably in your hand for years. I don’t know why this is such a difficult concept for camera manufacturers, but I long for the sort of handle that I had on my old 8mm and 16 mm camera. It just feels better in your hand. For a simple carry-around camera, its a great choice.

The drawback for this camera is that there is no external mic, and the mic that is included, like almost every other consumer camcorder, isn’t that great. If you’re teaching a video class, you’ll probably want a camera with a mic jack. That brings us to:

Low End: Canon ZR Series

I’m including the Canon ZR series in this, although their cheaper models seem to have disappeared, but you can still get them refurbished or used on Amazon. These cameras are not great. Not by a long shot. They have terrible sound (with an audible buzz) and they are horrific in low light. So why am I recommending them? It comes down to this- with these cameras, your students have to be conscious of sound and light. They need to use an external microphone and plan our their lighting. Otherwise, their videos will look terrible. If you’re teaching video and want to emphasize the importance of lighting and sound, this could be a useful little tool, especially if you’re on a budget.

However, if you really want good sound and good light and have a little more money, take a look at…

Mid Range: Panasonic HDC-HS9

STOP. Before you take my recommendation for this camera, heed the following warning. I used to recommend the mid-range Panasonic cameras because they were a great deal for a 3 CCD camera. However, for one reason or another, they’ve dropped their external microphone jack. This is a deal-breaker for me, as I want my students to have good audio, and no on-camera mic will do. However, I haven’t so far seen another camera in this price range with as good an image quality. The newer models also shoot at 24 frames per second – that’s a great addition, but not enough of an incentive for me to forget the whole missing mic jack thing. Again, finding a used or refurbished Panasonic with a mic jack would be a good way to go if you’re on a tighter budget. Camera prices have dropped recently though, so I’m not sure if I’d even recommend these anymore when you can spend just a little bit more and get a much better camera, like…

High End: Canon Vixia

With proper lighting, the kind of image you can get with the Canon HV Series looks nothing short of fantastic. These cameras have the 24 frames per second mode, HD, and an external mic jack. In addition a manual focus ring allows you to pull focus and grab some control over your depth of field. The focus ring on the Vixias is a huge improvement over their last model and gives you much more control, and allows you to keep moving subjects in focus. This is hands down the best consumer camcorder I’ve worked with.

Those are my pics, what are yours?

Rotoball 2010

David Gran — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:45:50 +0000

Teachers of various digital media and animation take heed! The international collaborative Rotoball Project returns in 2010 with an important change: This year, we will accept any form of animation, as long as it conforms to the rules of the game!

These rules are:

The ball must enter from the left hand of the screen.
The ball transforms into a new object and interacts with a chosen scene.
The object transforms back to a ball and exits the right hand of the screen.
The entire animation is 15 seconds.

For those unfmailiar with our project, I present last year’s magnum opus, created by almost 200 students from 22 schools in 8 countries around the world.

Rotoball 2009:

Also, be sure to join the Rotoball conversation on our Rotoball group on Art Education 2.0!

Even though we will now accept other forms of animation, we will keep the name of our preferred technique, partially to maintain a little bit of consistency, partly to celebrate an oft overlooked kind of animation, and partially because ‘Animiball’ just doesn’t sound as good.

FAIL.

David Gran — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 11:51:03 +0000

It was “Back to School” night last week here at the Shanghai American School, and I was just scaring the bejeebus out of a bunch of folks by telling that what I expect from their children this year is that they come to my class and fail.

Ok, then I explain that no, I don’t expect (or want) them to fail my class. What I want is that they take risks and really put themselves out there. My photography students know that a ~~National Geographic~~ Nat Geo photographer will take 60,000+ photographs in short assignment in order to get the 4 or 5 good ones that end up in the magazine. Here’s part of the magic of digital technology- its so cheap that you can fail – alot, and not be any the poorer. Try that odd camera angle, faster shutter speed, wider aperture. Use 50 shots to get that one perfect moment. I’m more interested in what they discover by botching something than what they give me that they think I’m looking for. So yes, I want them to fail. I want them to fail awesomely.

The funny bit though is just after doing a little presentation on constructive failure, twice, I just come across this great video. Where were you 15 minutes earlier, little clip? I’ve since shown it to most of my classes, they loved it. I hope they remember it.

The Differentiator

David Gran — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:24:35 +0000

Although the ending of summer is always bittersweet (at best), today I found something that makes me excited for lesson planning.

No, really.

Maybe this sounds familiar: You have a great new idea for a project or want to revitalize an old one. You struggle with the objectives and activities so that everything aligns just right, without repeating the same old strategies.

Ian Byrd first addresses a way to approach differentiated instruction. He begins by identifying four components of an objective (although for clarity’s sake, I usually divide these components into an objective and an activity, but thats probably just six of one, half a dozen of the other).

These are:

Thinking Skill: The verb – what students will be doing
Content: The content – what students will be learning
Resource: The information – where students will get information
Product: The result – what students will create

Toward this end, he uses Bloom’s New Taxonomy to address the thinking skills, and looks to work of Sandra Kaplan for addressing approach to content. This Chart (.doc) explains her approach. Resource and product can be the combined options of both traditional and digital media.

This brings us to his fantastic new web application, “The Differentiator“. This is a fill-in-the blank tool for starting a lesson plan. The great thing about it, is that it allows you to visualize what your lesson is going to look like in all its possible variations and permutations. Here is his introduction to the app, but it really is quite easy.

Give it a try!

Rotoball 2009

David Gran — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:42:10 +0000

Rotoball 2009 from The Carrot Revolution on Vimeo.

The Rotoball 2009 Project is an international collaboration between more than 150 students in 20 schools around the world. For more information on the project, click here. Please leave feedback and comments for the students on the Vimeo page.

Thanks to all 20 teachers and more than 150 students who were involved in this project, and special thanks to Heather Swan of Huntington High School for helping turn the project into a global collaboration.

Film Festivals And Prezi

David Gran — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 05:10:47 +0000

Although I’m way behind in some other work, I was prompted to write this post today after reading Amanda’s post on Prezi, and so I can look Jeff in the eye again- having not posted here in so long. I’ll get to prezi in a second.

Last weekend, while dodging Jeff’s disappointed gaze*, I had the great honor of co-presenting three workshops at EARCOS with Breen O’Reilly, IB Film and video production teacher at the International School of Beijing. Breen’s name was mentioned to me even before we got to asia as a key person to contact in the development and implementation of a a film program.

Creating Your Own Student Film Festival

We presented on Visual Literacy and Creating Film Festivals for students. For this presentation, I used Prezi- which is sort of a cross between a mind-mapping program (like Inspiration) and any given presentation software (like Keynote or Powerpoint). Its a great tool if you have trouble organizing your thoughts in a linear fashion (like yours truly). You can put all your ideas into the presentation in whatever order they come to you- and then create a path to help transform your cluttered ideas into a linear arrangement.

If you’re looking to build your own film festival, or just want to see another prezi in action (they can be addicting), take a look at our presentation. Prezi is one of my new favorite web tools. Its easy, its slick, and it combines organization and presentation into one easy application.

I also introduced our new network for student film festivals, developed towards two goals- helping new student film festivals organize and get off the ground, and helping create connections between these festivals. Currently, we’re working towards an Asia regional film festival -but festivals from all over the world are welcome to join.

If you are creating a film festival, thinking about creating a film festival, or just want to find places to send your students videos- join our conversation there.

*this is not true. Jeff is great at hiding his disappointment in me.**

**this is not true either, Jeff isn’t actually disappointed in me, I just wanted to build some dramatic effect***.

***this is not very dramatic.

Shake it Like A Polaroid Picture!

David Gran — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:55:38 +0000

Question: Why am I such a sucker for nostalgia?

Better question: Will any of my students care as much as I do about this cool re-imagining of 1970s technology in the digital-conceptual age?

Answer: I don’t care! I have a polaroid camera on my desktop!

Mac users can download Poladriod – a neat little free application that will transform any photo into a ‘polaroid’ type image. Windows users will have to wait on this one, a PC version is in development. I’m not sure why stuff like this fascinates me, when it something that could be pretty easily done in photoshop, but hey, there are no rules to govern ‘fun’.

…and in Photoshop, you can’t watch the picture “develop” on your desktop. You can even “shake” the photograph to make it develop faster!

Here’s an example of a photo I took on the field trip to Moganshan Lu – ‘Poladrized’: