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‘Smartness’ online is the product of teamwork
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| From E-Learning V |
Fig.1 The cast of Downton Abbey.
How easy is it to put an accent to the character? Have the casting director and costume people colluded to create a class image of both face and dress? What if we turned all the accents upside down? Or is that what we are starting to see and achieve in 2014?
I caught a few moments of The X Factor last night where Cheryl (from Gateshead) had to let go of some of her singers before the live show: with one exception, and this would include all the singers in the show, there is a girl who is ‘well spoken’, one would imagine ‘upper middle class’ (if that phrase is any more or less appropriate than ‘working class’) – privately educated and at a boarding school one would presume. This girl is torn, possibly ashamed of her accent (or lack of accent). She feels it will make her less popular. These days everyone (in the media world) wants an accent that says where they came from, not an accent that says what ‘strata’ of class they are from (unless they’re going to a fancy dress party as characters from Downton Abbey). We no longer have parents who clip their children around the ear if they speak with a hard ‘a’?
Or is living with your accent something to do with self-esteem?
There was a Cambridge Professor of Ancient Music on the radio the other day who sounded very British and ‘educated’ (like the girl), except for the occasional word that hinted at something else. It turns out that until he was 23 he lived in Fresno, California. His accent transformation was almost total. Was this to blend in with the fabric of the Cambridge architecture?
I have friends who have lived in the States for 25 years: some, by my ear, are totally American, while others have barely changed their accent at all. I think it depends on what they do: the ‘English’ educated accent carries weight in academia, while the guy working in engineering has spent his career in the US getting rid of his accent and denying his culture and background.
Personally I love the richness of accents from every inch of the UK and the world: my only criteria has to be – can people understand what you are saying?
Any of us who think we can speak a foreign language can be guilty of garbling and muddling words and accents in such a way that others haven’t a clue what we are saying or meaning: I have a German friend who refuses to accept that often people haven’t a clue what she is saying as her German accent is so strong and her choice of words and word order is so like Yoda. I know that my French has, and still does if I hurry, come over the same garbled way to French people. This is why I am doing the Open University Module L120 – Ouverture: Intermediate French: to get the grammar in place, and learn to speak French as if I am writing it down perhaps? To slow down and be understood. You can still see that distracted glint in a person’s eye though when you know they aren’t really listening, but trying to figure out where you come from. Brits think I’m French. The French think I’m Belgian. My spoken English retains a hint of ‘northern’ – most of it was knocked out of me by parents and grandparents who felt it was their duty to raise kids who spoke ‘The King’s English’. Result: alienated in my home town Newcastle, and still picked out as ‘northern’ on words like ‘enough’ and ‘nothing’ … and ‘film’ (and probably many more), in the south of England.
Oxford Television News: a 1983 video-based undergraduate TV news programme
Oxford Television News: May 1918 On YouTube
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| From OU80s |
Fig.1. Julia Brooks, one of the presenters on this edition of OTN
Oxford Television News (OTN) presented by Julia Brooks and Su Wolowacz.
Fig. 2. Su Wolowacz presenting the Trinity Term (1983) edition of Oxford Television News
Items include voting in the Council Elections, warnings about a rapist in an alley behind St.Peter’s, OUSA education system and the abolition of the admissions exam (ratio of private to state sector was worse than 70% 30%), May Day Celebrations, the importance the CV from Mr Snow then head of OUCAS, a Student Union Committee meeting, reported Stephen Howard reviewing Andrew Sullivan’s term (Trinity) as the Oxford Union President, Balliol College Music Society 1500th Concert (interviewed those who attended). Then set to music clips fro the Oxford & Cambridge Ski trip to Wengen. Clips from Abigail’s Party, directed by Anthony Geffen. The Roaring Boys. Matthew Faulk and Alex Ogilvie acting out a scene from ‘The Labours of Hercules Sproat’ and finally Jonathan Vernon doing a mime.
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| Fig.From OU80s |
Fig.3. Students interviewed on the local elections.
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| From OU80s |
Fig. 4. Mr Snow of Oxford University Careers Service giving advice
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| From OU80s |
Fig. 5 Stephen Hellwen reviews the Oxford Union Debating Society under the presidency of Andrew Sullivan
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| From OU80s |
Fig. 6 Richard Davey, First Year History Student at Balliol College and other Balliol undergraduates interviewed about the 1500th Balliol Musical Society Concert that included a performance by Yehudi Menuhin.
Production Credits
Presenters:
Julia Brooks
Su Wolowacz
Stephen Hellwen
Advertising
George Monbiot
Belinda Brown
Matthew Grayson
Production
Pete Collins
Ian Conway
Alan Jay
Editor
Jonathan Vernon
Director
Mike Upton
An OTN Production
Don’t make it easy
Fig. 1 Some ideas from the Ivan Chermayeff ‘Cut and Paste’ exhibition at the De La Warr, Bexhill
As photography isn’t allowed instead of moving from the gallery with my iPhone or camera clicking at everything and anything that caught my eye I was obliged to get out a sketch pad. Just as Ivan Chermayeff says in a exhibition video ‘most people don’t know how to see’.
We risk making everything too easy with e-learning: photos, screengrabs, instant research, transcripts of video, video as audio only or highlights or summaries thanks to others.
The above ideas were for:
a) A School of Visual Arts talk he was giving with a colleague
b) Arthritis – with letters torn from a type font catalogue and jumbled around
c) Mother and Child in modern art – a signal Magritte or Matisse like cut out.
What I would have missed entirely, and I do it no justice here, is a collage of tickets and seating allocation to the inauguration of John F Kennedy on the 20th January 1961. (Before my time, I’d been conceived a few weeks before at a New Year’s Eve party. Not even I can remember that far back).
Fig.2 Sketch of an Ivan Chermayeff collage/poster using bits and pieces from attendance at the inaugurations of US President J F Kennedy
Ivan Chermayeff ‘Cut and Paste’ @ the De La Warr, Bexhill.
Fig.1 Ivan Chermeyff – interviewed on his life in design
The pleasure from every exhibition I attend at the De La Warr is that they are modest in scope and ambition, engaging and inspiring without being overwhelming and curated in a way that gives you, other visitors, the art works and other parefenalia ample space.
The centre piece for IVan Chermayeff “Cut and Paste’ is for me the short, professionally executed, warming video biography in which Chermayeff gives a potted history of his life, influences and work; about as much as you’d cover in an episode of ‘Desert Island’ discs, though here, instead of music, you can then wonder off and look at examples of his work, works in progress and playfulness.
No transcript is offered so here are some excerpts and bullet points from mine.
Interviewed on two cameras Ivan Chermayeff waxes lyrical, the chronology from childhood and ealy influences, through art school and his early graphic design business, family and beyond; he’s in his eighties. His father emigrated to the US in the 1930s or 1940s I guess from the UK.
“For me inspiration is everywhere; I find it everywhere. I make a lot of visual connections by keeping my eyes and mind open to everything I see. It leads a lot into my design”.
His father architect as the biggest inspiration
“No matter what garbage at the age four, or making messes, he would always say that it was really great. And that was true of everything I did, no matter what. Instead of stopping you doing what you were doing because you wanted to make your old manhappy”.
His father he describes as both an educator and a self-taught architect.
Free spirited and supported. Moved everywhere.
Went to a lot of schools. 24. Andover (four years).
Allowed to do it in a free and open way.
Got to Harvard
Took any classes across the university.
Then
Design School, Chicago
Like a workshop of a school
Experimenting with design problems.
I then spent seven years recovering from my education
Trying to define what design meant
Design is all about seeing
You’ve got to learn how to see
You’ve got to make connections that are not necessarily obvious
“Be interested in training yourself to look around, to notice connections, such as a small colour connection, or the tinniest thing that brings two things together”.
Everybody who I find inspiring are artists who make great connections.
Iko Tannaka – Japanese Designer
We just liked what the other one was doing
Nice to have an inward connection with someone
Recognise that it is worth looking at.
I can’t sit still, so I’m always making things, so I make collages. I just prefer scissors to brushes.
Paul And
Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.
I never do anything that I didm’ think was damned good.
Work Ethic
Completely open understanding that we can contribute to what the other is doing at his desk.
Half the time a company doesn’t tell you what it wants accurately, you have to redefine what it is they want … and turn it into reality.
it can be as simple as finding a relationship between two letters in the alphabet or typeface that are original or say something.
Graphic design is all about audience after all … convince your client … they don’t tell you adequately what it is all about. If they were capable of do that they’d do it all themselves.
MOBIL
Held up extremely well
Business confirmation that we did a good job.
“I have intention of retiring ever”.
The video was created and produced by executive Producers
Ignacious Oearmun
Evee Kornblum
and directed by
Rick Boyko
How to bring the dead back to life with QR codes on your Poppy
Use of Quick Response (QR) codes for eLearning
Fig.1 Easily generated, at no cost, a QR code is a 3D bar code that holds ample information to take you via a scanning App on your smart phone or tablet to rich multimedia content.
They were developed in 1994 by Denso-Wave (Denso, 2010) to support parts use in a slick ‘just-in time’ Toyota car factory.
And made patent free by them in 1997.
- They can be read at an angle
- even when 30% dirt impaired
You come across them far more often in France and Germany, or if you go that far in North America, as well as Japan and China. Over in California last summer I photographed them in all kinds of places …
More on mobile learning from Kukulska-Hulme, 2005., quoting So (2008) of the importance of:
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location independence,
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time independence,
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meaningful content
Student’s engagement by way of evaluating their own work is a good strategy to motivate students. p. 95
Since 2009 Horizon report mobile devices, clouding computing and the personal web make ‘informational way stations … delivering contextually relevant content’ Cohen (2011) have become possible.
According to Educause (2009) ‘The QR Code is the next-generation bar code, facilitating tagging of information, social media, and other popular content in today’s digital content evolution’,
Use of QR codes has had a mixed response in the UK. Although ubiquitous in China, Japan and North America they are less prevalent in the UK. Their use in museums and national parks has thus far been limited whereas in formal education, to support school trips, there has been greater success. The generation of as well as the use of QR codes within a programme of learning appeals to students who use smart devices and increasingly expect the use of technology and access to the Web as part of their learning experience.
Obituaries and picture/video-memoirs found on cemetery markers, gravestones, and monuments (Naumannm, 2011; Ruane, 2011)
Video/audio guides and tours of tourism locations, museums, aquariums, zoos (Awano, 2007; Information Standards Committee, 2008)
On-demand multimedia tours and information for spaces, events, specialised audiences, shows, museums, dispalys (Barrett, 2012; Tucker, 2011)
Libraries are using QR codes to download audio tours to patrons’ mobile phones so that they can take self-guided tours. (Robinson, 2010; Ryerson University Library & Services, 2010)
France’s biggest science museum used QR codes to connect its physical exhibits to its library holdings, and vice versa (Vandi, 2011)
The South Downs National Park, as an experiment, put QR codes on signage (B-K, 2011)
The Museum of London uses both QR codes and NT codes.
Work where participants are equipped, to survey and for co-operative learning and FAQs that are applicable to targeted learning goals (Gradel & Edson, 2012a)
REFERENCES
Awano, Y (2007). Brief pictorial description of new mobile technologies used in cultural institutions in Japan. The Journal of Museum Education, 32(1), 17-25
Barrett, T (2012). 50 Interesting ways to use QR codes to support learning. (Last accessed 6th Feb 2014 https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AclS3lrlFkCIZGhuMnZjdjVfNzY1aHNkdzV4Y3I&hl=en_GB&authkey=COX05IsF
Kerry-Bedel, A (2011) Its in conservation
Denso (2010a). QR Code Standardization. (Retrieved 6th Feb 2014, from http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/qrstandard-e.html )
Hicks, A., & Sinkinson, C. (2011). Situated questions and answers: Responding to library users with QR codes. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 51(1), 60–69.
Information Standards Committee (2008) Section 3: QR code, Synthesis Journal. (From http://www.itsc.org.sg/pdf/synthesis08/Three_QR_Code.pdf )
Robinson, K. (2010). Mobile phones and libraries: Experimenting with the technology. ALISS Quarterly, 5(3), 21–22.
Ryerson University Library & Archives (2012). QR codes. Retrieved 6th Feb 2014, from http://www.ryerson.ca/library/qr/.
Gradel, K., & Edson, A. J. (2012a). Higher ed QR code resource guide.
So, S. (2008). A Study on the Acceptance of Mobile Phones for Teaching and Learning with a group of Pre-service teachers in Hong Kong. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange, 1(1), 81-92.
South Downs Use of QR Codes (2012) http://southdownsforum.ning.com/forum/topics/signposting-and-qr-codes
Tucker, A. (2011). What are those checkerboard things? How QR codes can enrich student projects. Tech Directions, 71(4), 14-16.
Vandi, C. (2011). How to create new services between library resources, museum exhibitions and virtual collections. Library Hi Tech News, 28(2), 15–19.
What happens when connected as ‘like-minds’ six or seven such individuals ‘collaborate’ to perform some atrocity?
Fig.1. Dr. No.
Society online is a society on speed and at speed – it might reflect society but in the Alice in Wonderland World Wide Web everything is faster, connectable and so warped in a way that transcends human scales of time, distance and decency. One sick, warped, isolated individual seeking out the pollution of the web to feed their fantasy and make it real, like Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in 2011 was, if you profile the population, 1 in 10 million.
What happens when connected as ‘like-minds’ six or seven such individuals ‘collaborate’ to perform some atrocity?
What indeed does the web afford ‘networked’ terrorist idealists such as AL Qaeda? Attending a seminar on cyber crime at the Oxford Internet Institute last year it was revealing and shocking to learn of the ‘game of catch-up’ played between the criminals hacking bank accounts and the banks trying to keep them secure. The head of internet security from Barclays painted a picture that would make the scriptwriters of a James Bond movie go googled-eyed in amazement. Then, far from society creating the Web, the web world infects us ‘on the other side’ with paranoia and so CHANGES behaviour, gets AHEAD of society.
It has happened to me more than once – in the early days of blogging back in 2002 I was ‘flamed’ viciously (malicious hate in comments and a breach into my blog that had this person editing my content and filling it with bile). I had this stopped and attempts were made to trace the character but for a period I was convinced that any vehicle pulling up along our street outside our house was ‘him’ … and then this summer I put webcams around the house when we went away from a few weeks and only after the first week did I relax when I noticed that a brick hadn’t come through the window and we hadn’t been burgled or the house burned down.
(I write this while reflecting on the words of Professor Susan Halford in the Week 3 introductory video on cyber crime that forms part of the University of Southampton‘s Future Learn offering ‘Web Science‘).
‘The Web is part of society and is shaped by society. And until the web is a crime-free zone, the Web won’t be a crime-free zone’. (Halford, S 2013. Page 1 of the transcript. University of Southampton)
REFERENCE
Webber, C. and Yip, M. (2012), ‘Drifting on and off-line: Humanising the cyber criminal’, in S. Winlow and R. Atkinson (Eds.), New Directions in Deviancy: Proceedings from the York Deviancy Conference, London: Routledge, pp. 191-205
Web Networks – from the micro to the macro
We are each unique – our brains make us so. At the microlevel the network in our heads is then tickled out into the the Web in, at first. the simplest of ways. Our first post, our first comment is that first baby-step. Unlike our firsf steps though, online everything we do is saved, is monitored, is shared. It takes on a life of its own. Multiplied billions of times now many millions of us have learnt to crawl, then walk, then run online. As we are virtual we can split into many versions or parts of ourselves too – the professional and private the immediate split, but then into hobby groups and as here, a study group. The network of networks is a living thing that mathematics can help to weight and categorize, even to visualise, but crucially – the point made here, humanising the maths requires the insight of someone asking questions, seeking to interpret what it taking place. I see currents in a digital ocean that transpires into a cloud that then precipitates digital artefacts in a myriad of other places. Others, like Yrjo Engegstrom, see the growing tendrils of a funghi. Either way it is fascinating to condense, simplify and sharing the thinking.
Google GPS navigation
For two days we get caught out by and even lost on the freeways around San Diego – our car hire company did not provide Sat Nav and there are no road maps to speak of – I bought two. They lacked detail and didn’t even show Ocean Beach where we were staying. Resistance to localising our Sim cards and we try the new Google Maps GPS system. A wonder. We nickname the British voice ‘Simon’ as in ‘Simon Says …’ Unlike the human navigator or back-seat driver he is extraordinarly patient if you insist on going the wrong way. Overnight we develop a dependency which ensures that more than one phone is charged, a battery-block is charged too and we even buy a bluetooth linked portable speaker.
Our week in Sausalito becomes an adventure as we drive ‘like natives’ from one end of the county to the other … and beyond. Farfrom being slaves to the technology it frees us.
We marvel at the precision navigation – for the most part. We are ‘rescued’ several times from what I would call Freeway Purgatory – finding no way off the freeway and losing any sense of direction. We trust it rather than my gut to take us everywhere. So far the only foible has been the choice of exit from Golden Gate North to Sausalito as ‘Simon’s’ choice is to drop down the steepest most windy road to our accommodation rather than taking the longer, and more appropriate main road in.
It is a Beta version. Whilst a sense of fun has me dreaming up all kinds of variations to the character and tone of the voice, and its granularity my only additional requirement is for the occassional prompt during a long stretch to say we are doing OK.
Of course, losing the signal or a dead phone is now a bind. So far I will take screen grabs and yesterday with the phone about to die I took photos of the route and directions which my daughter then read out as we set off – necessary as even getting from one side of a freeway to the other may require what feels like an odd choice of route, not over or under, but along and back.
Walking a trail in Muir Woods, when we had a signal, I could, within reason keep on track. Not accurate enough to allow me to close my eyes, but one day could this support the blind? Could we turn ‘Simon’ into an educator as well as a guide? Do we want some or any journey ‘annotated?’
Mind Bursts 