Best practices for teaching tech

info — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:52:26 +0000

Craig Kapp, keynote speaker at the 11 Annual Faculty Best Practices Showcase, presents new tech to educators

On Friday (March 12), I was hired to photograph the 11th annual Faculty Best Practices Showcase at Seton Hall University. This showcase, presented by NJ Edge and Seton Hall, is part of an ongoing initiative to bring and keep educators up-to-date on the latest technology that is applicable to teaching. The keynote speaker, Craig Kapp, thrilled the assembled attendees with his talk on augmented reality (with real time examples) photosynth, and iPAD uses. He pointed out that the cell phones we have in our pockets now, have 600 times more computing power than what was used by the Apollo Astronauts to land on the Moon. In addition, desktop computing station sales have dropped dramatically in favor of laptops and netbooks and they are quickly losing their market share to smart phones. He asked that educators embrace the use of smart phones in class and utilize them to teach instead of attempting to discourage their use. According to his findings, almost a third of students use their phones in class anyway, so why not encourage them to participate in the same way?
Like many other conferences, the rest of day was divided up into separate “tracks” depending on what your interest was. Track one covered Technology, track two was about Multimedia, track three showcased Online Learning and track four addressed Social Networking. Since my job was to document the day via pictures only, I did not have the luxury of sitting in on these sessions and absorb what was being presented. However, I did take away the knowledge that, as with transmedia storytelling, teaching of the future will continue to break down the static barriers of learning that we have been so used to in the past. Text books will “react” to our input via augmented reality, the days of juggling several different books for several classes will be replaced with an data slate type device (i.e. iPAD) in which you could wirelessly access any book in the school library, and programs like Photosynth could possibly make historical field trips come “alive” by mapping photos and or animations in realtime over the ruins of buildings to show students how it did or might have looked hundreds of years in the past.
Granted, these are all possibilities that may or may not happen; there are many hurdles to overcome before such technology can be implemented in the educational sector on such a grand scale. But some way or another, a lot of the ideas will leak through and wind up being ubiquitious teaching tools in the next 20 years.

Princess of Mars – Space travel on a tight budget

info — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:59:42 +0000

The independent motion picture company “The Asylum” has been grinding out grade A super schlock films for some time now and are probably best well known for their trailer – Mega Shark VS Giant Octopus. This time, this modern day “American International pictures” successor, has created thier own homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs classic line of space fantasy stories with “Princess of Mars”.

While the marketing folks would have you believe that this film has the “heart-pounding creature action of Starship Trooper” and the “Epic Adventure of Lord of the Rings!” this, film when taken on its own merits, still falls short of their best production to date, C. Thomas Howell’s War of The Worlds 2: The second wave.

Be that as it may, the director Mark Atkins did his best with the twelve day film schedule he was allotted, and I will be the first one to admit the difficulty in getting anything made when you have to cut corners at every turn. I’m always willing to look past foam rubber monsters and simple practical effects if the production has an engaging story, but unfortunately this film, starts off with a bang and then runs out of steam almost as soon as we get to Mars. The overwhelming problem is the lack of a sense of urgency or purpose even to the whole enterprise.
But my purpose here isn’t to berate Mr. Atkins efforts. No, my purpose is to show some of the wonderful effects he and his team created under such economic adversity.

Here, Antonio Sabato, Jr. (dressed in a towel) gets ready to battle a spider monster. The composite is actually very effective. The “thark” soldier in the background (minus his second upper torso!) gives a good sense of scale to the whole scene.
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Our interplanetary traveler turns away from the window. A simple composite but the lighting throws it off. Once back inside the room, everything becomes dark blue.
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This is supposed to be the canyon city of the Tharks but we are never really shown the whole layout. It was a sneaky way of not having to build a larger 3D or 2.5D composite but it actually cheapened the experience; it was an exercise in visual frustration.
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This sequence, the battle between the Princess’ flier and a Thark scouting party was one of the more credible parts of the film. But how did the Martians get their hands on a M2 HB .50 cal Browning machine gun?
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This image here looks like a castle in Quebec or France that was color corrected to match the scene. Simple and to the point.
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It’s a shame that the Asylum didn’t spend more money and time on this project; by all rights they could have created a franchise. As it is, they took an interesting spin to ERB’s IP but with such a heavy legacy behind it, by not going all out in terms of envisioning this fantasy universe as Edgar Rice Burroughs did, they were destined to fall way short. (And no, Traci Lords does not get painted red to be Dejah Thoris. She stays as is.)

Story 129 – Immerse Yourself

info — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:40:08 +0000

Greg Davis, General Manager of Total Immersion’s CA office, talks about the company’s use of augmented reality for advertising and transmedia branding. Total Immersion utilizes its own key technology, D’Fusion to create marker less tracking 3D animations within a live video stream in real time. If you create 3D animations or are interested in designing your own game, this is a technology and company you need to keep track of!

www.futureincite.com

Switching over to Dreamweaver

info — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:09:21 +0000

Although I'll miss GoLive I've got to stay current. Hello, Dreamweaver!

It’s been a LONG time coming but I’ve finally scrounged together some funds to pick up Dreamweaver CS4. In the coming weeks I’ll be migrating to a new design (version 6) for the website/zine. With any luck I’ll be able to incorporate this blog into the new design home page so readers can go to one place for updates instead of two. Life is full of challenges…
And hey! I managed to get my captions back!

G-drive to return but WD 2TB has taken its place

info — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:33:44 +0000

I just received word that the 1TB G-Drive was shipped back to me as of last week. No word yet on what, if anything, was wrong with it. In the meantime, I purchased a 2TB WD Mybook for backup- which I might add, has performed wonderfully! One thing I have noted however, is that the Asus P6T motherboard setup is a little weird when it comes to firewire; the JVC HDV deck has to be started up first to be recognized before I turn on the computer, but when I need to use the Mybook it works only AFTER the computer is turned on. Is there a conflict with Windows 7? Don’t know yet, but XP was literally plug and play, hot swap etc.
Anyway, I’m anxious to see just what the problem was with the G-Drive. Regardless, I don’t think I’ll trust it on any of my Windows machines again and will save it as a deep storage backup for my Mac.

Story 128 – The Business of Play and Games

info — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:12:42 +0000

In this follow up article to Story 127, I talk to Blockdot and learn about their use of “adver-games” to attract and engage customers for clients, Smeet, a German based firm that uses a facebook/second life 3D interface to create a virtual social marketplace for businesses and finally Robonica, a Beverly MA based company that is championing the “Rise of Robotic Gaming”. Enjoy!

http://www.futureincite.com

Story 127 – The Playtime of Tomorrow

info — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:32:57 +0000

Braving the snow and rain, Future iNCITE! traveled to NYC’s Jacob Javitz Center to check out the Engage Expo and the Toy Fair (Feb 16-17). Far more than an action figure showcase, both shows offered a look into the future of merchandising and Transmedia creation. If you are a content creator, you’ve got to read this article!

http://www.futureincite.com

I hope you find it as interesting as I did. Comments are most welcome!

Got HDCam? How about 3Dcam?

info — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:06:37 +0000

Many of you may have already heard the news that Panasonic is scheduled to announce their new lineup of 3D P2 enabled camcorders at this year’s upcoming NAB. For all the nay-sayers who still think 3D is just a gimmick, keep dreaming. 3D will be here to stay, if only because big business needs it to justify their bloated budgets. Currently, there is a software plug-in for Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere called Cineform NEO 3D which will put you back some $3,000USD. But with it, you will be able to edit your own 3D movie.

G-Drive/Hitachi answers… sort of.

info — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:31:02 +0000

So yesterday I finally received an answer to my query as to why the 1TB G-Drive I purchased for backup wiped out two of my machines. G-Drive offered apologies for the difficulty I have had with the drive and told me to “Stop using your drive immediately and send it in for inspection.”
It’s still under warranty so all I should have to pay for is shipping. So for those of you with similar G-Drive problems I don’t have an actual remedy to offer. It sounds like it’s all in the hands of their tech support.

Half blog! Half pseudo blog! One big mess!

info — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:20:31 +0000

The upgrade to the blog format has been great for administrative reasons but it still isn’t a “true” blog. The real blog gets steady traffic but unfortunately it doesn’t translate to higher numbers for SEO because it isn’t a homepage.
So the question is, do I lose one or the other or combine them both? Using dedicated web authoring programs like GoLive or Dreamweaver has the merit of running and designing locally which allows for more creative control (WYSIWYG). As we’ve seen, using Wordpress templates may save time (and money) but if you are not code savvy, you increasingly run the risk of your blog becoming less than optimal.
And I see we are due for yet another upgrade. The reasons are sound, but what functionality will I lose this time once I get 2.9.2?
So is the answer to run Wordpress locally? I’m not sure…