Tiong Bahru Scenery
These are some scenes taken around Tiong Bahru.
John Larkin's diluted thoughts on teaching, learning, technology & life in an era of change.
Teach history. Students are good, particularly those in Years 9 and 10. Students ground you.
Taught history twice. In between those two occasions developed web sites for various tertiary educational institutions and eLearning solutions for Nokia (Europe and Asia), Singapore Airlines, JP Morgan Bank (NY) and others. That was an experience. Highs and lows.
Now I blend the two. Encouraging the students to go beyond MySpace and Facebook to really publish on their own platforms.
A battle in the sky above Australia
During the night the Illawarra coast of NSW experienced gale force winds as a low pressure system and a high pressure system battled to the south and east of the continent. I awoke during the night and literally cleared the decks just to ensure that some of the outdoor furniture decided it suddenly preferred life in the kitchen via the rear windows.
There were some very strong gusts early in the morning, well before sunset, so I climbed out of bed, got dressed, brewed some coffee and sat out by the back deck to observe the impact of the wind. I felt it was a good idea to keep an eye on our home and those of our neighbours just in case any decided that they wished to shift their location to one east of their current position.
As I sat and waited for the coffee to finish brewing I observed that some of the higher altitude clouds were beginning to show hints of red as they captured the rays of the sun which was still well below the horizon from my perspective on the ground. I grabbed my camera and took a number of photographs of the clouds to the west, south and east. Those shown are not in any chronological order. It i simply the order in which I resized them.
Sent via email and the Internet Highway to Grand Central Station, Posterous and then automatically re-routed to Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and The Watershed.
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Winter approaching...
Winter approaches. It is an incredible Autumn morning here on the Illawarra coast.
Digital storytelling has crossed my mind of late. Recently conducted a workshop on the topic. It was most enjoyable. I had a creative and highly participative group of teachers and academic staff based in Singapore.
Digital storytelling is fine. The term does not rest well with myself. I tire if prefixing teaching and learning strategies with terms such as 'digital', 'web 2.0' and the like. At times I have no choice as such terms are required to market my workshops.
Storytelling is simply that. It is irrelevant which tool you apply to tell the story. Paper, paint, voice, keyboards. As long as the story is shared.
If the story can be shared via traditional approaches then why bother with 'digital' methods? The key to that question is to ensure that the digital strategy provides an avenue of expression and interaction not possible with the traditional approach. The technology has to make a difference.
Technology affords many possibilities. Where to begin?
Take good old Audacity, for example. You know, the free open source audio recording and editing software. A single storyteller can create a multitude of characters with some careful editing, selecting and filtering.
I would recommend storyboarding beforehand. Generate characters, a plot and the script, even just in general terms. Once the story is mapped out then the recording can begin.
Audacity allows multiple tracks to be recorded so a variety of characters can be recorded by an individual. Tracks can be named according to character and dialogue.
How to differentiate between the various characters if a single student has recorded the story? Select the track for a particular character and alter the pitch using the appropriate effects filter. Raise the pitch, lower the pitch. A single student can be a burly bouncer, an anxious astronaut, or a vexed vixen.
Plug in more than one student and you could have a virtulal panopoly of characters.
You could even have an extraterrestrial in the mix. Record any dialogue. Filter the dialogue using 'pitch' and 'backwards'. There you have it, one alien. Allow the remainder of the dialogue to generate an understanding of the conversation with the alien.. Could be an exercise in itself: Codebreaking first contact with an alien species.
Audacity also allows for tracks to be easily shifted backwards and forwards in the timeline affording opportunities for flashbacks, stories to be told backwards, and the juxtaposition of contrasting dialogue.
You can also make use if both channels with some mixing. Play two pieces of dialogue simultaneously and simply ensure one is mixed to the left channel and the other to the right channel. A single student could generate an argument between two different characters.
The characters could come from different times, dimensions, places, planets, universes and states if being. Why interview a person when you could interview a 'rock', a 'leaf' or an 'atom'? Give it a voice and let it explain the meaning of life. Personification is a great teaching and learning strategy when peppered with a little dose of Audacity.
Then there is the tool adored by many. Voicethread. It is a pity, dare I say it, that it is web based. Would love to see a software client for the tool that allowed offline storytelling creation that could then uploaded to the web.
Voicethread is nevertheless a useful tool. Take an old photograph. Upload it and invite others to recollect or tell their story. "I was there too..."
Upload a fake photograph to Voicethread courtesy of a little photoshopped magic. Invite analysis and feedback.
Invite your students to generate a storyboard. Paint the story, scan the artwork, upload to Voicethead and have others tell the story. More artwork, more ideas. A Voicethread soap, saga or serial.
Need to go. Lunch and an impending flat battery. More later.
Digital storytelling has crossed my mind of late. Recently conducted a workshop on the topic. It was most enjoyable. I had a creative and highly participative group of teachers and academic staff based in Singapore.
Digital storytelling is fine. The term does not rest well with myself. I tire if prefixing teaching and learning strategies with terms such as 'digital', 'web 2.0' and the like. At times I have no choice as such terms are required to market my workshops.
Storytelling is simply that. It is irrelevant which tool you apply to tell the story. Paper, paint, voice, keyboards. As long as the story is shared.
If the story can be shared via traditional approaches then why bother with 'digital' methods? The key to that question is to ensure that the digital strategy provides an avenue of expression and interaction not possible with the traditional approach. The technology has to make a difference.
Technology affords many possibilities. Where to begin?
Take good old Audacity, for example. You know, the free open source audio recording and editing software. A single storyteller can create a multitude of characters with some careful editing, selecting and filtering.
I would recommend storyboarding beforehand. Generate characters, a plot and the script, even just in general terms. Once the story is mapped out then the recording can begin.
Audacity allows multiple tracks to be recorded so a variety of characters can be recorded by an individual. Tracks can be named according to character and dialogue.
How to differentiate between the various characters if a single student has recorded the story? Select the track for a particular character and alter the pitch using the appropriate effects filter. Raise the pitch, lower the pitch. A single student can be a burly bouncer, an anxious astronaut, or a vexed vixen.
Plug in more than one student and you could have a virtulal panopoly of characters.
You could even have an extraterrestrial in the mix. Record any dialogue. Filter the dialogue using 'pitch' and 'backwards'. There you have it, one alien. Allow the remainder of the dialogue to generate an understanding of the conversation with the alien.. Could be an exercise in itself: Codebreaking first contact with an alien species.
Audacity also allows for tracks to be easily shifted backwards and forwards in the timeline affording opportunities for flashbacks, stories to be told backwards, and the juxtaposition of contrasting dialogue.
You can also make use if both channels with some mixing. Play two pieces of dialogue simultaneously and simply ensure one is mixed to the left channel and the other to the right channel. A single student could generate an argument between two different characters.
The characters could come from different times, dimensions, places, planets, universes and states if being. Why interview a person when you could interview a 'rock', a 'leaf' or an 'atom'? Give it a voice and let it explain the meaning of life. Personification is a great teaching and learning strategy when peppered with a little dose of Audacity.
Then there is the tool adored by many. Voicethread. It is a pity, dare I say it, that it is web based. Would love to see a software client for the tool that allowed offline storytelling creation that could then uploaded to the web.
Voicethread is nevertheless a useful tool. Take an old photograph. Upload it and invite others to recollect or tell their story. "I was there too..."
Upload a fake photograph to Voicethread courtesy of a little photoshopped magic. Invite analysis and feedback.
Invite your students to generate a storyboard. Paint the story, scan the artwork, upload to Voicethead and have others tell the story. More artwork, more ideas. A Voicethread soap, saga or serial.
Need to go. Lunch and an impending flat battery. More later.
Sent via iPhone through a Posterous wormhole to alternative universes in Twitter, Facebook and the Watershed.
Comments [2]
Storm off the Illawarra coastline
Shao Ping, Mary and I have gone for a drive to check out the big seas. A decent storm just crossed the coast traveling up from the south east after gathering some intensity on the Pacific.
Sent via iPhone and routed via Posterous to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and my blog, Watershed.
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Photographs of still life...
Here are a couple of photographs that seem to demonstrate still life...
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Scenery at NTU
This photograph was taken at Nanyang Technological University. It is the view from the School of Computer Engineering. Quite warm this morning. Sent via iPhone.
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Frog waiting patiently
This is a small frog that I spied upon in our garden. He is waiting patiently.
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Lunch
Had lunch at one of my old haunts in Trengannu Street near Pagoda Street in Chinatown, Singapore.
Rice, omelette with pork, vegetables and seafood. Tiger beer. A nice way to relax and watch the world go by for a bit.
Nostalgia. Been nearly ten years since I first ate at this establishment.
Rice, omelette with pork, vegetables and seafood. Tiger beer. A nice way to relax and watch the world go by for a bit.
Nostalgia. Been nearly ten years since I first ate at this establishment.
Sent via iPhone, with a little help from Posterous, to my blog, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Watershed Lite.
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Down by the river...
Went for a walk down by the Singapore River today. It was a overcast yet humid.
I eventually walked down to Pagoda Street to have some lunch. The gopuram on the Sri Mariamman temple is being renovated.
The Singapore River appeared quite brown today. Made for some contrast in the photographs. More to come.
I eventually walked down to Pagoda Street to have some lunch. The gopuram on the Sri Mariamman temple is being renovated.
The Singapore River appeared quite brown today. Made for some contrast in the photographs. More to come.
Sent via iPhone with a little help from Posterous.
Comments [0]
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