#ctec502final

[matts4-blog1]

Reflecting on my reflective practices

Now theirs a mouthful. I came into the BCT with zero prior experience of blogging or self reflections so when I came to the BCT and they told us that we had to blog and reflect critically on our actions, it took me quite a while to actually understand what I was doing and what was the point of it.

Right from the get go I legit had no idea what I was doing and I pretty much treated my blog as a diary to pretty much recount what I did everyday to prove to the lecturers that I wasn’t a complete drop out and actually did stuff. But as I learned more about the course and why I was actually there I started to gain more knowledge about what the blogs are helpful for and why they are such a crucial pillar in this course.

I feel like I have come quite a far way from my first blogs about the cards for play project like for instance lets dissect one of my early blog posts from the start of the cards for play project; (Link)

“Today we went over some more of the mechanics of the game and how it will flow through turns and the feel of the game by playing around with the ratios of the action cards compared to the number cards/activator cards as we are calling them. We also managed to create one side of our first prototype for play-testing so we can get a feel for the vibe of the game. We also made sure that we balanced out the pick ups and the placements of cards so the game doesn't run for too long or too short. . Also I looked at gathering some examples to base our action cards icons on by compiling a list”

As you can already tell I just pretty much skimmed the surface of what we did in that day and didn’t really go into depth about the effects that the actions I did had on the project, and the things that I learned from what I did. I think at this stage of the BCT I thought that if I blogged only positively and showed that what I was doing wasn’t a waste of time the lectures would give me a good mark. But after this project has over pretty much and we learned about how to actually blog and get some critical ideas and thinking into our blogs I realized how shallow and really just pointless this style of blogging was. What I feel that I have learned from the first project cards for play, in terms of blogging is that the blogs are a way for the lecturers to get into my head and understand my thinking towards the creative process that I’m using in every project I do. I feel like the lecturers in charge of ICT kinda held off on explaining what blogging really is used for and how to do it so we could feel the way ourselves and find out how it does actually help us in anyway at all. which I’m pretty sure I realized this in the next project, the sound project.

In the sound project I feel like the strength of my blogging improved dramatically and I managed to improve my grade of a 13 in the cards for play project to a 17 which I feel was solely based on my blogging. An excerpt from one of my blogs from the sound project when I was working on my ruler instrument; (Link)

“Little did I know that when you put more hot glue onto contact mics on top of the original glue they have on them, it completely breaks the connections. So long story short there was no noise coming out of the mics and I tried to get the glue off them and the mics just fell apart.  Quite frustrating being that I have to now go spend another $12 on piazo disks and because the mechatronics lab is closed have to solder and make the 5 contact mics at home. But I guess on the bright side when I did have them glued down they looked pretty cool and I also know exactly what to do now which will mean creating and connecting the contact mics SHOULD be a breeze but anything could happen. Lets hope its the best so that I can focus on not making the instrument look like its come out of a year 6′s woodworking class. This setback today was pretty annoying because it was just a simple little thing that happened that completely ruined like a days worth of progress but I guess that was inevitable to happen at some point, and at least I can do something about it and learn that you never hot glue something twice.”

As you can see my blogging has improved and has become more indepth from the last project and gave a much better insight to the thought process that was going through my head but this post still wasn’t perfect. The main issue I had in these posts is that I focused mostly on the mechanical and structural issues of my project and I didn’t really go into depth about the creative thinking of my project. In some regards this style of blogging is much like the blogging from the first project however I just went a little bit more in depth with the descriptions of what I was doing. Looking past just this example of blogging from the sound project I also found that I seemed to focus alot on the negatives of what happened a lot more than I did in the first project. I think that by doing this and focusing on working on even those small and tiny negatives that occur and trying to improve on those is a really good way to improve on the ideas that you already have, just looking at my strengths and what was going well like I did in the first project really didn’t help me anywhere, honestly I don’t think that it helped at all in my reflective process and didn’t really serve any purpose so from then on out I have tried to look more at the negatives of every situation. Finding the negatives was hard in the cards for play project and the sound project at the time because I didn’t really have any idea of what a bad project and teamwork looked like until I came across it in my third project; speculative design.

In the speculative design project I feel like we just had a bad run as a team, things just didn’t really work out and to be honest I think that I learned alot from it, so I tried for this project to take yet another approach to blogging which was to pretty much not focus on any of the mechanical/making aspects of the project but instead I focused on thinking critically about what we had done and what I think had happened to our teamwork. This is a part of my final blog about the project; (Link)

“From the start we had an alright idea that would convey the themes and issues surrounding a preferable future that has been caused by e-Waste. It was a pretty simple plot with basic narrative but it would have worked and would have been fine I think. But we changed paths pretty much and decided to go down the path that Pete pretty much said avoid which was the path of spending way too much time being hooked up on making it look like a Hollywood blockbuster when in reality its most likely going to be considered cringe worthy in about a years time. I’m not saying that the way we went down was bad I mean I enjoyed thinking of what shots to use and what dialogue to say but I think that there is a way that we could have done it much easier and much more time efficient manner as, as of right now me writing this blog at 1:30 in the morning before the due date I have still not seen the video. That is pretty much just a telling in itself that as a group we had terrible resource management and that was mainly my fault.”

In this style of blogging that I tried its obvious to see that I was trying to focus on the negatives that our group had and I also managed to essentially talk about what I feel went wrong and what I think could have gone better. This style of blog isn’t really that entertaining to read but it manages to convey my thinking and thoughts effectively and that is pretty much the point at which I’m upto as of now with my blogging and the usage of reflective practices, I think I’ve started to get the hang of how to say what I’m thinking and not what I have done which I think is a pretty solid starting point for getting into the rest of my BCT journey. .

Obviously I will continue to get better at blogging and integrating the reflective practices throughout the blogs as time goes on, and since I have another 2 and a half years of this course I’m sure I’ll be able to get a good thing going (hopefully) but as of right now I feel like I am happy with my progress with blogging coming from a background of never trying it before and getting all the way to this point feels like I’m actually learning a new skill which is something I wasn’t expecting. I can’t say that I enjoy blogging but I can say that it is pretty effective at helping me understand what I’m thinking and helps me to map out what comes next in my project.

[osbornemarkbct]

Final Project - Studio 1

Zane, Harry and I were discussing the idea of incorporating the soundscape in to the final project as an extension of our film. Ideas such as recording the sound of someone walking through a bunch of rubbish and laying it over the video of the character walking through a seemingly clean area. This would create a juxtaposition between the false reality seen by the character and the surrounding filth he is actually in.  By photoshopping rubbish into scenes where the headset is glitching out we can visualise the sounds we’ve recorded and used up to that point, like cans being kicked, people coughing etc. This change of sound would help us escape copyright issues.

By extending the running scene we could add more drama, and personally i looked like an absolute gimp so wouldn’t mind doing that again. It would give more depth to the characters emotional state.

Recording an add or breaking news segment separately to lay over the VR relating to the Anthropocene would showcase what our idea of what was happening in the year 2050 is. Maybe a light hearted add with a broken down presenter.

The Voice over at the end could be re-written and re-voiced by someone, possibly a computer generated voice. This could tie up the film and maybe with a little work it could really tie up the film.

At the end credits - 2 cans were recycled in the making of this film, could be displayed as an homage to keeping waste to a minimum.

[zkelbrick-bct]

The Beginnings of an Idea

Harry, Mark and I were discussing the idea of incorporating the soundscape in to the final project as an extension of our film. Through this, we can create a juxtaposition between the false reality seen by the character and the surrounding filth he is actually in. To do this we could either track in or, photo-shop rubbish into scenes where the headset is glitching out to visualize the sounds we’ve recorded. Other notable changes to our current film that we discussed include 

Extending the running scene to add more drama.

Recording an add/breaking news separately to lay over the VR relating to the Anthropocene - i.e. setting up our own news theateer 

Voice over at the end re-written and re voiced by someone, possibly a computer generated voice. This way we can more explicitly depict our message and avoid copyright strikes

[wagginstaff-bct-blog]

Exploration into E.Agre’s Development Concepts:

   Once looking into the ideas presented within E.Angre’s text on meaningful and critical development. Many of these ideas are also shared by other authors and can be seen implemented into new programs around designing meaningful projects. Specifically, the authors points on the widespread and ingrained connection between the creative expansion of technology; How it can serve to impact larger communities whilst these developments are also impacted by the communities it is situated within.

The second point being that such impacts on communities is brought about by the combined and effective use of both inter-personal working within a specialised field, mad relevant through an understanding of the intra-personal ideas surrounding the targeted community. [1] 

   Critical Technical Practice [also labeled CTP] has been cited as being paramount for the creation of meaningful work. This emphasis on CTP has been seen as a response to criticism directed at artists and designers within the creative technologies. Saying that previous works might lack depth or relevance to social/technological issues. Devoid of critical enquiry to ultimately render displays useless in its intent to provide any commentary; “Critical practice is intimately linked to community, but even though many creative technology communities can be thought of as Communities of Practice, they are not always critical.” [3]

   The authors J.van Den Hoven & J.Weckert also write about greater parallels to the more intra-personal ideas that come with any projects looking to effectively provide such commentary on greater humanitarian issues; “Many projects will take into consideration a far larger set of values, which may be determined by the cultural, historical, national, ethnic, and religious affiliations of those affected by them. It may be even more crucial to attend to these commitments when designers face a choice among design alternatives that favour some values over others.” [4]

    Detailing an importance in making distinctions between aspects of a project that can best serve a specific commentary, but with the sacrifice of other design decisions that might not be essential to the core concept. I.e. something that may appear worthwhile to those involved in construction, but would ultimately hinder the commentary through a lack of the projects focus and narrative consistency. Benefiting instead from a clear vision of intent. Grounded by a designer having a great enough understanding of the larger picture to effectively position themselves to have greater impact; “Offering a more social view of criticality by stating how important it is to have a coherent sense of positioning himself in relation to trends outside his control - to not just accept or roll with them, but to actually take a position.” [3]

   Encouragement of this design process can be seen in the initiative of creative spaces within libraries, museums, and other community-based youth organisations. Actively seeking to encourage younger audiences to explore how technology can be used to demonstrate meaningful ideas. Demonstrating a new approach to learning that looks to include notions of reflection, critique, assessment, and agency in relation to the technology that younger adults can make.

   “The broader goal of CTP [critical technical practice] is to develop positive technologies that speak to an authentic and rich human experience rather than to the narrower focus of productivity and efficiency that is often the currency of discourse in the field of technology development.” [2] Actively placing a greater emphasis on the larger, more social implications in the use of technology.

   “Further, CTP suggests that the process of making a technological artefact can be a political act with social consequences that impact not just the maker and final end user but also larger society, the suggestion being that makers who are unaware of themselves as actors in the making process are, in some way, working blind. In this regard, the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal knowledge - in other words, a deep awareness of oneself as a maker and in relation to society - in today's young makers might help to contribute to a more socially-aware technical practice tomorrow... This implies awareness of self as maker in the context of materials, resources, social situations, and the culture in which a technological artefact is constructed and importantly, a self-awareness that is raised through deliberate acts of reflection while in the very act of making.” [2]

Interesting parallels can be made with this text and E.Agre’s own. Specifically, the correlations between actively participating in the material construction and design whilst also placing a greater emphasis on understanding the implications within much larger issues and problems. Related back to what was demonstrated through the boot camp as it demonstrates a meaningful way that creative technologists should be approaching a response to violence in Auckland. Where the early stages of concept generalisation and research were used to get us to consider the larger implications and definitions of violence before deciding on a way to approach this problem. Defining the problem only after the greater context is realised. So that, as a creative technologist, we have an purposeful and strong reason for where and how to intervene to have the greatest impact.

The ideal future for the process of improving work through meaningful reflection is, as worded in the article Crafting a Technical Practice; “technologists exposed to the forms of critical and contextual thinking so prevalent in Art and Design find it difficult to continue working without asking why as well as how.” [3]

References:

[1] Agre, P. 1997. Toward a Critical Technical Practice: Lessons Learned in Trying to Reform AI. In Bowker et al (Eds.), Bridging the Great Divide: Social Science, Technical Systems, and Cooperative Work. Erlbaum.

[2] Bowler,L., & Chapagne,R. (2016). Mindful makers: Question prompts to help guide young peoples' critical technical practices in maker spaces in libraries, museums, and community-based youth organizations. Elsevier Inc. DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2016.04.006

[3] Woolford, K., Â Blackwell, A, F., Norman, S, J., & Chevalier, C. (2010) Crafting a Critical Technical Practice. MIT Press, Leonardo. 43(2):202-203 

[4] Van Den Hoven, J., Weckert, J. (2008) Information Technology and Moral Philosophy. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

[doris-xu-yang-blog]

Critical Technical Practice

A 140-character written caption：

My response to between Agre‘s text and violent in Auckland.These are my views for how to use creative technology to reduce violent in New Zealand. 

VISUAL ESSAY:

A 300-word reflection：

These is my reflection When I creating my visual essay.When I saw this last assessment is to write visual essay，I was very  distressed for that.What’s that？What is visual essay ?

I don’t understand what is different between visual essay and  common essay because I never heard that before.I want to solve my doubts and also to complete my final assessment.

I went to Chinese browser search about that, but I can nothing found.(Because I habitually research to Baidu browser.Baidu is a very famous browser in China.)So I understand for it.Then I went to Google browser to research and I found some about visual essay example.Finally I understand what is visual essay. Visual essay is picture and essay put together and these can form a visual story. 

First,I think I should use Adobe PhotoShop and Adobe Indesign to do my visual  essay. I can use Adobe PhotoShop to reorganize different  pictures together. Then I  can use Adobe Indesign to give pictures and text arranged.Now I can use two software influence.I need care when I make visual essay.I need to make meaning of the picture and the meaning of the text is fit and same.I can’t find  some irrelevant pictures to do my visual essay. Of course,I research some about violent in Auckland for my visual essay.I discover that rate of the violent is increase in Auckland.It is very bad because it’s show that between people and people are discord.I think maybe I can make some things to let this phenomenon be reduced.I think the thing is easy to carry and lightweight.The thing has build the  GPS.The thing can call and chat other people.This is best for people.The GPS can show your place when you are experiencing violent events.Then the GPS tell other people and they can help you.As for what is this thing and I will show it in my visual essay .

One key and authoritative reference：

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10243267/Family-violence-increasing

“Family violence is on the increase in New Zealand, a report has indicated.New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse, which compiled the report, said it was not clear what was behind the increase.”

[mel-bct]

Reflective Journal – ICT CTEC502

This is my reflective journal on my work throughout the BCT so far, with complete and brutal honesty.

First entry- 17/05/17: On the very first day of semester we were given our first brief, the project ‘cards for play’. With complete honesty, I didn’t take this project overly seriously. My reason for this was because it was my first task within BCT, and to be fair I didn’t know this assignment was going to be graded and it was going to count for something. Just coming out of high school, I think I was expecting something different as a first assignment, so I was immediately taken out of my comfort zone. I was learning a whole new way of being educated at the same time, so I think that’s why I struggled. I truthfully thought it was a project to help us learn the process of prototyping and creating alliterations of work, and it wasn’t going to be graded and be accounted for. In saying that, I still feel like I put in a lot of effort when it came to physically creating/designing the glow in the dark, resin filled cards my team made. Even though the cards didn’t really have a purpose, they were still interesting and challenging to make, and they looked awesome in the end!

My blog post for this assignment was horrible in my opinion. At that point in time, I didn’t understand why it was so important to post on our blogs, and I found it difficult to evaluate myself and my work. In the end, I received a pretty low grade and over the semester I’ve understood why. I wasn’t specific enough when it came to detailing my work in the blog post, I didn’t talk enough about the challenges we faced during the creation, I didn’t do enough reflection. Also I feel that if we had put more effort into actually designing cards with a purpose, we would have been more successful and would have more to talk about when it came to our blog post. Because our idea was so simple, so were our blog posts. So from this brief I’ve learned to really take care and put effort in to every step within the journey of an assignment. The planning ideas/prototyping stage, the creating/building stage, and the delivering/reflecting stage.

Second entry- 19/05/17: For the next assignment, the sound project, I really feel like I made a lot of effort right from the get-go. I took a lot of time to analyse the brief, and I got started on working immediately to try and help with my time management. I completed the first part of the sound project quite quickly (creating/editing sound recordings to then create a soundscape), and I could get to work on thinking of ideas for my instrument in the next project to come. I continued this work ethic right to the end of the sound project, and continued regular blog entries throughout it, and I was glad to see in the end, my grades had drastically changed for the better. Although I was pleased my group and I did well at the end of the collaboration and performance, I ultimately found it more difficult to work with a larger group. It wasn’t their fault, they we reliable team mates and we all worked hard and were successful in the end. But overall I feel like I work better in smaller groups. With the large group I didn’t feel as much pressure on myself, and even though too much pressure can make situations worse, I like it because it keeps me engaged and I feel like I work better. So for the next project I decided to work with a smaller group of people.

The next project that we have most recently completed, the film creation – spaceship earth 2050, my team and I formed quite quickly, and we were very organised to begin with. For the first few weeks of the project that carried on into the mid semester break, were good. And we did continue to work through the break to make sure our project was always moving. We formed a solid idea for the film a bit later than the deadline given by Pete. This was because we found it was much easier to share our ideas and evaluate our blog posts together in person than over social media. Because we took a bit longer to get our main film idea underway, we all felt a bit reluctant towards the brief and became slack. I think it was because the brief itself had dragged out for quite a long time. And we had already formed a group together quite earlier on before the holidays and sussed out each others strengths to define good teamwork/team roles. So, by the time it came around to creating and executing the film, we were quite sluggish because we were relaxing for so long over the holidays. However, we all collaborated and made what I feel was a light hearted, teenage directed film on e-waste, that didn’t bore the audience with too much information and facts, but was direct enough to engage people and get them to listen. Fingers crossed that our grades turn out as good as we feel!

With the creative programming and processing classes, I feel like I struggled. Even though I made sure I completed my work to the best of my ability, I continuously felt insecure about my strength in colab. At first I didn’t understand the creative programming with Collin. I did ask for help and ask questions, but I continued to feel uneasy about it. Looking at it now I feel like it was because I have never done anything like this in my life. And while I was trying to learn a new ‘language’, I was also being tested on it and I felt pressured to learn rather than actually being able to enjoy what I’m making. Now that I have switched over into the processing class with Jena, I’m starting to feel this uneasy feeling again. I feel like I need more time to execute projects to a higher standard, personally. Not because I am fluffing around and not getting my work done, but because I am having to teach myself a program from scratch, and then prove I know what I’m doing through a test that is heavily graded. It’s really scary as my strength is not mathematics and I have little knowledge of coding, and I know some people in my class already do.

Third entry- 20/05/17: Overall, I am enjoying colab though it is challenging for a person like myself who is stepping out of my comfort zone. But I feel like I have the right attitude towards it. I am continuing to complete work to the best of my ability and asking questions when I need to. Plus, completing blog entries where I can. I find it difficult to remember to do so. I am always creating and making things but I’m not used to sharing this with a blog as I make things, so it is still something I’m getting used to.

I think being more regular with the blog posts will help me continue to stay engaged all the time with creative technologies, so that is something I know that I need to work on. But in a nutshell, I am pleased that my grades have improved, the insecurities get the better of me sometimes. I’m happy I was able to problem solve, and work out what I needed to do to improve.

Loving colab and my first year of uni!

-Melissa

[bambi-ct]

Looking back on the blog.

It pretty much goes without saying, I really don’t enjoy Blogging. I really did believe that over time it would start to feel less like a chore. I really do see and have felt the benefits of being able to look back on the week and see how I felt at this time and what I did at that time. But I truly haven’t improved the way I feel about it. This is also a real problem because if I need to summarise for a project and I have nothing written down about the week, I’m fucked. If it isn’t song lyrics, anything else in my mind remains as a memory for about the same time as a goldfish. If it was never written down, I probably wouldn't be able to write it down with an accuracy unless I felt very strongly about it. So I most likely wouldn’t let myself write it down because I treasure accuracy too much, and am not willing to make false statements because 9/10 I would write it in my favour.

A big reason I put off my Blogs are, yes laziness, but also ever since I can remember my mother tried strongly to make me keep a diary. I understand this might feel like a bit of a reach but hear me out. My Mum would buy me diaries every time we went on holiday, and for school. She loves writing things down and planning things out because it works for her, it never did for me. I absolutely dreaded writing down the day's events, why should I? nobody cares! but, Mum would make me sit down and write after dinner before I could watch TV or play games. So I guess, even though its been years since I've had to use a diary. The idea of blogging brings back the Ancient distaste that was locked up inside me. All that does is make me want to put it off for as long as possible which will never work in my favour. It’s a huge problem that I need to work on, considering my entire uni life is gonna ride on Blogging.

Putting aside my past “traumas”. From looking at my first Blog posts it’s good to see that even then I was saying things like “I'm pretty gutted...” and “sadly we didn’t...” because being critical and recognising the bad is really important to me. Plus [please allow me to make a general statement on society and social media] whenever you go on platforms like Instagram or facebook you only ever see the good times and exciting events in people's lives. It’s just so untrue and if I were to do that in a blog about my progress through Uni, I would probably slap myself. Everyone is gonna know you are struggling at some point. Going back to reflecting on the bad stuff, I do firmly believe that negative experiences provide more potential for learning than positive experiences. It’s unlikely you will change how you live your life if it’s a positive experience, it’s when something goes wrong you take a step back and learn from your mistake. Then you improve.

As far as improvement has gone there is no doubt that the posts have gotten longer over time. I also don't believe that means I've lost quality. It seems I haven’t started to extend and babble on just to get a higher word count, but rather just found more things to talk about. I don’t have any particular examples, but I feel like my content has really grown since the beginning.

Ok, before this recap is over there is a very personal elephant in the room. Where the fuck is my Film project Blogging. It bothers me so much but that whole period of my university life is a giant blur of emotions and mess that I really don’t even know what was going on in my brain half the time. However, I feel like the Vlog is a real good highlight of how waiting to blog can let it snowball into something kinda beautiful. I don’t think I could pull off Rendering a short film and filming/editing/rendering a +10 minute Vlog in one night. I didn’t sleep at all but it was worth it. Although I really wish I could have bothered to write about how I felt and what I accomplished every day of the film projects however I feel like I would have lost some friends by typing in the “heat of the moment”.

In summary, yes I do need to develop a groove where I can blog daily and I really need to work on my personal feelings towards it. But I really do love the feel of my blogs, it doesn’t really feel like I'm saying bullshit just to have content for my markers to read. It’s quite organic and I believe that my personality is shown in the posts I make, I think it’s important I don’t lose that.