Looking: at the floor, shuffling my feet

Ok so maybe this is a good time to begin a new concept in this blog, forgiveness Friday.

After my big spiel yesterday about the new radio show and its numerous levels of awesomeness (well I wasn't that o.t.t but you get the picture), I flicked on the wireless (as in radio) last night to hear a decidedly rock sounding track.

Interesting, I thought. Given that we are still in the progress of defining the show I waited to hear what came next or to see what Jerry had to say about the track but it was just followed by rock track after rock track. (With no talking at all - which as a side note I think is fairly poor radio).

Now the apparently completely finished and abandoned timeslot that we filled was previously The Rock Show so I'm assuming that word hadn't actually filtered down to all the presenters that the show was/is no more. Presumably after some fisticuffs in the foyer of the Griffin Centre, Jerry was felled and the Rock Show DJs took to the studio in triumph. So yes, sorry if you tuned in expecting one thing and got another (though in fairness, there was some ok stuff being played) and also apologies to Jerry for not being there (I'm sure we could have taken them :)

While I'm on a roll, I've been reading like a mad - uh - reader in the last few weeks for study type stuff (my brain actually feels a little tired with all this thinking) and this may have raised my pedantry levels a little high as far as people's writing online goes.

I have a bit of a bugbear about nice formatting of text onscreen - I like it to be broken up into digestible chunks, one idea to a paragraph and breaks between them that allow you breathing space to take the idea in before moving on. It's kind of like taking a pause while talking to make sure your listener is following.

Anyway, that's my issue and I should probably just as well keep it to myself but on occasion, it gets the better of me and I try to suggest my approach to people online which invariably seems to offend. I did this the other day and I'm sorry.

Forgiveness Friday does have its flaws though - I'm not quite ready to forgive Neighbours "star" Alan (Dr. Karl) Fletcher, an apparently dedicated unionist, for this story.



I'll let The Age explain:

Fletcher, the federal vice-president of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance — the union representing Australian actors, journalists and cultural workers — provided the voiceover for radio and TV advertisements launched last week which promote the Government's workplace information line.

He's a senior unionist and he takes on a gig in the Howard Governments multimillion dollar pre-election propaganda spending spree because

The workplace relations ad appeared to me to be a non-political commercial that advertised changes to the law and how to get information about those changes.

The ad offered no endorsement of Government policy on workplace relations and, as such, did not conflict with my personal principles

Funnily enough, the first thing Employment Minister Evil Joe Hockey said about the matter was:

We have no objection to people being members of a union, and appreciate his whole-hearted endorsement of the government's workplace industrial relations reforms

Gosh, didn't see that coming. What are you, simple?. Does Neighbours not provide a decent living?

As to the argument that it was just a job and thus separate from personal politics, I'm going to have to let Dante and Randall (from Clerks) field that one.



Now (and I address this to Dr. Karl, well aware that you are just a fictional character on a soap opera) I have gone into bat for you more than a number of times, backing you up against the cruel jibes and insinuations of my Dr Karl hating friends.

I thought it was quirky when you went all "The Good Life" and did the whole home farm sustainability thing. I backed you when you botched the paternity test on Skye's bogan baby and threw Dylan and Stingray's lives into turmoil. I took it on the chin when you went to London and bumped into every halfarsed Aussie expat celebrity Neighbours could fling at you and Susan. I flinched when you took on a job as a pharmaceutical sales rep but your adventures with hair dye redeemed you for a while.

But this, Dr Karl, is too much. You're dead to me Karl Kennedy-Kinski. It's going to take some pretty goddamned fancy footwork to get out of this one and frankly I'm not sure that you - even you and Susan combined - have it in you. Shame Dr Karl Shame.

Tuning in: to Lost Highway - 9.30 - 11pm Thurs 2XXfm 98.3

So I didn't mention this last week (couldn't stand the pressure of thousands and thousands of extra people tuning in I suppose ;) but last Thursday night my mate Jerry and I kicked off our new latenight radio show, Lost Highway. I mentioned it in passing last Wednesday but from there gears and wheels started turning rapidly in the 2XXfm behemoth and before we knew it we were being parachuted in to the slot.

I have to say, it was a lot of fun. Jerry has a phenomenal knowledge of music in this genre (primarily the North American stuff not surprisingly as a Canuck, but still...) and an enthusiasm to match and in many ways it was just like an extended chat which just happened to involve playing a whole bunch of music in a "have you heard much of these guys" kind of way.

Co-presenting was pretty cool, it can get a little boring sometimes doing a radio show ( for those who came in late, I also present Monday Sunset on 2XXfm - 4 to 6pm) but having someone to chat to during tracks - particularly when you're able to share a bit of info about a new artist - is great.

(Incidentally, I was chatting to the Pussycat last night about the possibility of some kind of weekly radio serial for Sunset, stay tuned for more on that down the road.)

The response to the debut show was encouraging - well Pussycat said she really liked it - and it was fun (and my musical repertoire is slowly growing) so it's all good.

We haven't entirely worked out who will be on when - Jerry is out of town a bit and I've been caught up with the joys of study (2 down and 1 to go :) but we'll either alternate or co-present when possible.

I can't remember what Jerry played - I don't think I'd really heard much of many of the artists (there was some Neko Case I'm pretty sure and a bit of Lucinda Williams) but my contributions included:

• Woke up this morning(acoustic)-Alabama 3 (the opening track for the show)
• Shark Fin Blues - The Drones
• Chinito Chinito - Ry Cooder
• My Tennessee Mountain Home - Dolly Parton
• Make it count - Barb Waters and Kim Salmon
• Ramblin' Man - The Beasts of Bourbon
• California Stars - Billy Bragg and Wilco
• Smokin' Johnny Cash - The Black Eyed Susans
• My Margherita - The Cruel Sea
• Ring of fire - Ed Kuepper

If you like your tunes with a little twang (or blues/roots/etc - probably not a lot of synth or sampling) then why don't you flick on the wireless tonight and check it out. (No streaming as yet I'm afraid - one day though I'm assured)

Using: the world's lamest FPS game

I used a nifty software package called FPS Creator (short for first person shooter) a little while ago to build a 3D game as a learning resource. (You may have read about it previously here, here and uh here).



It works essentially as a glorified multichoice quiz, giving the learner a choice of three doors to go through representing the answers to a question. There is a "pain zone" behind two of the doors which reduces the player's health, makes an unpleasant noise and flashes red when they pass over it. Behind the door with the right answer, any lost health is restored and my charmingly reassuring and encouraging voice tells them - "That's right, well done".

I finally used this game in a workshop on using video today and it was really interesting to see how learners responded.

I had a group of five women, aged between their twenties and fifties, none familiar with playing 3D games.

While there are instructions at the beginning explaining that users can use the W,A,S and D keys to move around and the mouse to look around, nobody realised that you need to (or can) use both simultaneously. As someone who has played 3D games for the odd hour or ten thousand, navigating an environment in this way seems self evident and so it was very useful to see this from the perspective of a newby.

A couple of them even said that moving through the space made them feel slightly sick - probably not the best outcome for learning but again something to take into consideration.

A learner who had the sound turned off didn't realise that the "pain zone" with the redness and decreasing health score (which is not necessarily something that you would notice) was a bad thing.

Watching the users with the game confirmed a few concerns that I have had with the design - notably the fact that you only get to read/hear the question once. If you forget the question or the answers, you don't really know where to go. This might be resolved by having the question and answers appear physically in the 3D space (on the walls and doors?).

While I thought that the direction players/learners have to move was clear (always up the stairs), it became obvious that when players became disoriented (unfamiliar with navigating 3D space), they could go backward, down to areas that they had already been. Signage on the walls (arrows) might help in this regard.

It may well be that the use of this kind of environment for learning might be better suited to people more accustomed to 3D games or it might be useful to include an introductory level in a simple open space that introduces new players more effectively to the control system.

All agreed that it looked impressive at least but I don't think there was a lot of enthusiasm for this approach in general. (Which isn't to say that it isn't worthwhile, just in need of tweaking.)

Talkin about: Y Generation

Update - fixed the link to the essay now - I hadn't published it as a post, only saved it as a draft. Shows how tech-savvy I am :)

I've been doing a little research about the possible implications of the Net Generation (a.k.a Gen Y a.k.a the Millennials a.k.a the iGeneration etc) on the design of interactive multimedia learning resources (as everyone does in their idle moments I'm sure) and it's actually been quite interesting.



(Hope you don't mind the extraordinarily dorky Gen Y image I found online - when you search, you either just get pictures of freshfaced young'uns or (for the most part) marketing oriented crap like this. (I thought about looking for a nice freshly scarred emo kid hopped up on Ritalin but this is funnier)

Anyways, I put it all down into an essay imaginatively titled - Implications of the Net Generation on the design of interactive multimedia learning resources - which you can peruse at your leisure. (It clocks in at just over 2600 words but the time just flies by).

In summary, the NetGen/Gen Y/Millennials are the children of the Information Age and were born between around 1980 to around 2000. (There's a bit of debate as to start and end dates but roughly then.)

Rather than rewriting what I've already had to say, I might just quote myself. (Is that wrong?)

The so-called Net Generation (Net-Gen) are the first generation to grow up knowing nothing other than this highly connected, information rich world. As “digital natives”, they “think and process information fundamentally differently.” (Prensky 2002). Their use of ICT and attitudes toward ICT and information in general offer us a set of ideas for a new approach to education which embraces the information age. Among these are an emphasis on collaboration, connectivity, flexibility and experiential learning.

Who are the Net Generation?

Alan Kay, a member of the 1970’s Xerox PARC team, has described technology as “anything that wasn’t around when you were born” (Frand, 2000). This means that for much of the Net-Gen, personal computers, mobile phones, digital audio, sophisticated computer graphics and even the Internet aren’t considered technology, they are simply a fact of life.

While it is obviously simplistic to ascribe any characteristic to a large group of individuals, there are a number of traits which appear common to many members of the Net-Gen.

Interested in technology: Having grown up with technology, Net-Gen students consider themselves far more Internet savvy than their teachers and report seeing better ways to use technology than they are offered in the classroom.(Oblinger 2003) “Every time I go to school I have to power down”, complains one student according to Prensky. (2001)

Emphasis on collaboration: They gravitate toward group work (Howe & Strauss, 2000) and want to work with people they click with. (Raines 2003) . Massively multiplayer online games popular with the Net-Gen such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft are strongly based on collaboration.

Need Connectivity: In some ways related to their preference for collaboration, the Net-Gen make heavy usage of a plethora of communications tools including SMS, instant messaging, email and particularly online communities such as MySpace to maintain connections with friends and family. This connectivity is 24/7 and the Internet in particular means that it isn’t limited by geography.

Another interesting aspect of connectivity in online communications is that the Net-Gen have “blasé attitudes about the loss of private space” and an “expectation of speaking to an audience even in personal communication” (Wikipedia:Internet Generation, 2007)

Multitasking: Multitasking is considered to be the most practical response to the exponentially increasing sea of information we find ourselves in. (Frand, 2000). As highly connected digital natives more familiar with this environment, the Net-Gen are considered particularly adept at navigating a range of tasks simultaneously, which may include both work and play.

Goal oriented: Net-Gen learners are more focused on skills than knowledge. “In many disciplines, the half-life of information is measured in months and years. From this perspective, what a person can do is more important than what degree they obtained”(Frand, 2000 p.17)

Confident and optimistic: The Net-Gen are seen as highly positive, confident and optimistic. They expect respect (Raines, 2002) and, conscious of their power as consumers, will either speak their mind or vote with their feet if they don’t get what they want.

According to Saulwick Muller Social Research (2006): “Not only has this generation been born into a prolonged period of economic growth, but they have come too late to experience the severe economic restructuring brought about by globalisation and the information revolution.

They have grown up understanding and accepting that the future is all about mobility, adaptability and change. For the most part, they are preparing for it and they embrace it.”(p.5)

Seek instant gratification: The combination of a customer service oriented world and the immediacy of digital technology means that members of the Net-Gen are felt to have “zero tolerance for delays”. (Frand, 2000 p.22).

Marc Prensky (2001) sums most of these traits up nicely when he says that “Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work.” (p.2)

This of course is all of the nice stuff - it doesn't get into emo (not that there's anything wrong with that, I just find it funny and cute), Ice, Ritalin and Flintstones Chewable Prozac (which has led to another term - the Sad Generation), naivety, fame obsession, excessive trust in authority and so on - but it would be entirely too depressing if they were perfect and besides, any of these are most likely less a generational trait and more a matter of being young.

(For the record, yes I am GenX - although, of course, as a cynical slacker I reject the notion of such marketing generated terms entirely :)

Feeling: off colour (but better now)

Woke up this morning, got myself a gun
No wait, that's a song
.

Woke up this morning, felt like crap, went back to bed.

Least interesting post yet - sorry.

Ok well hopefully this makes up for it.