18 May 2008

rescued

Gosh that was a scary time - I updated this diary, found a duplicated entry and deleted it, then saved the site and published it. I then discovered that instead of deleting the file I had deleted the whole diary - hours and hours and hours of work - I had hit the wrong minus button. Thank Apple for Time Machine, and the wireless backup system that I have just installed. I could go back ten minutes or so to before I dey.doodle4

emdwt 23/5/08

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Friday heading back down the hill thinking about assignment 5 and thinking about it in relation to what I do over the summer which is obviously going to be adobe stuff and particularly building my website for the art department creative arts and thinking that the main task as part of that relates to the adobe thing and the other teaching that I am doing later on this term is to get my examples of digital artwork up on the web in an up to date format as a flash file in the way that I have been doing the assignments for the term so that I can just hand people a card with the address on it and that is where they can go to link into all sorts of information but also resources resources like perhaps the information about the software that I use or the art department website itself whatever

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Heading up the hill Thursday just before half term thinking about other things to include in assignment 5 thinking about getting the software list together up to date useful for the animation day anyway and in a sense my bibliography the software list is certainly a tool for the work that I do maybe there are other resources that I could get together as well getting hold of Adobe to get the work packs for the teachers ready for Newcastle thinking about the blogs, blogging going through all the adobe blogs and finding the ones that are most relevant looking at Tom's blog as well doing that as he will be teaching me next term make a start on that assignment on narrative I was thinking about other things to include in terms of research the clappy thing that I did last year in flash get that up on to the web site some how and see if it works over the internet because that is sort of related to what I would be doing in Newcastle. In terms of how I present assignment 5 I am thinking that possibly it is not going to be a slide show it would perhaps be an idea to do something with the pulp motion advanced that I have just started on get that into the website somehow the book one in particular or maybe two or three examples but I am running out of things to show I don't want to show a great deal more of my work I don't know what else I would put up there but a few example of aquafadas could go up but in terms of the actual talk I was thinking of literally doing it as a talk just explaining what I am doing the bids maybe have them there actually printed out and the other resource material and do more of a sort of show and tell but I shall wait to see what others have done today this afternoon and adjust what I do accordingly right I didn't want to do too much talking this morning the one that I did from last week took me 20 minutes or so to type up I can say that my typing has improved hugely my touch typing during this exercise and it has been a very interesting way of working using skype for recording my thoughts definitely has to be in there as part of assignment 5 maybe a sort of you know evaluation of the term would be part of it as well it is certainly how - because doing the journal has all been part of my exploration into the media as I have said many times i am sure and working with the skype in thing that came from the Arnolphini exhibition a year ago and thinking about how I can use that in the future thinking more actually about how to get students relating to me over the internet getting a back and forth dialogue going I really do need to get into some of the adobe connect things probably because the software will all be there for me except that of course got to have it all on poor machines and have to have to software on the machines I am far more interested in doing the whole process through the web so that students are responding to me writing in set up sessions for particular projects so that they have to send in their project briefs on line from home from wherever so they have to work in groups rather thank bringing in paper copies they have to do typed copies but copies that can go back and forth so they can improve on them over two or three sessions and then have that to back up their practical work I think that that is very definitely the way that I want to go taking sketchbooks more and more on line part of the reason that I am doing what I am doing here talk about their ideas but going back to how and what I was saying about transcribing because on the website last week pages and pages and pages of my transcriptions now and too much really to go through the thought come out quite slowly as I walk up the hill in some ways the process of writing I find very definitely not like writing a blog where you can get a specific thought down where as the walking up the hill bit is very definitely a ramble so it's just a tool for trying to get thoughts out of my brain and occasionally over this term it has worked extraordinarily well have reached about this point in the walk and things have been dawning but over the last week or so I have been really pushing the limits getting up very early in the morning with exam marking and interviews an all the gruesome stuff that goes on I really notice that my brain is not working as well as it used to either it was very funny recording thoughts in the middle of the night and then listening back to them and seeing how very slow my brain was working when I was almost asleep so lots of interesting things have come out of it I am not sure to what extent I want to repeat this experiment I am going to have to think about how I am going to take the journal on next term maybe how I change it how I make it more concise or maybe I shall go back to paper I am thinking again that I have loads to type out so I am going to stop and just think a while

emdwt2205082

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Another little thought that strikes me although I think that I have had this one before related to iPhone and the use of the iPhone for these thoughts walking up the hill this morning taking a photograph of the walk which sort of pin points a time and place and then the ability with the phone to send that image directly back to someone I am thinking of that in relation to Richard Longs work and doing work up the combe with mobile devices where students can take photographs and send them directly back and make a sort of recorded journey of what they have looked at and what they have thought about what they have looked at mapping I guess it is but I think artistic mapping I suppose mapping is what Richard Long was doing a lot and then stopping and taking photographs along the route of how he had changed stones in the landscape so that all fits in with pervasive media but taking pervasive media away from just the earphone thing one thing that I have been thinking a lot about is that when you are out you can't see the screen very well although actually on the iPhone you can so really it is just the crap HP device that is a bit naff I guess when you have spectacles in front of your eyes with a screen with a head up display is will be different but in terms of you know walking about listening and having someone telling you something it is the responding back that I am after so definitely the taking of photographs and getting that back to a central point using these devices the thought came up because I am a roving alarm clock here I have got to phone home from the top of the hill and wake them all up

assignment 5

The exhibition for the opening of the new build - getting ideas together for that
The big screens - roving exhibition, web based browser based exhibition - with interaction, out and about - extension of art exchange, pupil designing the system - mock up - art X website and hp gallery idea.

As assignment 5 the things that are coming up - computers to combine art music and drama - the new block with television studios, team teaching, group work, and taking students out and about. Mixing the diciplines.

present the out takes of assignment three as pulp motion book

do presentation for five on line - pointing at on line software database, the Holburne project, new dept website

emdwt 16/5/08 2

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Thinking about assignment 5 on my way down the hill thinking about the regional training centre bid got to get that together to give to Russell he might be off on Monday so that has to be done very soon and thinking about the pervasive media bid Constance Fleuret the visit to here in the pervasive studio labs and how that fits in with art exchange maybe but the Holburne museum and thinking about the photographs that my students took a fortnight about and thinking that that should be in the - that those should be somewhere as an example of the amazing work that students can do with a camera not - when they are directed and when - that taps back into what I was talking about earlier about energy how a special occasion that they get wound up for like the Holburne visit and then the talk and then they can go out with a camera and they can produce amazing photographs that are maybe not so much theirs they are to do with my energy and how I have presented this but they also have taken the photographs so they are very proud of them and that gives them a boost so it is putting that sort of teaching in on a pretty regular basis but I think if you just teach like that weekly if you become a real class room teacher then a lot of the work that gets done has to rely on your energy and it is not the students who are producing the work and for me the ideal is to get to the point where the students who are working because they 'have' to and it is the students who are producing the energy to work the creative energy so it is a balance there - you have to encourage them you have to put enough energy in so that they can see that what they are doing is good - you have provided the spark - but they have to provide the fire that is my feeling - to put in a series of workshops where we teach skills a series of workshops where we are all doing the same thinking so that they tap into the that put in the special occasions that you really wind up for like the photography project that I am doing at the moment but also give them a lot of space just to get on with their own projects and at lower 5th level if that means they spend a lot of time doing very little then that may have to be the way that it has to go and they produce lots in the second year - one of my big complaints about the AS.

emdwt 16/5/08

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Ummm I think it's the 16th Friday walking up the hill thinking about all the work that I have done already for this module and work that I still have to do but feeling that loads of what I have done, interesting to me but very narcissistic it i all about me me me very little about research methodologies in general anyway obviously I have been going to the lectures and doing lots of thinking about research methodology but I haven't been researching it and a bit of me wishes that I had but I suppose in a way I am researching it in doing what I am doing in the knowledge of what I am learning through the lectures so in a sort of sense it works but as with the first module I felt that I had run out of time there was loads more that I wanted to research and learn same with this one I would really like to know much more about the actual research methods and I guess that that is up to me to do it and I just haven't had the time as yet but there are seedlings they will grow I'm sure. Thinking about the work itself, assignment 5 I have got to start this bid entry in earnest Talking to Gina in the bar before the lecture yesterday thinking a lot about art teaching teaching youngsters just in terms of energy dynamics in the class room and energy and how the characters in the class and the relationships and the characters and the teacher effect the dynamic and how the dynamic effects the outcome it sort of links back into thinking what I am as an artists who I am what my energy is and how that energy effects the teaching process and effects the outcome - what the kids produce thinking about this a lot in connection to marking the GCSE and how it is not nearly so good this year they haven't really broken out of their sketchbooks and it this - they are too safe - is this because i haven't been teaching them is this because in the move to the new department the disruption and the compression of the space and taking me out of it has effected the dynamic or is i t just the chemistry of the group are they just boring or what is it that makes that difference do we have to think about teaching in a different way not imposing what I think should be happening because I am not there and may be what I think should happen is very dependent on me so perhaps my energy and my way of doing things is a really critical ingredient not just in teaching the group but in the department as a whole and then thinking about trouble that we have had this week between members of staff that has been a really difficult process and how the dynamic works there which well that energy is very subtle and pretty critical I think a lot about my relationship with my son which is not the relationship that I would have foreseen or imagined and he - I constantly feel that when he is around that I am just bad tempered and I sort of feel that he is demanding and sucking - basically he is a hoover sucking the energy out of me - that is what I feel - so up go my defences I don't give to him, so presumably he wants more and I - what an odd relationship - watching a programme on the telly last night about gigantic hugely fat people who were going in to into hospital to have the fat removed and their stomachs blocked and mostly they could only have got into that state with the help of someone else - someone else was doing it basically usually a mother or a partner usually pretty obese themselves and sort of wondering why in that relationship it is not the way any person who loves another would wish the situation to be but somehow that is the situation that arises and they seem helpless to do anything about it I am sure there is much more to talk about this morning more in relation to methodology but it's gone from my head at the top of this walk.

middle of night 130508

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assignment 5 ideas which I need to dictate in the middle of the night before I forget it seems to be about using the photographs from the upper fourth Holburne trip talking about crazy talk and stuff perhaps web based would be exciting talk about the bids the becta bid and the talk about all the bids the rtc bid the pervasive media bid talk about drag and drop my explorations with drag and drop and my explorations with website I had all this worked out in the middle of the night can't think any more clearly than that

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Did the A level on Friday last, did I mention this already? I just absolutely loved it I was so proud of them, so proud of the department because there was just such a fantastic variety of stuff going on such a fantastic creative energy really inspiring with the etching the new etching press oil painting ceramics and photography and animation it was just a fantastic energy to the day I thoroughly enjoyed it I want to be teaching they are a real inspiration to me these kids right seriously assignment five I had it all sussed in the night but when I tried to leave my telephone message it didn't come back to me much but I think that I have got to work around pervasive media showing photographs of the upper fourth work and the project that they are doing at the moment particularly in relation to them working in groups and going out working also just thinking about how pervasive media would fit in especially about group work again talk about the animation that i am doing later on this term again it's group work based on the apple thing the apple institute then show some work at adobe which again is group work so that is going to be the basis of my talk I guess so where do I look for bibliography in and around that it is a little bit more tricky I am not sure that that necessarily comes into the talk except for the blogs of course which could I like the one recently from brain freeze about children and technology so maybe I could quote that one that sort of sums it up to an extent in relation to some people in school the system that we have got so what else should I talk about the bids that I have put in the bids that I am putting in especially the RTC bid and I have got to get that together and write it out for the heads conference so that will be a part of it so this final assignment it will be a collection of things really a collection of bits a pieces all put together and it will be a talk about the assignment rather than the assignment itself woh!