Monthly Archives: August 2008

   

Gamma Ray

August 28, 2008 – 11:53 am

Beck and Danger Mouse – sixties psychedelic music, electronic minimalism and dance-party beats – enjoy Gamma Ray from Modern Guilt: “Don’t know what I’ve done, but I feel ashamed”, Hansen says.

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By Steen Carlsen |
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Smiles and Chocolates

August 27, 2008 – 4:31 pm

This week I am on the PG (I would be lying to say it is all interesting…).  This morning one of the other students (or teachers?) on the course gave a lesson in which he only spoke Spanish, and with the use of graphics and body language and pointing, set us a simple task.  It was great fun and really got us awake and ready for the rest of the day.

During a more boring part of the day, I got to thinking about language, signs, signifiers, communication…..and just how we usually manage, somehow, to communicate with each other.  I find I use far more ‘descriptive movement’ now I spend most of my life speaking to non-native speakers, and when I use Danish, it gets even more elaborate.  Pen and paper always help too.  I vividly remember a train journey to Poland where the 8 of us in the carriage had long conversations in a mix of Polish, English, German and the use of much drawing, pointing and acting.  It also helped to have a bar of chocolate to share around.

That group worked well as we all wanted to communicate and share our lives for those few hours.  One thing I notice living in Denmark, is the lack of contact between people who don’t know each other (eg in a supermarket, on a bus) compared to Scotland, especially Glasgow, where it is common and indeed normal to discuss, say, the price of courgettes, with the stranger next to you, or to smile when you squeeze past someone on a busy bus.

Language is, of course, an important part of human communication, but smiles and a piece of chocolate do just as well.

By Barbara Lofgren | Tagged |
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Tutorer – et nyt tiltag på KEA

August 24, 2008 – 1:14 pm

Når de ca. 280 nye studerende møder op til studiestart mandag den 25. august vil der stå et tutor-korps parat til at tage imod dem.

14 studerende fra 2., 3. og 4. semester har meldt sig som tutorer.
Deres opgave er blandt andet at være med til at give de nye studerende en god start ved at være der, når de har brug for hjælp – f.eks. til at lære skolen at kende, til at lære København at kende, til at hjælpe med at finde rundt til offentlige instanser, når de skal have cpr.-nummer og sygesikringsbevis. De vil være der, når der skal uddeles logins og pass-word til Fronter. De vil være med til velkomstfesten i deres flotte røde tutor t-shirts.
Men de vil også være der i hverdagen. Mandag og torsdag fra 13.00 til 16.00 kan alle studerende træffe dem i Study Hall (i Chill-out), hvor de vil være parat til at dele deres erfaringer om, hvordan det er at studere på MMD-KEA, hvordan det er at arbejde i grupper, hvordan det er at gå til eksamen.

Vores tutorer er ildsjæle, der vil gøre alt for at skabe et godt studiemiljø på skolen – og på den måde medvirke til at mindske frafaldet. Det skorter ikke på gode og kreative idéer, når vi er samlet til møder. “Skal vi ikke invitere de nye på en tur rundt i København?” - og straks meldte 4-5 sig til “New in Copenhagen”. “Kan vi ikke gøre noget for at hjælpe de studerende, der kommer efter studistart?” – osv. osv.

De første møder med tutorerne tyder på, at de vil blive et vigtigt aktiv i vores arbejde på at skabe et endnu bedre studiemiljø – de har både idéerne og viljen til at føre dem ud i livet.

By Hanne Holm | Tagged , |
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Programming Errors For Alle

August 20, 2008 – 8:56 pm

Last week, interaktionsfaggruppen went off to Hornstrup Kursuscenter in Vejle and together with teachers of datalogi and multimedia from as far away as Aalborg, we explored – on the course “Programmering For Alle” what it means to teach programming, hearing about both formal research findings, and personal experiences, many of which were provided by the other course participants. It was an excellent course, presented by two extremely knowledgeable teachers (Michael E. Caspersen and Jens Bennedsen), who were so well-equipped with theory and practical experience that I am sure it will take me some time to digest and integrate it all. Fortunately, the course fell in the middle of our semester planning, so it was hungrily received, and we have been able to make practical use of many of the ideas immediately. I also have the slides and a ‘compendium’ of articles and papers to chew upon, if I need reminding, when other matters crowd in.

Once nice thing is that we at KEA are doing a number of things ‘right’, although it’s very interesting to find out why they are right, especially when we have arrived at those approaches intuitively. We also learned that some pedagogical approaches, such as problem-based learning, are especially poor ways of teaching programming. (This is not to say that problem-based learning has no value, just that teaching programming is better achieved via other methods).

In all there were many useful insights, and even some formal methods that may be used to clear up various mysteries in the mind of the novice programmer. Such mysteries are typically experienced as “what do I need to do?” or “it doesn’t work, and I don’t know why”, or “I’m stuck, but I can’t remember what I have tried, because I erase whatever I do as soon as the program tells me there is an error”, or variants. How do we get the student to accomodate errors as ‘business as usual’ in the programming process?

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By Brennan Young | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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The Blog as….

August 11, 2008 – 9:45 am

So, here we are, back after the summer break, and so it is back to the blog, and just a short musing.  Last week was a week of planning, timetabling and, at least in the third semester team, being creative with cable, paper and coloured squares (those of you who were there, know what I am talking about).

This semester, there is to be a workshop about blogging on the third semester.  There are so many things one could cover here that it will be a hard job to focus on some key issues.

For example, it could be interesting to discuss the influence of some blogs, that I hesitate to call key and influential, and what they could mean for the democratic process, defending human rights, raising awareness or whatever.  The issue of commercial blogs, designed to sell products, written by people employed to write, what at the end of the day is advertising copy, could also be discussed.

I have even seen blogs described as performance, in one of the blogs I read semi-regularly, “What’s in Kelvin’s Head” at www.thurible.net (written by the provost of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, which is part of the Anglican communion in Scotland – see http://www.thecathedral.org.uk/information/scottish-episcopal-church/ if you want to know what that is!).  I enjoy this blog as it is well written, very often funny, not just about religion and the church, and sometimes provides some gossip about a part of Glasgow I used to live in.

But let’s return to the idea as the blog as performance.  This intrigues me a bit.  I sort of know what he means, after all, you have to take on a role as a blogger, produce something for your audience, take comments and criticisms, and move on to the next blog.  It is a nice idea in that it treats the blog as a creative entity.  However, I do struggle with the idea a bit….I don’t feel like I am rehearsing at the moment….or maybe I am….comments very, very welcome!

Two years ago, on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (see http://www.edfringe.com/), there were no fewer than 4 plays based on blogs, taking the idea of blog as performance literally.  I have not had a chance to search the current programme to see if there are more, or any, this year.  I agree with one critic who said that the whole point of a blog is that it is personal (well….you might like to argue with that if talking about commercial ones) and lacks a formal structure.  Can, as he said, the “random musings of someone at their computer keyboard” be transferred into good theatre?  Now, there is another question for you to contemplate in between writing new Powerpoint slides, writing handbooks and getting ready to perform for the returning and new audiences in two weeks time!

By Barbara Lofgren | Tagged , , , |
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