Edublogging : why games are good

This is a copy of a post from my edublog - it's only about 400 words so is a little more readable than the sprawling (drawling?) 4000 words I put together the other day.

I'll try to spare you most of my writing but I enjoyed this one

Interactive multimedia makes Behaviourist learning strategies more engaging.

The use of simple online games and quizzes provides positive reinforcement to learners and adds interest to subjects which focus on fact based learning by bringing variety and heightened sensory experiences to repetitive tasks.

Robyler and Harviluk (1997) point out that among the “needs addressed by directed instruction” (their term for the Behaviourist approach) are “making learning paths more efficient... especially for instruction in skills that are prerequisite to higher-level skills” and “performing time-consuming and labor intensive tasks (e.g., skill practice), freeing teacher time for other, more complex student needs”.

This has been demonstrated in a project undertaken in the Learning Medical Terminology subject at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT).

Anecdotal evidence from the teacher of the subject indicates that students now learn and retain the words more quickly and complain less about the subject.

This heuristic is useful to me as a learning resource developer at CIT as we are part of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and many of the initial subjects in our courses require learners to acquire a certain base level of technical subject-specific knowledge. Many of these games can be produced easily by teachers with free or inexpensive software and require minimal technical ability to create and put online.

I chose to write about it as I am a firm believer in the educational possibilities of interactive multimedia, particularly in the form of games and quizzes. Games are a familiar, accessible and engaging medium which can be used in situations ranging from Behaviourist drill and practice exercises to more Constructivist problem based scenarios. There is currently a growing group of educational game producers – known as the Serious Games movement – focussing heavily on the possibilities of the latter.

Learning practitioners wishing to make use of interactive multimedia in the form of games and quizzes should allow themselves adequate time to become familiar with the game/quiz creating software that they wish to use. While most of it is designed with the less technically inclined user in mind (i.e. a wizard based approach), it can often still require the uploading of multiple supporting image and javascript files to your website or learning management system.

References:

Robyler, M.D., Ewards, J., & Harviluk, M.A. (1997) Integrating educational technology into teaching. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Chapter 3, p. 54 – 77.

Simpson, C., (2005). Medical Terminology – Prefixes and Suffixes. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTfs4axi1YU

Ertmer, P.A. & Newby, T.J. (1993). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 6(4), 50-72. (abstract)

Oliver, R. & Herrington, J. (2001) Teaching and Learning Online (p.52) Western Australia, Edith Cowan University

Wikipedia - Serious Game. Retrieved 23/7/2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game

Waiting: with baited breath

Sorkin Will Script Flaming Lips Musical | Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | EW.com Exclusive | News + Notes | Entertainment Weekly

This is just so cool on so many levels. (Of course it could well be one of those things that you hear about once that never comes to fruition - David Cronenberg directing American Psycho for instance)

Aaron Sorkin - wunderkind writer/creator of The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The American President and the upcoming Studio 60 on Sunset Strip - is apparently all signed up to write the script for the Broadway musical of the Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

I think my brain is going to explode.

Here's the video for the title song from the album

Here's a promo for Studio 60 on Sunset Strip. (I'm assuming you've watched The West Wing - sadly S60 is to be screened by Channel 9 so who knows what they are going to do to it)

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Solving: the mystery of the missing Simpsons

Thinking about some of my childhood reading favourites yesterday (the Hardy Boys and Jupiter Jones of the three investigators) has put me into a bit of a detective mode - ok, not hugely so but it's all relative.

A quick check of the email last night reminded me that Mum and Dad are off in Tassie and my sister Penny is currently in the U.K (Where hopefully she won't bump into the newly boganish Susan Kennedy/Kinski and Dr Carl - or get mixed up with that minx Izzy). (If you have no idea what I'm talking about there, you're probably better off :)

I'll just have to wait a little while to share the story of the week with everyone.

(How cool would it be if while she's in the U.K, Penny bumped into Rachel's brother though)

Wondering: at the serendipity of it all

This is one of those stories that if you saw it in a film, you'd think that the writer was straining the bounds of credulity (or watched a lot of Bollywood).

But it's true - I know because it happened to me. (It's actually not that dramatic - freaky yes but not so dramatic - I've just always wanted to say that.)

About a month ago I started seeing a (fantastic/smart/beautiful/funny) girl that I'd met through RSVP, a popular internet dating site. We clicked pretty quickly and shared tales that indicated that we had a few things in common in our respective pasts. (Which I guess is one of the things you do in the first flush of dating, nothing unique there.)

We both have (Aussie) dads called Bob who have worked in engineering type jobs, both travelled to the UK in the mid/late 1960s and both met their wives there (our mums - Vicki and Marg) who were nurses and both came back here to live.

Interesting coincidences right but in the grand scheme of things, probably not that unusual. But of course there's more - you know there is - why would I be telling this story if there wasn't more to come?

Anyway, things meander along and Nancy Drew here (not me obviously - if it was me I would have said the Hardy boys or perhaps Jupiter Jones) heads down to Melbourne for work and along to Healesville sanctuary, which triggers memories of a childhood visit there with family friends at the age of five.

Fragments of the visit whirl around in her mind for a few days, gradually taking form until out of the blue, she asks "What's your mum's name?". "Vicki - why?", I reply.

At this point, she gets a little excited. "I knew it, I knew you were going to say Vicki".

Anyway, long story short, it turns out that our dads actually shared a flat in London, our mums did nursing training together and my mum and dad introduced hers to each other.

I haven't had a chance to chat to my folks about this yet but Rachel has confirmed it all with hers and her mum and mine still exchange Christmas cards.

I think I'm still processing it to a degree but it's quite the weird story - particularly given that we may well have met as kids.

Getting: all academical

Because I obviously don't spend enough time in the blogosphere, I've started up another blog where I can get my thoughts out about the things I'm reading and doing in the pursuit of my Masters in Education (ICT in Education).

(Hey, at least I'm not Twittering - now that seems like a massive waste of time - not to mention intrusive, trivial and hyper-ego-centric)

My edublog elearningnews.edublogs.org is probably pretty academic/technical/snorefesty however I have a stack of readings and reflections to plough through and if you're interested in education and eLearning, there might be something worth taking a bit of a look at.

(If not, I completely understand - just figured I'd mention it anyway)

Whistling: in the shower

You know your day is going well (great even) when you find yourself spontaneously whistling in the shower first thing in the morning.

In previous times it's been (somewhat oddly) Click Go The Shears but today's selection was a little cooler - Pavement's 1994 hit Cut Your Hair.

Here's a sample.



Here's the Wikipedia take on the song too

Cut Your Hair is a song by American rock band, Pavement on their second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. The song is Pavement songwriter Stephen Malkmus' snarky ode to selling out, and, as such, it snidely attacks the importance of image and musicianship's decline in importance in the record industry. Perhaps with a bit of irony, the song was also released as a single and became the band's best selling and most popular song.

(I didn't actually realise that it was about selling out, I just thought it was about hair - oh well, there you go)

I wonder if making yourself whistle (or sing) in the shower in the morning would help you to have a good day

Thanks beautiful.

Concertgoing: At the edge

Maybe I'm the eternal optimist but of all the people that I read the following blurb to last Friday, I was the only one not to be dubious.

At the Edge is a new concert series exploring hybrid forms of music and visual performance. This event is the first of two for the year and features exciting and various new media music and electro acoustic composition performances. This concert showcases the talent and diversity of soloists and ensembles within the ANU School of Music and the Centre for New Media Arts.

Now I will admit that I was aware of the possibility that this could well consist of a handful of half naked performers painted blue standing in a circle singing the word "poop" for the better part of an hour in front of projected video of paint drying while some feral banged away mindlessly on a djembe but given that this is Canberra (and the ANU) and interesting things are tucked away all over the place in this town, decided to give it a go. (Just don't get me started on my issues with ferals/hippies/crusties playing drums).

As it turned out, it was great. (Ok, the first half was great and if it wasn't for the fact that I was starving and crying out for a drink I would have stuck around, honest)

The performance was held in the Band Room at the School of Music and entry was by gold coin donation - attendance was sparse and Buj wondered if we might be the only people there not in the performers immediate family.

The programme began with a piece called Piano Phase, which consisted of a man (Gary France) playing midi percussion pads behind a screen on which was a projection of a man (Gary also) playing midi percussion pads.

The two "performers" begin in sync playing a repeating pattern (which isn't drumlike but a keyboard sounding melody) but gradually one of them speeds up their tempo to move an eighth-note in front of them. (I actually thought that there was a third layer of sound - two percussion tracks and a looping keyboard melody - but according to what I have read, there isn't).

Might I just add at this point that the old axiom "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" feels painfully true at this juncture

Fortunately, I just found an example of Piano Phase - check it out here. (This version seems a little faster than the one I heard but you should get the gist)

This rolls over and over for what felt like about twenty minutes (though who knows how long) with slight shifts in the tune every so often keeping it from being completely maddening. In fact, it was beautifully hypnotic and while I was listening my mind wandered all over the place, all the while tuning into the music to see where it might go next.

The repetitive nature of the piece made me wonder if it was a response to the information age and the way that we are so bombarded with information that it needs to be repeated endlessly to have any chance to get through. This also reminded me of a lot of contemporary electronic music and the nature of samples and repetition there.

On further reading though, I learnt that this piece was actually composed in 1967 by Steven Reich, so there you have it.

Next up were Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian, with a simple drums, electric guitar and laptop/effects box setup. They played two pieces which brought together random seeming but still somehow patterned drum beats, building "riffs" from the guitar (as well as randomish notes) and beeps, bleeps and other sounds from the laptop. The first track came to remind me a little of early Sonic Youth noiserock experiments and the second was a little more laid back but equally engaging.

(Did I mention the whole dancing about architecture thing?)

All in all, a great way to get out and hear something different and be carried away for a while. Further evidence that while there may not seem to be a lot going on in Canberra, the little city that could, when you get out and scratch beneath the surface, there are all manner of treats.

(Oh and the crowd grew to pretty well fill the hall as time passed)

Feeling: relieved

I submitted my first substantial piece of written uni work in close to fifteen years yesterday afternoon - a timeline of the history of the use of I.T in Education over the last 100 years or so based on a set of readings we'd been given.

As I think about it I consider all the elements that I left out - Open source software, RSS and much of the whole Web 2.0 thing (Flickr, YouTube et al) - but I think it was comprehensive enough to scrape a pass, possibly a credit out of.

As the first piece of writing I've been required to do, it was something of a battle to get stuck into - the required readings seemed just as interested in the minutiae of which professional organisation changed their name in 1923 from the Visual Instruction Association to the AudioVisual Instruction Association (I know this is wrong but you get the gist) as they were in how the advances in technology actually affected people on the ground.

That's academia I guess. (Fortunately my other subject deals with multimedia and seems somewhat more grounded.)

Watching: Battlestar Galactica (end of Season 2)

Wow, just wow. I'm reluctant to say too much in case you haven't seen it yet - there are some major changes, which is refreshing in a series in general - but it sets up for a most interesting season 3.

(Ok, just a short one today as I reeeallly have things to do - hope you have a great weekend)

Quick update - this is just too nerdy not to include here - Digg.com discussion of who would win a fight between Battlestar Galactica and the Enterprise (Star Trek).

One of the comments sums it up perfectly - read the comments imagining the voice of the comicbook guy from the Simpsons.

http://digg.com/television/SciFi_Smackdown_The_USS_Enterprise_vs_the_Battlestar_Galactica

Theatre-going: Noises Off

Noises Off is a classic farce with many doors opening and closing, zippy dialogue and a sometimes confusing but funny mess of lots of simultaneous physical comedy.

It takes a play-within-a-play structure and focuses on the carry on behind the scenes of a production of a farce called Nothing On. This is a bog-standard farce with all of your typical farce ingredients, the aforementioned calvacade of opening and closing doors, coincidences, mistaken identity, bothersome props (a plate/s of sardines in this case), an attractive woman who spends most of her time in her lingerie and a man with his trousers down around his ankles.

We take a step back to see this firstly as a dress rehearsal, complete with actors stuffing up and questioning their motivations, then from backstage as a matinee a few weeks in to the season and finally from front of house as an evening performance right at the end of the season. (By which time, things have completely gone to pot).

After the first act I'd had a few smiles (particularly having done a little theatre in my day) but wasn't guffawing like most of the audience (largely comprised it seemed of the silver-haired set) but as the second and third acts progressed and the whole production descended into impressively organised chaos I found it funnier and funnier. I also grew more and more impressed with both the writing and the talent of the performers (and director) to manage such a complex amount of stage "business" and overlapping plotlines and dialogue. I'd be quite surprised if anyone stayed still for more than 20 seconds at a time in the final act.

I must admit that I've never seen a farce performed before - I've seen farcical elements in film (most commonly the doors trick - one person exits a door just as another enters another door taken to ridiculous extremes) but I had some idea of what it was all about but now really feel as though I haven't been giving the genre (or perhaps it's just this particular play) it's due.

Bravo to the Canberra Rep and to the writer for getting it so right.

Noises Off is playing at Theatre 3 until Friday - definitely worth checking out.

More details on their website here

One of the things I was wondering (being the multimedia type that I am) during the performance, particularly given the chaos and the plotlines and physical comedy being played out often simultaneously, was how it would translate to film.

Rapid cutting seemed the obvious option but perhaps a little too structured - too focussed on drawing attention to each individual act of madness at the expense of losing the sense of overall mayhem. Some kind of split screen approach (possibly up to four screens, Timecode (Mike Figgis 2000) style.

Apparently there is already a film version available, directed by Peter Bogdanovich (1992) that I might just have to check out.

Update - Good ole YouTube comes through once more (to a degree) with a clip from a (significantly) lesser production of Noises Off which will nonetheless give you some idea of some of the dynamics of the play.

This is taken from the final act where the whole performance has completely lost it - cues are being missed, props are missing or just wrong, performers are at each others throats, some try to improvise their way out of the mess while others just stick steadfastly to their assigned lines

Picturing: Golden Plains

Ok, so a more fully formed overview of the festival is still to come - possibly not that soon either, I'm really starting to question my sanity at having dived into higher education at this point in time - particularly studying two units by distance.

Anyways, here are some initial pics snapped at the festival over the weekend. As ever, I have gone with the trusty camera phone for two reasons - portability and also the simplified image that it provides.

Now maybe this is pretentious arty wank talking but there is something about the less than perfect image that really appeals to me - in an age where photos are getting more and more ridiculously sharp and detailed (check out some HDR pics for example), they seem simultaneously more constructed, more stage managed and more designed to push emotional buttons.

The beauty of the camera phone is that it's immediate, it's a small lense and it doesn't have a great depth of field or contrast range. It's reassuringly low-tech (in spite of the fact that just the thought of being able to take a photo one minute and send it to someone on the other side of the world the next would have blown any photographers mind less than twenty years ago)

Anyway, here are a few views of the inaugural Golden Plains Music Festival, live from the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre, March 2007.



Meredith has one big stage, purpose built for the festival. People find a spot at the start of the day and tend to camp out there through all the bands. There's a standing section towards the front that it's not too difficult to get into but ultimately, you just want a sit down. (Or maybe I'm just getting old.)



Further back is just a sea of chairs, old couches and the odd lampshade. (Not shown in picture but if you look carefully, the self same lampshade is part of the official Golden Plains artwork)



Is a festival still cool when people are turning up in Beamers? (Yes, even with Beamers)



Navigating your way around a massive campsite can be a challenge, particularly when you realise that most tents only come in about three colours (one of which is silver) and all look alike. Fortunately, the citizens of Box Factory set up next to us and their flag offered a welcome homing beacon. (That and the Norwegian flag near the toilets that marked the left turn to our campsite)



Ok, so there are points at which the phone camera shows it's limitations - but even then, it kind of looks pretty.



Saturday was a brilliant sunny day, maxing out at around 35C with clear blue skies and no wind at all. (Quite the change from the rest of the weekend, which was a much more Melbourne-like overcast and mid 20s which constant strong gusts.)



Sunset was kind of special though.

Quick music highlights:

The Drones (great passion and tight playing)

Ground Components (great attitude, rockstar chops and a sense of fun)

Presets (high energy, loud and fast electronic rock/pop and a definite sense of show)

Fat Freddy's Drop (very talented musicianship, a trombonist able to make the instrument cool and a good attitude)

Gotye (I didn't pick the Thom Yorke-ness of the singers voice until Eric pointed it out - also his observation that it was like Thom Yorke but with a purer sound - but this and the pop-rock sensibilities of these guys made me very keen to check them out)

The Slits (for me at least - noone else in the party seemed to agree but I liked their old-skool pop-punk sound and was prepared to overlook the massive chip the singer seemed to shoulder about not having been paid their dues by history. I mean, yes, they broke some impressive new ground but then packed it in after a couple of albums - then again, the same could be said for the Sex Pistols)

Yo La Tengo (I guess - I was a little hungover by this time but they sounded pretty good from where I was, just wish I was a little more familiar with their body of work.)

Less impressive - The Bellrays - musically tight but too slick, there was something offputting about the way that they made no effort to personalise the between song banter - it was all "You people are great", "Are you all ready to get down?" etc, essentially stuff they might say anywhere.

Comets on Fire - maybe if I'd been watching from a more central spot they might have sounded better but for the most part it just seemed like long winded wanky rock jamming. The Meredith organisers have a definite thing for the noisy rock band and hey, it's their festival but there was nothing new or interesting to it.

!!! - Unusual name aside (pron. chk chk chk or anything single syllable sound repeate d 3 times evidently) these guys started with some interesting sounds but wandered off down long-winded art-rock lane and never came back.

I was a little bit oldman and didn't stick around for the over night techno/dance party thing - hopefully Eric, Fabian or Pippa will be able to put in their two cents worth.

OMGing : They've launched Skynet.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | British Skynet satellite launched

Did these people learn nothing from the Terminator movies?

Fortunately, help is at hand.

It's call How to survive a robot uprising : Tips on defending yourself against the coming rebellion and is written by a guy called Daniel H Wilson (who is actually a roboticist himself). (It's entirely tongue in cheek, just in case you were wondering - although apparently it has upset some in the roboticist community who hate any suggestion that robots could turn evil.)

Anyways, it's got a very cool shiny cover and the pages also have a very cool shiny metallic red finish on them (who says don't judge a book by it's cover :)

find out a little more on their site - http://www.robotuprising.com

(Yes, I know this is a little geeky but there you go. Like Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama) says, "There is no story that can't be made a million times better with a robot")

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Update - hey cool, that was my 100th post.

Regrouping: after a big, tiring music filled weekend.

More to come soon on the Golden Plains Music Festival (including possible special guest reports) as well as the shortcut that should never be spoken of again. :)

Setting off: to the Golden Plains Festival

Featuring

THE BELLRAYS, FAT FREDDYS DROP, YO LA TENGO, !!!, THE PRESETS, MAD PROFESSOR, GOTYE, THE AVALANCHES DJ SHOW, COMETS ON FIRE, DEXTER, THE SLITS, SEBASTIAN AND KAVINSKY (ED BANGER TOUR), DARREN HANLON, THE DRONES, EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING, SHOOTING AT UNARMED MEN, DUDLEY PERKINS AND GEORGIA ANNE MULDROW, MUPH AND PLUTONIC, GROUND COMPONENTS, RIOT IN BELGIUM, NICK THAYER, GEORGE RRURRAMBU AND BIRDWAVE, MOUNTAINS IN THE SKY, SUNWRAE ENSEMBLE, SLEATER BROCKMAN, JAMAICA IRIE WITH RUCL AND JIGZIE CAMPBELL, MUSCLES AND MORE.

Check it all out at http://www.goldenplains.com.au

Pics and stories when I get back on Tuesday

Have a great weekend

Celebrating: International Women's Day

Well, ok, I'm not doing anything specific just yet (but you never know) but it seems like an important thing to acknowledge at the very least.

There are a bunch of events happening this week - tune into 2XXfm 98.3 if you are in Canberra for announcements or check out this website - http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

(There are 109 events in Australia alone listed - see what's happening in your area here)

Revisiting: Behind the lines - The years best cartoons

Earlier this year I attended a great exhibition of cartoons from the last year. Given the number of crappy things that happened in 2006 (Cronulla riots aftermath, AWB scam, Workchoices Industrial Relations "reforms", war in Lebanon, climate change debate, Iraq war) it was a bumper year for it.

While responding to a comment from Stuart (who seems like a top bloke, incidentally) about Conservapedia, I was reminded of a cartoon dealing with perceived left-wing bias at the ABC and managed to trawl through the archives of the National Museum of Australia website to find it.



Lo and behold, you are able to wander through the whole show - a show, ironically enough that had the right-wingers ranting about more left wing bias. (But then again, I guess it's easier to attack the messenger than to actually deal with the issues being discussed and the fact that most of them are wide open to ridicule)

You can check out all of the cartoons here and here are a few that I particularly liked. (Click on the images for fullsize view)

Putting on the back burner : Lights, Canberra, Action 2007

Ok, so after a few days consideration, I've decided that this isn't the right time to go full tilt into a Lights, Canberra, Action project.

Time is the main factor - with heading off to Meredith for the Golden Plains festival on Friday, the project would need to be submitted on Thursday night at the latest, leaving effectively two and a half days to script, shoot and edit the thing.

The theme of the competition this year is Canberra's Best Kept Secrets.

The ten locations are:

The sound of the whistle on Canberra’s Powerhouse in Kingston

The Braille on the exterior walls of the National Museum of Australia

Redpath Shoe Store in Garema Place, Civic

Bert Flugelman’s Tetrahedron sculpture in Commonwealth Park

The Berlin Wall at the Harmonie German Club in Narrabundah

Any second hand bookshop

A tunnel (any tunnel in Canberra)

All Saints Church in Ainslie

The Lobby Restaurant near Old Parliament House

The ABC News Building Northbourne Ave, Dickson

While I have three workable ideas, the simple practicalities just seem a little too insurmountable.

Just for the record, the ideas are as follows.

1. Abstract impressionist montage of the 10 locations - approx 40 secs each location - with each clip showcasing a fragment of music by a local artist (probably electronic)

2. Welcome to Canberra guide revealing TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) - The Secret Language of Canberra. The mockumentary will show how TLAs are everywhere in Canberra, from the Public Service (ABC News building) to weddings - (Do you C.R.S take R.S.M to be your L.W.W? I.D.O). From menus (the Lobby) written entirely as TLAs to art critics talking about sculptures, from people in shoe shops (CFM boots) to braille.

3. An attempt to call a cab using an apparently automated booking service which repeats back the callers desired pickup location completely randomly. It ends up that it's not a computer at all, just a guy with an attitude.

Any of these three would have worked but as I say, time is just too much of a factor now and if I am going to take my distance study for my Masters in Education seriously, I need to spend the time doing the work, not sidetracking on other plans.

Alas.

Browsing: Conservapedia (Wikipedia for Conservative Christian Americans)

I have a theory that in this world the powers that be try to maintain control over the population by keeping people divided, lazy, greedy, angry, horny and misinformed.

Particularly misinformed.

This theory has received something of a boost in recent days with my explorations of Conservapedia - a conservative version of Wikipedia

(Please note that I've found access to Conservapedia a little patchy over the last few days - there has been a surge of interest from the nerderati I suspect which may be overwhelming their server capacity)

Wikipedia is a publicly editable online encyclopedia, working on the premise that its articles are kept up to date and accurate by the ongoing, often simultaneous scrutiny of thousands of members of the Wikipedia community.

Anyone is able to contribute to a Wikipedia article and anyone is able to edit existing content - changes are noted and trackable and articles can be reverted to earlier forms if it is seen that someone is posting incorrect information.

Conservapedia works on a similar basis but has been developed as

a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness".

I guess this makes sense - after all, as Stephen Colbert says,

reality has a notoriously liberal bias

There have already been a swag of great (and hilarious) posts about Conservapedia in the blogosphere, so rather than re-invent the wheel (please note that the wheel, just like gravity and evolution is only a theory), I might just offer up some choice quotes from the commentary to date.

Actually, before I do this, I think I need to directly quote the "Gravity Controversy", just so you know I wasn't just being sarky.

Gravity controversy

Some have criticized gravity, reminding us that it is only a theory, and that no scientist has ever seen a graviton or a space curve. Furthermore, experiments done by NASA prove that the Moon is receding (moving further away) from the Earth at a rate of 3.8cm per year, directly contradicting the theory that masses attract one another[1].

Indeed, astronomers can observe that all stars in the universe are moving away from one another. The considerable disagreement between scientists about the theory of gravity suggests that, like evolution, the theory will eventually be replaced with a model which acknowledges God as the source of all things, the Prime Mover, and the only real fundamental force in the universe.

Ok, so back to the blogosphere - Jon Swift in particular has a great post about this - check it out here

For years homeschooled children have had to rely for all of their information on Wikipedia, which is full of dangerous ideas that homeschooling was supposed to prevent from seeping into the home.

Now, finally, there is an alternative, which doesn't have any controversial ideas at all: Conservapedia. Conservapedia is based on good Christian values, unlike Wikipedia, which I gather from the name, is based on Wiccan.

In Wikipedia, according to the founders of Conservapedia, "Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance." But Conservapedia gives Christianity its due for being so supportive of the work of Galileo and Copernicus.

He goes on to highlight about a dozen articles from Conservapedia, including this doozy

Theory of Relativity: "Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity.…'All things are relative' became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values.

There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity."

Now it's easy (and fun) to draw attention to the unconventional opinions of others (and boy, how deep did I have to dig to phrase that politely) but the scary thing is that not only are there a number of people out there who will take the "information" they glean from Conservapedia as fact, they believe (are led to believe more accurately I guess) that people with different view points are "the enemy".

Conservapedia also posts a list of the Conservapedia commandments (I'm surprised that there aren't 10) which are meant to ensure that content is accurate and impartial.

Check this out.

The Conservapedia Commandments

This page is the only rule page on Conservapedia. These guidelines are kept simple in order to avoid the arbitrary and biased enforcement that is rampant on many other websites. If you would like to propose an amendment to the Conservapedia Commandments click here

Ok, so let me just be clear - more rules leads to arbitary and biased enforcement?

The Commandments

1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable.
2. Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
3. Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.
5. As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.[1]
6. Do not post personal opinion on an encyclopedia entry. Opinions can be posted on Talk:pages or on debate or discussion pages.

Edits which violate these rules will be deleted. Users who violate the rules repeatedly will be blocked. A blatantly inappropriate entry, such as vandalism or obscenity, can result in immediate blocking without warning.
Notes

1. ↑ You will only be blocked for violating command 5 if you repeatedly change words from American spelling to another spelling.

This is probably my favourite aspect - we don't care what the hell - sorry, heck - you say about any topic under the sun, just make sure you don't use that deceitful foreign spelling. (And when I say foreign, of course, I mean English, coincidentally enough the name of the language.)

I will make one important (and serious) point here - I respect everyone's right to hold dear to whatever set of beliefs, ideas and values that they choose. This is a big mysterious universe that no-one has all the answers to and there is room enough for all manner of ideas.

I also believe that people have a right to politely try to share these beliefs with others - the development of culture and civilisation comes from the spreading of ideas and knowledge.

Knowing that we don't know everything is the greatest knowledge we possess - it's not necessarily very comforting or easy but (in my humble opinion) it should lie at the base of all ideas.

Fundamentalism - the absolute belief that your set of ideas are right and anyone who doesn't share them is foolish/pitiable/damned at best and a sworn enemy at worst is where this world has gotten things rather wrong. (And I apply this equally to all forms of belief from organised religions to Atheism as well as political ideologies).

Now of course, this is just my opinion and I reserve my right to hold it and to mock express wonder at those of others.

Update: Ok, while perusing the Examples of Bias in Wikipedia page on Conservapedia, I did note that they deny the Theory of Relativity post that I quoted earlier in this posting.

On examination, the Conservapedia article doesn't read like that any more - although, given the nature of Wiki based encyclopedias, it may well have at the time that Jon Swift and the Wikipedia crew were looking at it.

Watching: Some like it hot

Some like it hot is one of those films that pops up high on the critics lists of all-time best comedys and also all-time best films. (Let's put aside for a minute the fact that these are all invariably American and British films that get chosen).



It also seems to crop up time and time again whenever you speak to someone who did any kind of cinema studies at uni. In spite of all this, it's been one of the "classic" films that I've never quite gotten around to seeing until last night.

(The closest we got to it at uni was another classic Billy Wilder film - Double Indemnity)

If you haven't had a chance to see Some Like It Hot, it tells the story of two male musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who witness the St Valentines Day massacre in Chicago, 1929. Their only chance to get out of town and away from the gangsters who are chasing them is to disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band heading to Florida.

They meet Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe - I'm starting to see what the fuss is all about now) as well as a quirky millionaire, the gangsters turn up at their Florida hotel for a mob convention (Friends of Italian Opera) and things get crazier from there.

A lot of Some Like It Hot moments have passed into pop culture history, so that even when you haven't seen the movie, scenes jump out at you from the dozens of references you will have seen. Marilyn doing the boop-boop-be-doo thing, Lemmon and Curtis trying to get used to walking down the train platform as women and even minor characters like the randy bellhop (as seen in the Mindy episode of The Simpsons)

The humour holds up well - Jack Lemmon in particular is an astonishing comic performer and Tony Curtis backs him up admirably, the pace is brisk, the dialogue witty and even the bedroom farce style of the piece (people rushing around in and out of doors in chase scenes) seems fresh.

There are also a few post-modern moments - I'll admit I only found out about them in reading trivia about the film afterwards but noticed that there was something about them at the time. George Raft, playing the lead gangster, mocks a minor gangster with a habit of flipping a coin with the line - "Where did you pick up that cheap trick?"

It turns out that George Raft is well remembered for his role in the original (1932) Scarface as a hood with a habit of flipping a coin.

There has been so much written about this film that I'm sure that my offerings aren't going to add a whole lot to the discussion but I will say that it is definitely deserving of it's classic status and is well worth a look if you haven't yet had a chance.

Next time I'll tell you about another new film I've discovered that you may not have heard of - Citizen Kane ;)

Preparing for: Lights, Canberra, Action

Well, perhaps preparing is a bit of an exaggeration - at this point I don't have much of a clue what to do or how to do it. There are still 10 hours though so nothing to sweat about.

Lights, Canberra, Action is a short film competition run as part of the annual Celebrate Canberra festival - a 10 day extravaganza dedicated to showcasing the many interesting things about ONC (our nations capital).

The competition allows you 10 days to make a short film of up to 7 minutes and must include 10 items (generally locations) which are provided at the start of the competition. Extra points are given for working to the theme of the festival - this year it's "Canberra's best kept secrets".

I've entered this competition each time it's been held - in 2004, 2005 and 2006 - with varied results. (Unsuccesful finalist in 2004 & 2005 - though in my humble opinion criminally robbed of best screenplay in 2005)

The 2006 effort was a brave failure - far too ambitious for the time frame. I tried to incorporate machinima, sequences of still photos animated, relatively complicated commentary on the Cole (AWB scandal) inquiry and Flash animation into the one thing and just didn't get there. (As far as I'm concerned, it's still unfinished)

Some of the lessons I've learnt over the last three years - group scriptwriting generally doesn't work (someone has to take the lead), the more people relied upon the more difficult organisation is, Flash animation is a bastard to convert to video, a simple story well told is better than something with layers upon layers (don't be too clever for your own good), don't affectionately take the piss out of Canberra in a festival that is part of the celebrate Canberra festival and do spend the time getting your script right.

Other lessons are that there are some fantastic people out there who are reliable, helpful, surprisingly talented and giving of their time.

I haven't yet had a chance to put these works online but when I do I'll pop them up here.

Thoughts for this years are, as I mentioned, fairly vague. Even though I'm pretty sure also that it's only you, me and the cat reading this blog, I'm still a little reluctant to put them up online just yet.

There is a chance I'll take out the PXL2000 though - a toy video camera released by Fisher Price in the late 80s which uses audio tape to record video. It produces very pixelly black and white images and I've really been hankering for a chance to make something with it for a while.



This is a bit of a prime example of putting the technology before the story though, always a bad idea, so we will just have to see where it might go first.

The timeframe this year is going to be a little compressed though, as I'm off to the Golden Plains music festival at the end of next week (heading off on Friday) and the films are due on the Monday, so whatever I/we do, it's going to have to be pretty easy. This is where a good story will make all the difference.