First Day of Computer Services Camp (or, as AJ would say . . . OOOO DaNG!)

The Juniors straggled in from their first morning of their internships to find . . . . EVERY COMPUTER IN THE LAB WAS UNPLUGGED! Lejia, our intrepid intern, had come in before the session to unplug the computers . What was the purpose of this activity? One student (whose name I do not yet know, but I promise to learn very, very soon) was quick to realize that it was part of the lesson plan: Students had to solve the mystery of what was wrong with the computer. AJ asked the students HOW they thought about solving the problem. Did they think "First I'm going to make sure that there is power, then I am going to make sure there is an internet connection" or did they just grab a cord and look to see where it fit and plug it in? One student pointed out that the cords were also color coded.

The next part of the lesson was about "What is a system?"
AJ showed a video called "Fish Love" to get the students thinking about how the ecology is a system, how food is a system, and how systems relate to computers as a whole.

AJ then moved in to discussing how computers work in a very basic manner, describing that they all need power to transfer data and that therefore computers also have lots of fast-moving, heat-generating parts. This lead to the first discussion of troubleshooting methods and techniques for isolating problems with a computer.

Eliza took over after break. She let AJ become "Ed McMan" for the hours to follow, sitting in the fun desk at the back of the classroom. This happens to be the first time Eliza has worked with the class of 2012! She had them all write their names on the placards, which belong to PTE, but that we'll use just this one time, so that she can learn the students' names.

After giving a small introduction, Eliza jumped to a brief overview of the actual parts of a computer system.

"This is the motherboard, it connects all the parts and data. You can call it the Mama!"
North bridge, south bridge, Random Access Memory, etc...

It's LIVE BLOG TIME:
2:13PM
ELIZA: And when you save a file, where does it go?
STUDENTS: The Hard Drive.

2:15 to 2:24PM
We messed a around a lot with files and saving PPTs in the right spot.

AJ THOUGHTS: Students seem to not do so well creating their own folders and understanding the network. Also, we were confusing. By this time in ITA, we need to do a better job of having the students independently create folders in the network so that they are comfortable with their own file organization.

2:28
NOTE: Core 2 is like generation 2... DUO or QUAD refers to the number of cores in the processor.
NOTE: A slash in the specifications means there is an option! (Core 2 Quad / Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo)

Last Day!!!

Today was a bit of a patchwork, what with it being a shortened session and Elizabeth being gone. But, she was here in spirit, partly because she made brownies for the class and dropped them off early. So, yay! Nummy brownies!!! And they were, in fact, particularly nummy.

Several of the students were finished with everything expected, including their BTWs and Showcase projects, so we rewarded them with a movie day, showing a film that AJ picked out called "Talk to Me." It's a docudrama about a DJ in the 1970s. The students liked it, but what's not to like about a movie and brownies?

The students who still had things to do were able to work in another room, and there was plenty to get done. Some had road tests or permit tests to take, BTWs to finish, or Showcase projects to work on. A lot got done--the perfect way to end an ITA session.

Thanks to everyone for a great semester!

Digital Audio - day 2 to final!

Elizabeth's last day of digital audio for the semester . . . tear :(

Students entered the room in spurts - Jose asked about Elizabeth's birthday and everyone wished her a happy birthday, which included a big birthday hug from Anny!! Thanks Anny - you're awesome!

To celebrate/start the day off, Elizabeth showed the class a funny youtube video about getting your wisdom teeth out - this girl, obviously strongly affected by the drugs, starts talking about riding a magical unicorn and eating papyas! It was pretty awesome and the class had a good laugh, and immediately suggested another video in the same vein - Dave after the dentist. We watched this one too (this one of a cute little 7-8 year old boy) as he tried to process through what was happening to him!

After these fun interludes, Paul launched the class into work time, explaining the results of the BTW grading and responsibilities on the showcase. The class worked diligently (basically :) we know how to enjoy one another's company) Jaylah and Carrie went to a separate conference room to record a few more lines, Alli, Ninah, and Taylor McDonald finished everything up quickly and were able to spend time relaxing, and Anny, Tenzin, Jose, and Diana's group soon finished things up and worked on their showcase projects. (and made funny feedback noises accidentally with their skype accounts . . . ;) We were without Taylor Hill today sadly, so Keke diligently worked by herself to finish their project, editing away!

At 1:50, it was time for the final show - the road test!!

Acid Session 7

The 7th session of the Sony Acid Unit this semester is about to commence! ..in exactly 3...2...1...0...-1...-2...-3 ...NOW!

Today's session was a very worktime-oriented one, with a short continued lesson from the previous session on mastering with Audacity, and the second Permit Test attempt at the end of the session. The majority of the lab time was used for the students to work on their BTW and Showcase projects.

Chris, starting the day off with the Mastering with Audacity lesson, covered topics such as rendering, normalization, and compression--and shortly following the lesson, the students were given a small challenge which allowed them to directly apply the terms and skills they were just introduced to during the Mastering lesson.

After the lesson, challenge, and first break, the students got right to work, either working on their BTWs or their showcase projects. The students were making great progress on their Acid BTW projects, however, when it came to the showcase projects, a lot of them were far behind and needed ideas on what type of project they wanted to create with this year's showcase theme of "Fun with Numbers." So a lot of the questions and session time ended up revolving much around the showcase projects, seeing as how mostly everyone was in pretty good shape with their BTW progress; they were either just about finished, finishing up, or already done with them.

Finally, with about half an hour remaining in the session, the students began taking their second attempt at the Acid Permit Test and the little time they had after they completed the permit test was used as additional worktime for BTW and Showcase projects.

Overall it was a pretty productive session.

The Final Conquest: BTW

Welcome back to another fine Saturday and another ITA session! Paul having recently gotten his wisdom teeth out, Elizabeth began the day with short clip from the Red Green show (on how to take old appliances, namely stoves and refrigerators, and turn them into office furniture for teenagers. Riveting!) The class got a bit of a laugh to start off the day :)

Following, the class got to listen to Radio Lab, a show similar to this American Life. The show was on Numbers, featuring stories about babies' concept of numbers (according to an awesome French scientist who does experiments by putting sponges with electrodes on babies' heads - crazy!!) as well as how crime can be investigated using the natural patterns of numbers by looking from deviance from those natural laws. Afterwards, the class talked about the use of sound effects and the splicing of the lines - everyone agreed that it was a little hard to follow sometimes, but it kept the audience's attention! (quack, quack, quack!)

After a short break, Elizabeth gathered the class with a learn@uw quiz, including questions on the due date of the BTW :)

And then the work began in earnest! Groups set off to complete and polish up their BTWs. Tenzin, Anny, Diana, and Jose were pretty much finished, but spent some time polishing and getting more sound effects. Keke was gone again today, so Taylor was joined by Michelle and Jose to record the lines for their project and then finish editing. Alli, Nina, and Taylor M also spent a little time completing and polishing. Great work today everyone!

The class ended with blog time and Elizabeth continuing to encourage work on the showcase projects. Hurray hurray! It's the end of the day!

THE RETURN: OF ITA!!

Here we are, all back from spring break!! Though perhaps not all the students were quite as enthusiastic about this fact, Paul and Elizabeth started the day anticipating smooth sailing. Before spring break, the BTWs were purported to be nearly done - all we needed to do was finish things up, and send 'em off!

To liven things up a bit, and as per AJ's suggestion, Paul and Elizabeth had an example of professional level radio drama to start the class off. This American Life, a production of Public Radio, is one of AJ's favorite shows and provided a good intro to the class. The students listened to the 400th episode, in which the producers decided to undertake the most difficult task imaginable: taking stories their parents had pitched to them and make them into entertaining radio. Now of course, their parents were thinking of stories along the lines of the Erie Canal or the personality of Enron. The challenging story the class listened to was on "Funny Funerals". Many students seemed to enjoy it a lot - Diana was giggling through some of it and there were a couple times when students burst out into all out laughter (sometimes all by themselves as not everyone has quite the same sense of humor).

After listening to stories of ministers exiting funerals into a closet door and humorous masses in other Ukrainian, AJ and Elizabeth led a discussion to get a feel for what the students thought. AJ pointed out the fact that, though this story was only about 10 minutes long, this producer probably had 3 hours or so of other audio she had to sort through to create this story. When asked how the producer had made this difficult topic interesting and funny, Jose and Diana mentioned the different music and voices she used - Elizabeth added how much she had appreciated a scene where the producer particularly recorded the elevator music and commerical recording while she was on hold at a funeral :) Overall, the students learned a little bit more about story-crafting, and how to technically construct things well to make them interesting.

This discussion took up a good chunk of education time, so Paul did a quick review on more advanced concepts like clipping, different kinds of cords and mics, buses, normalization . . . the students took it all in (hopefully) and then went on break!

The due date for the BTWs was the end of class, yet it soon became apparent that this was a bit of a shock. Taylor was in a group with Keke and had been absent the past few weeks, so she didn't know much of what was happening and Keke was absent today. So she and Elizabeth worked on the script Keke and Taylor had agreed upon at the beginning of working on the project.

Tenzin, Diana, Michelle, and Jose's group unfortunately had difficulties saving and ALL their dialogue was lost - having to start from scratch, the whole group ended up in the recording studio, working well together.

Jaylah and Malibu's group also had difficulties and lost some of their project. They ended up in the copy machine room rewriting and rerecording. (as the conference room was locked)

Alli, Ninah, and Taylor, however, saved correctly! They all worked very well together the entire BTW time, various screams and bird call sound effects erupting every once in a while from their side of the room :)

Around 2:10, after all the craziness of discovering the missing projects and scrambling to get everyone set, Paul called the class together for the second permit test attempt. After this was over, Paul directed the students towards blogging, as Elizabeth spoke with Jaylah and Malibu about getting their .wav files off of the H2 recorder and saving them.

Though Paul and Elizabeth's dreams of completed, shiny, new BTWs were not realized, the day ended on a hopeful note - Paul announced that the class would have a whole other day to work on their BTWs!! Good planning Paul. Hopefully this extra time will allow everyone to complete projects they enjoy and are proud of.

Until next (two) week!

ACID 4/10/10

The day started off with the students taking a learn@uw quiz. Chris went on to explain mastering in Audacity. Garrett was wise-crackin' as usual with his whole "lil' dude" thing with Chris. We told them that today was the first official BTW day so to get started with their song.

The artist of the day was Lady Gaga. We got to the "Bad Romance" music video during break and the whole class (including Chris) kept singing "Roma Ro-ma-ma-a... Ga Ga ooh la la..."

The students came back from break and were hard at work with their BTW projects. Although, there was frustration in the air. Richie, at a point, started to lose confidence and told Chris "Hey... this sucks." AJ and Chris helped motivate him to be creative and work on developing what he started. Marleny needed help getting a solid rhythm going so I helped set her on the right path and AJ further aided her in making the drums sound cleaner.

Overall, the session went well and the students got a lot done.