My Sandbox

Eric is a registered architect in Ohio and associate professor in CEAS at the University of Cincinnati.

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Next steps for "Notes..."

The recent data dump "Notes for a social media teaching approach" was the result of one longhand effort on paper. This first draft was typed over several separate tumblr postings with paragraphs, sidenotes (Cf., Tufte) figures and tables typed iteratively without edits from the longhand version. The next planned step in the process is to use reverse outlining (King 2012) as a tool for refining the essay logic and then edit for content, style, etc. More to come. The endgame here is to post a Storify article to reddit for comment and feedback.

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Notes for a social media teaching approach

Conclusion

Social media need not be only a distraction for your students. A distributed portfolio of web2.0 tools may provide you with a platform for sharing dynamic learning experiences in your classrooms and studios. This essay provides a non-comprehensive model and case study of how one professor has made order and structure out of a variety of tools and platforms by applying an analogy known as the model-view-controller (MVC) framework. Please share with me your valuable thoughts.

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Goodbye FB

6. Inglert, E. 2012. Goodbye FB on tumblr. Accessed 7 Sep. 2012.

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5. Inglert, E. Untitled GIF animation. Accessed 7 Sep. 2012.

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4. Several sites support html embed and code. Even a limited code set can provide an interesting and professional look and feel to your teaching material.

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Notes for a social media teaching approach

A Model Approach

Once the MVC framework was adopted, course content was created organically, at multiple locations and using varying platforms. From the student's perspective, announcements, grades, behind-pay-wall learning content and secure file exchange were all found in the Blackboard content management system. Most teaching professionals would find this part of the illustrated model unremarkable and would have plenty of experience with the use of Blackboard. One innovation may be the sharing of contextual content using embedded code4 in the html tab of the "create announcement" section. This allows for the presentation of twitter content in a consistent format. Some readers may not be as enthusiastic about the innovation of twitter to teaching. Here is how it is used in the course. Suppose that an interesting and relevant article about the use of the Wacom Intuos 5 and Photoshop were to appear in a wired.com article. If that showed up in your twitter timeline, then you would only need to "retweet." Later in the office you could revisit your tweets, copy the embed code into a new announcement in Blackboard and discuss who rea the article during class. If you had time, you could even create an interesting animated GIF about the drawing process on tumblr.5 Tumblr would then automatically create a tweet; and again, that tweet could be easily preserved. Therefore twitter is a very useful "clipping" service when used in this way, and this doesn't begin to describe a more "back-and-forth" dialogue possible when students contribute and share.

Google Sites provides an easy and template-driven web site platform for delivering "how-to" instruction. The minimalist template designs are good for creating WikiHow articles, which support student learning outside of the studio. Images can be served from Picasaweb directly into Sites. A modular approach to your design provides flexibility.

Here are a couple of thoughts if this is beginning to sound too complicated. It is easy to suffer the "next-best-thing" temptation with the described model. Students may become confused and frustrated with so much distributed content. While the essayist wished that Blackboard were a more robust and comprehensive platform, it does serve students well enough as a content management platform. In this case, going with the herd paid dividends. The described model approach here was an attempt to supplement the missing bits. Another experiment in following the crowd was not as fruitful.6

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3. Inglert, E. 2013. Syllabus for Architectural Skills 2. Accessed 6 Sep. 2013.

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Notes for a social media teaching approach

Architectural Skills Course Description

Architectural Skills 1 and 2 are courses offered at the University of Cincinnati for students of architectural engineering. A syllabus for the currently offered AE1012 may be found at <https://sites.google.com/site/ericinglert/architecturalskills2/syllabus>3 As shown in Figure 1, three primary portal web sites are used. Blackboard is a secure file exchange, grading platform and content management system, which students pay to use with tuition funds. Google Sites is used to serve project descriptions, which are formatted similar to a wiki. Google's Blogger site is used to coordinate schedules and course organization. Blogger (i.e., blogspot.com) is used less than Blackboard and Sites. Several other platforms are integrated and automated through the three primary web sites (e.g., Tumblr, Twitter, Picasaweb, and others not described.) Because of an integrated MVC organization, students enjoy relevant and current course content.

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Model-view-controller framework

2. Table 1: Model-view-controller framework (MVC.)

Name Method Description Controller Manipulates a model Program converting commands Model Updates a view Data, logic and rules View Presents to user (sees) Representations of data

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Notes for a social media teaching approach

Introduction

The concept-map image1 illustrates how the essayist uses several social media sites in his architectural skills courses. Students may sometimes be confused where to look for course content if you're pulling from different sources. What follows is both a description of the architecture of the course tools and a proposition for a distributed portfolio approach to course-content delivery. The proposition is that social media interactions are ubiquitous and complex, and users may benefit from a structured system for organizing and managing interactions. A useful analogy for this system is the model-view-controller (MVC) framework common to computer programming. An MVC architecture may be summarized as in Table 1.2

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1. Figure 1. Architectural skills concept map for course content delivery. Created in Maltego Casefile 1.0.1. Accessed at <http://www.paterva.com>.

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Urban development news and photographs

As a new user of reddit, I was trolling interesting links and found this to repost here. Some good photos of my hood

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Today in class 02.1 we experimented with animated GIF files. This was intended as a demonstration of a constructed sketch (Laseau 2004) as well as a quick documentation of the process. Photos were of poor quality but maybe good enough for studio discussion of the value of on-the-fly archiving ;-)

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Death and Gravestone Symbolism

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Gimp demonstration with Erin Cox review paragraph three draft

When bringing in external source material, Erin advised to modify the layer. She used the Colors >Color to Alpha workflow in order to "float" the colors on a transparent background. One technique Erin used was Filters >Blur >Motion Blur. This created the effect of balancing the photorealism of the background source image "down" to the simple lines of the creative artwork. A central idea of the architectural illustration class has been tracing borrowed image resources (i.e., entourage.) Erin has employed this idea in several of her images before taking the class. Another technique involved using a brush fade out. This would have no doubt been much easier with a tablet. The location of these settings were in Windows >Dockable Dialogues >Tool Options >Dynamic Options >Fade Options. Experimentation was the key in finding just the right settings. Erin used photographic source material for the background. She redrew and painted it to match the style of her creative work, providing a familiar context for the fantastical character.

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Gimp demonstration with Erin Cox review paragraph two draft

Erin showed several iterations of a workflow that involved altering line work using paths and adding block colors. She demonstrated advantages for working with transparent layers. The primary advantage was shading and tinting by stacking layers of color blocks. She used 20% transparency as a basis. A watercolor glaze is a technique of applying transparent color over existing dry washes on paper. The reviewer was surprised to see Erin using the same principle in a digital drawing. She added layer after layer of transparent color fills and brushes to great effect. The coloring process of incremental gradations (e.g., tinting or shading) iterated several times through a common workflow of Edit >Fill with FG color >Layer >Duplicate Layer >Layers tab >Opacity >Erase Tool, in order to ease the edges between transparent layers. Erin demonstrated all of these techniques with a mouse. She said it would have been much easier and more enjoyable with her Wacom tablet.

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Gimp demonstration with Erin Cox review paragraph one draft

Very early in studio this term, the professor described an essential workflow, paraphrased from Jim Leggitt's book Drawing Shortcuts. We (1) gathered resources, (2) created line work, and (3) rendered tone value and/or color. That implied a deliberate system, which could be taught and learned even by non artists. Is there a difference between an intuitive process and a deliberate system of processes? The explanation may be found in the extent to which an artist has integrated process. Erin began her presentation by showing the path command in Gimp (e.g., Tools>Paths.) Her process included stroking paths on top of an original sketch (i.e., tracing) and adding color to the line work. When Erin talked about paths, she demonstrated useful commands. One of these was Dockable dialogs (e.g., Windows>Dockable Dialogs.) She talked about the importance of making transparent layers and turning existing layers transparent by using alpha layers (e.g., Colors>Color to Alpha.) One item Erin mentioned was her frustration with not being able to vary the line width within a path, as an artist would achieve if she were working with analog tools like a felt-tip marker. Erin's process appeared seamless and intuitive and was definitely artistic. On the other hand, her "system" was deliberate and accorded well to the essential workflow we discussed in class.