Course 3 – Nosce Te Ipsum

Final Project

March 14, 2015
by Muhammad

It was very interesting that during the course of this project our long time project at Western Academy of Beijing to upgrade the media server finally saw it’s completion and we went live with our brand new Tiger Tube as we lovingly call it here. The reasons behind the need to change our media platform were plenty. For the foremost reason that the platform running our old media server was no more supported by it’s coder and then the very serious issue of not having HTML5 support making it impossible to view the media on an iOS device. With our early learning up to grade 2 levels flooded with iPads and their almost daily use of the devices it was a real inconvenience.

Finally, when our new media server went live the technology integrators and I sat down to review the methodology we should adapt in introducing the new platform to our users. At the same point the key question came up about copyright and digital citizenship aspect of the content our school creates relentlessly! We had seen blatant use of copyright music, images and videos in previous productions – since 2010 we have collected +40,000 images and +50,000 videos on our servers! After scratching our heads for a minute or two and a couple of meetings drafting our ‘Media Guidelines’ I threw in an idea of making a video to explain the ‘media guidelines’ to the whole school population including staff and students. Now, I have to say that I do not like the image of my face and the sound of my voice in any shape and form and have not done this kind of thing before but being part of COETAIL was what gave me the confidence in even putting this idea forward. It was taken up rapidly by the team and now although we are on ‘draft’ with our written guidelines the video product is finished. We filmed it in our maker space and I edited, mixed and finalised it with upload to our own media server. It is only when I was done with it I felt double relieved. I had just finished my COETAIL Course 3 final project !!! Of course given it is admitted and qualified and approved by Kim 🙂 Here is the video!

We think this is the best way to get the important aspects of respecting copyright in digital media productions are passed on to our content creators and help them be a better digital citizen.

I will let you be the judge of it!

Course 3

Simple, Appealing and Effective

March 14, 2015
by Muhammad

Infographics are all that and more. They have also come a long way from 1626 when they are thought to have been invented but today’s technology has made them a very attractive way of putting a lot of information and data on one single sided piece of paper though sometimes we do need a rather large size of paper to have the text legible.

During the academic year I am called upon to explain Internet and its workings to students, specially in high school and I always find it useful to work with infographics as I have limited time and a lot of information to pass on. One of the infographic I would use is global Internet traffic maps similar to the one below:

Photo Credit: NetMapper via Compfight cc

I always find it interesting that very few of the students actually understand how the data flows through the Internet and this image puts the perspective right in front of them! From then onwards it is easier for me to go through the inner workings and principles of Internet traffic and the way our experiences are dependant on a vast number of factors.

True to the focus of this course I always have to add more information in terms of content which uses various other forms of visual literacy and I always find that this video from ‘Data Centers Canada’ explains it so well in about five minutes.

The resulting curiosity and questions as well as understanding automatically leads to a meaningful fulfilment of the purpose of my tiny contribution to learner’s journey of knowledge.

If you also have to explain the workings of Internet to your students you may want to use the wonderful app developed by Peer 1 Hosting and available to download for iOS and Android devices. It puts the 3D spin on visualising Internet in a mind boggling way. I love to show this to students.

Course 3

1001 Nights

March 14, 2015
by Muhammad

Arabian Story Telling – Image from Wikimedia – Licensed for reuse

Yes, that is the name of a restaurant in Beijing which serves great middle eastern food but that is not why I mention it as my blog post’s title 🙂

The art of story telling is probably as old as we humans are. As I expressed my thoughts on the use of imagery in story telling of old times I can continue to expand on the techniques and strategies which old time story tellers used and how with time we have developed them especially in the 21st century how the technology has improved the way we tell stories. I do not see it as a change because our essential underlying goal is still same. We have only developed innovative ways to use the methods and technology available to us today in the best possible manner to enhance our abilities in this skill.

To me digital storytelling has various shapes and forms and not limited to the

Digital Storytelling – Image from Flicker – Licensed for reuse

conventional way of our understanding. It is not only when special apps are used but usage of any form of imagery and all that falls under the heading of visual literacy to then create a story to connect with your audience and share your learning is digital storytelling for me.

At Western Academy of Beijing media and digital storytelling is engraved into the technology integration and the proof lies in the fact that for last five years our media server has been used with nearly 50000 videos available online created by students to relate their learning journeys. From early childhood to high school our students create wonderful narratives using techniques learned in the lessons and by themselves. Here is a wonderful example:

Course 3

From “Death” by PowerPoint to “Alive” by PowerPoint

March 8, 2015
by Muhammad

I used the name ‘PowerPoint’ in the title of this post just for the sake of famous quote although over last 5 years I have come to use Keynote more. Yet, I see in my school almost every teacher and administrator, apart from the few ‘cool’ ones 🙂 still using PowerPoint, starting by taking school’s template which itself, in my opinion, needs a big rethink.

In many of the school lessons, workshops, conferences, keynotes and all those instances when a presentation is either deemed a requirement or is used just for the sake of it I still see the power getting sucked out of the whole exercise and point of ‘death’ approach swiftly.

By mentioning all that above does not mean that at times I have not fallen into the same trap of using standard template with bland and bulleted text… a lot of text… on slides which simply move from one overwhelmingly text rich page to another resulting in the ‘death’ of the point I actually wanted to make! This had to be done when a presentation was expected but not required and I was to leave the presented material with the audience for ‘record’ in case they were actually listening to me repeating the words on screen and not jotting down the ‘highlights’ of my presentation. Now that I think about this and am writing down this blog post another questions comes to my mind – yes irrelevant to this course and post on surface but perhaps deeply connected? – If in a presentation the goal is to get the message across to audience hence you need their full, undivided attention till the last ‘slide’ then the more image rich ‘zen presentation’ style is perfect but then what happens if they come up to you and say “I forgot to take notes – could you please send me your presentation?”. My answer to my own question is: either teach our young ones to get tuned with visual literacy more so that their cognitive skills are developed in the way where retention and quality of information collected through visuals is better than the ones jotted down on piece of paper with pen or, well, record your presentation and then upload it to the web: share with your audience 😉

Back to my own lousy presentation. Here it is:

As you may see this was a pure ‘death by powerpoint’ style and if I had to do this all over again I would make it effective, engaging and more visually appealing by:

Collect images and videos from my school directly targeting the topic of my presentation.
Add text only to highlight a point or make a heading when moving on to the next point.
Turn my presentation into a movie with the new slides and my voiceover for narration if it is for online viewing, or
Request someone to make a video of myself while presenting and then upload the video for audience’s reference later when they need.

Course 3

Images, Images, Images

March 8, 2015
by Muhammad

I remember reading through my history books and almost every ancient civilisation I read about one thing was common. The primary method of communication, teaching, recording? Yes, you got it right… Images!. Living in China made me read about Chinese language and you can read for yourself how images of objects played a part in development of Chinese language

Image from Wikipedia – Searched via Google Image search with ‘Labeled for reuse’ filter

Most of the ancient languages we know about were all in shape and form of images which highlight how important images are in not only story telling, teaching younger generations about our past but also to preserve the past in a sort of ‘universal language’ which need not extreme efforts to ‘decrypt’ in future.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the sound effects in the Youtube video below 🙂 but the excellent narration, cross referencing and the story line circling back to the importance of visual literacy in education wasn’t dampen by the audio visual effects.

Content Warning: Video contains some images of torture, blood and violence. Viewers discretion advised.

The thing is that this video explained in such an excellent way my own opinion about the place of visual literacy in education that I have nothing else to add but to leave you with another video by famous George Lucas – also talking about the visual literacy in schools.

Although American University student Cooper Nordquist, 21, uses his laptop most of the day, he still likes to read from the printed word for enjoyment. Despite that fact that most college students do a majority of their socializing and school work electronically, many still like to read from actual hard copy printed books. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

During my Internet research on this topic I also came across this article which is the text version, if you are interested 🙂 🙂 in reading. The article is a bit dated but it shows that the discussion surrounding visual literacy is not new and has been going around in education sector since the start of this new century and if there are any concerns from traditional and conservative educators in these new approaches they should find peace in the news I read a couple of weeks ago. Here is the link for you to read through it.

Course 3

Visual Literacy: Why we need it?

March 2, 2015
by Muhammad

Dr. Kennedy in his TEDx talk covers a lot of information about visual literacy and if you do not want to go through all the 16 minutes I picked up some highlights of it below?

Visual literacy is the ability to construct meaning through images
Visual literacy is not a new concept: In 1969 International visual literacy association was established
Humanity took 2500 years to get to typing / printing information
But only another 500 years to where we are now!
Everything is an image and a text: Visual literacy is multi modal, multi disciplinary, interdisciplinary and collaborative.
90% information taken in by a human is visual
30% of brain cortex is dedicated to vision
We shall look, see, describe, analyse, interpret and construct meaning
Why is it that educational leaders do not think about including visual literacy as an interdisciplinary part of curriculum and not only as visual arts subject?

I, myself agree with Dr. Kennedy that it is through images that we learn. It has been proven time and again through so many research and educational works that visual literacy is more important than any other forms of literacy required by the human.

You might not realize it, but your brain is a code-cracking machine.

For emaxlpe, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.

S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17.

From: LiveScience

What I have quoted above is an example of “Typoglycemia” which I believe utilises the power of visual literacy in our brain. Even the words are stored in form of a shape in our brain and as long as the outward shapes of the word are recognisable it does not matter which order the characters are arranged within!

I have so many examples to give in order to express my belief about the importance of images in our lives and the role they play in our learning. We all know subliminal messages and the research which has gone into it. We now watch more than we read. The technological revolution has assisted our ability to consume more via images. So much so that I just read this article today in BBC. What do you think about this article? Do you think we have become too visual? I am not sure of the answer but one thing I agree with. We have digital image overload!

Imagine what the reaction of world could have been if there were no handheld camera integrated devices to record the Charlie Hebdo shootings and then no TV and Internet to spread it around the world in minutes! Imagine how the political conflicts and wars are manipulated simply via images! This subject is too deep for me to cover in one post hence will continue to ponder over my thoughts on this and establish a way to communicate them with you: my audience. Excuse me if I start using imagery to convince you of my point! 🙂

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Category: Course 3

Final Project

Simple, Appealing and Effective

1001 Nights

From “Death” by PowerPoint to “Alive” by PowerPoint

Images, Images, Images

Content Warning: Video contains some images of torture, blood and violence. Viewers discretion advised.

Visual Literacy: Why we need it?