I had somehow gotten the impression that this was an assignment due before I added the class, so I went ahead and did the ISafe program to complete this portion of the assignment in mid-November. It definitely was impactful, and was a nice addition to the teaching resume I had moments to throw together to get the job I am currently in.

I was hoping to get much further on this than I obviously did. I have no prior Flash experience and learning it has offered a great number of challenges as well as no shortage of rewards. I was hoping to be able to create flash-based games that would follow along the crafted storyline of my website, offering students a chance and motivation to practice what they have learned; honing their skills with repetition. The game-making aspect is still beyond me, I'm afraid, but learning how to manipulate objects in the video production has helped immensely. This video is perhaps 60% through the storyline, and nowhere near as polished as I would like it to be. That'll come, with time. Until then, feedback is always appreciated!

I may be biting off more than I can chew, but what I'd really like to do for the Personal Tech Project is get more into some sort of deeper web-based learning skillsets, learning how to make flash video animations, make games that test concepts, ect. The more I got into building this website, the more I'm realizing I'd rather gear it toward an online skill builder, and less a generic go here to get info on the syllabus. perhaps I should shoot for familiarizing myself with Flash first off, the see if making an animated movie should be a tech project or the movie project...

Copyright examples. The good, the bad, and....

Here is a video of a Biola professor teaching his students pulled from YouTube. The poster's use of the personal pronoun presumes he is the professor portrayed, and if so, he was certainly careful in citing his sources.

Another video, part 4 of 16 by the uploader with the title being the only citation provided. Other (shorter) clips can be found with links provided to the film's webpage, which most definitely mitigates any negative market effects.

But hey - when all else fails, remember that parody also can fall under fair use...


Videos used

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04jsncsgrjo Dr. Matthew Weathers, Biola University, La Mirada CA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQe0oiaBssg Part 4 of What the bleep do we know? Down the rabbit hole. Motion picture homesite at http://www.whatthebleep.com/

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=25683&title=ConjugationsBack by Dublin Jerome High School

A word on streamlining

Hello all. My name is Shane Raben, a physics major planning on picking up physics teaching. I added this class about as late as possible (I believe it may have been on the add deadline) so I may have missed any getting-to-know-you activities held prior.

I've come to learn how amazingly useful some of these technologies are and correspondingly how inherently lazy we can come to be with them. I created this blog under my primary Gmail account, then got to cracking on my class web page. As it turns out, the process I used to create that page created a whole different Gmail account, thereby requiring a log-in switch each time I access my mail or this blog. Needless to say, I've not checked my mail in weeks.... :Þ

As I batted ideas around for the class web site I realized what I ended up planning was somewhere between a class web-page and a web-class page. What I would like to create is a website where principles being taught in the class could be supported by more immersive material than word problems. Take for an example the popular game Angry Birds. There have been individuals who have utilized various softwares (software? softwari?) to analyze the trajectory of Angry Birds and determine the gravitational effects in-universe, and prove that launch speed remains constant, regardless of angle.

While this is a great approach to catching students' interest, I'd like to see it taken one step further. Give students a chance to input trajectories precisely, (à la Scorched Earth, anyone?) and let them test vector addition and freefalling body homework problems in a more engaging atmosphere. Sure, I doubt you'll have many kids preferring something even hinting of homework over a standard point-and-click video game, but if we can make learning more engaging, perhaps homework can be less work, and gaming need not be as castigated by those who want the best for the upcoming generations.