Earlier today I posted about a project designed to encourage students to gain an understanding of how sources in history can be utilised to build an argument or an account relating to an event, personality or period in history.

Back in 1996, together with artist Nathan Simpson, I created a fictitious landscape back that is bleak and empty of human life. The object for the students was to gather a variety of clues and piece together what has happened. I have reworked a few more images from the project and smaller copies of the same are displayed below together with those also posted earlier.

How would you use these images? A wiki? A blog? A dedicated web site? Allow the students to take the images and rework them and add additional clues?

The completed project will include additional images that depict the embedded clues in an enlarged format.

Simply based on the images shown below what do you think befell the denizens of this landscape?

Opening scene

Closer view of the town

Exterior view of house

Interior view of house

Exterior view of library

Interior view of library

Exterior view of metro rail station

Interior view of metro rail station

Exterior view of research laboratory

Interior view of research laboratory

I installed Twitterfon on this iPhone tonight. I have been using Tweetie to monitor the Twitter stream.

Twitterfon incorporates a similar feature set and functionality as Tweetie. Twitterfon does feature an autofresh and an autoscroll to the previous update. They are handy.

Yet I still prefer Tweetie. It features an interface similar to the iChat app on the Mac as well as the Text (SMS) aapp on the iPhone. It is purely a visual thing. One other thing, embedded links in Tweetie are active and can be forwarded to other sources.

The initial image displays Twitterfon and the second Tweetie.

Opening scene to “Hunger City” [1996][Large][Original]

Back in 1996 I created a HyperCard stack titled “Hunger City”. It was inpired by two factors. The first was David Bowie’s introductory sequence to the album Diamond Dogs, entitled Future Legend. The second factor was to create a tool that would allow students to explore a range of different types of evidence and then draw their own conclusion. This is a skill required of students in the study of history. They examine the various historical sources, look for accuracy, bias and the like and compose their views regarding the event, personality or subject matter. Science fiction crept into the story for this project as well.

I enlisted the assistance of a former student for this project, Nathan Simpson. I taught Nathan Introductory French language when he was in Year Eight back in 1987. Later I managed the school rock band, The Evicted, in which Nathan was the bass player. Nathan is an excellent artist and over the years we have collaborated on a number of projects. Nathan is an accomplished artist and worthy of your exploration. I shall be MC at his wedding later in the year.

I took Nathan’s original black and white sketches, that were created using pencil, ink, charcoal and toothpaste and reworked them using Photoshop.

Nathan created the original artwork for this HyperCard stack. We sat down together and I shared my storyboard ideas with Nathan. The vision was for a bleak city of the future without human survivors. I am resurrecting the artwork for an online version of the activity. I am reworking the graphics and updating the embedded evidence.

Key navigational elements in “Hunger City” [1996][Large]

When students explored the HyperCard stack they were able to collect “clues” and make notes. The desolate city that was the underlying metaphor for the ‘story’ featured four areas that were enriched with clues: House, Library, Metro station and a Research Lab. The objective for the students was to determine what had happened to “Hunger City” and report back. I am updating this process with current tools in mind.

So, using the evidence presented in just the two scenes above what do you think happened to the denizens of “Hunger City”? There are many more scenes in the pipeline.

I am thinking of renaming “Hunger City”. What would you name this place? Mortopolis? The Place of the Dead? The Bleak?I would be happy to read your ideas.

I had the good fortune to attend a presentation given by Stephen Downes today at the University of Wollongong courtesy of the Faculty of Education. I once worked within the faculty as a member of the Interactive Multimedia Learning Laboratory a decade back. Much has changed within the faculty since those heady days. I digress. I live just a couple of kilometres away from the university by car.

It was good to bump into Ian Olney of the UOW as well as Gary Molloy from St Joseph’s at Hunters Hill and also Sui Fui John Mak of the Sydney Institute of TAFE. Gary and I later had a chat about activities at our respective schools. I also had the chance to catch up with Garry Hoban and meet Nicola Johnson, both of the Faculty of Education at the UOW. Nicola has blogged about the event as well.

Stephen with myself, Gary Molloy and Sui Fui John Mak

Garry Hoban, Stephen and Nicola Johnson

The title of Stephen’s presentation was Connectivist Learning and the Personal Learning Environment. As the abstract for the presentation set out Stephen spoke of the strategies that educators could employ to design learning for online delivery.

Stephen outlined the strategies employed by himself and George Siemens employed to conduct their Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course during the final quarter of last year. It was an interesting talk. Stephen’s presentation was personable, relaxed and enjoyable. Components of his presentation can be found within the body of these two recent presentations: 

The Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Course
Connectivism: A Theory of Personal Learning 

Stephen pointed out that the course attracted 2200 participants. He illustrated that the connectivist aspect of the process better suited courses with large enrollments as opposed to those with enrolments with, say, 30 students. It occurred to me that perhaps multiple tertiary institutions could deploy an approach to impart generic introductory course subjects. Faculty often teach those subjects when they have drawn the short straw. Staff could  focus on the more topic specific subjects once freed up from the mass delivery of course opening materials. Just an idea.

The key ideas and approaches can be garnered from Stephen’s presentations. An approach in which the connections between participants within an open environment facilitate learning and not a simple shoveling of data across a student cohort.

A number managed to share a quick cuppa and a bite to eat with Stephen following the presentation. A good afternoon was had by all.