Before you actually bring a creation to life, do you pre-design? Do you sketch out ideas? Do you randomly doodle until inspiration hits? Do you think about a problem you want to address and then go for a walk to help yourself sort out your thoughts?

Personally, I have some projects that I’ve just jumped into without a first or second thought, just because I wanted to experiment with a medium or with some random idea that suddenly popped into my head. I have a number of other projects, though, that were so carefully outlined and thought out that people thought I was crazy.

Both ways work for me. What works best for you? Do you have a preferred design routine?

Last month, Rosa Say asked people in her Ho’ohana community to step up this month and post on hospitality and customer service. Despite the fact my job, teaching, is primarily about customer service and making people feel comfortable, relaxed, and generally good, I stared at the request and thought, ‘But I have nothing to contribute to the conversation.’

Last week, Scott Ginsberg posted the following Qreativity note to his Facebook: Is your service philosophy so good … that other companies STEAL it?

I used to participate in a Renaissance recreation LARP (live-action roleplaying game). Toward the end of my time in the game, I ran the gate for one of the larger events, one that brought people from all over the country. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. People found out I was running the gate and volunteered to help me out. Our job was fairly easy: we greeted people as they came in, collected the entrance fee and all the appropriate releases and medical forms, and sent them on their way.

There was no shelter, so I acquired a portable gazebo that we set up for the gate crew to hide out in (It was March in South Texas.) We put a bunch of chairs inside the pavilion around the two tables. I had brought some water and snacks for the gate crew, and then others brought us more as the weekend wore on. Performers came up to practice in the quiet around the gate, which meant we had entertainment. Others just came up to visit me, and often ended up helping out. It was a calm, relaxed, fun weekend at that gate.

After the event, one of the women who had worked on the gate posted a message to a list for an in-game group we were both part of. She was part of a small group that ran a much smaller event in her area of the country, and she was praising me for how I ran my gate. In fact, she was planning to steal what she saw and implement it at her own event.

I was flabbergasted. As far as I knew, we’d just sat there, processed people in to the event, snacked, chatted, and generally had fun while we worked. I asked her what specifically she would be stealing, and she said it was all about my organization and the spirit I cultivated around the gate by including food and encouraging people to come visit and entertain us. By doing so little, I’d made the gate crew, the first people seen at the event, a lively, efficient bunch.

Sometimes, providing good service is as simple as taking care of those who are supposed to be providing the service.

I’m not one for most Metallica (or metal in general, for that matter), but I do love harp music, so I had to check out Harptallica when I heard about them earlier this week.

They do actually cover one of the two Metallica songs I like, and from what little of it is there, it’s really not too bad. Then again, just the idea of someone playing Metallica on a harp sounded cool.

Check them out, especially if you think harps should be reserved for classical music and elegant affairs. You might just be surprised.

I realize I don’t normally review cartoons I’ve recently checked out, but I felt compelled for reasons that will probably become obvious quickly.

This weekend, my favorite Saturday morning line-up is premiering a cartoon that’s actually a year old. Di-Gata Defenders is a Canadian cartoon about a kingdom that was once protected from a bad guy when four people sealed him up in four stones. (I’m going to others’ descriptions for that part. I haven’t seen the first episode, where I assume the backstory is laid out clearly, yet.) The magic of the stones is starting to fade, though, and four children (two boys, two girls), descended from the original defenders, are being trained to handle this menace.

These four youngsters control magic abilites that manifest through dice with sigils on them. Both the die and the sigil matter in what magic the youthful defender can perform and at what strength. (And doesn’t that sound like a game you can, or could, find at your local game shop…) They all have mastered at least two of the sigils. Unsurprisingly, the four seem to be coded to the four elements- the boys representing fire and air, the girls water and earth.

The characters are engaging. The air and earth defenders are brother and sister, but that’s so downplayed in the early episodes I got to see that I didn’t realize it until I read the website. The fire character is a charming, yet flawed, natural leader who’s still all kid. The water character is adorable. She keeps trying to sing…something she should probably never, ever do again. The group is quickly joined by a fifth, a skilled thief who immediately takes to the water character and annoys the fire character.

To make matters worse, this game-based, well-charactered cartoon has some of the best writing I’ve seen in a cartoon in a while. And it’s about to be dropped in between Chaotic, another fairly young game-based cartoon that seems to be trying to find its way, and Yu-Gi-Oh, which may or may not be around in the fall. The rumor is that 4Kids is reorganizing their line-up to focus on nothing but game-based, boy-targeted cartoons. (Their girl line-up, with the notable exception of Winx Club, has sucked for years, so I’m actually glad for the change.)

My concern (other than I won’t get to see this line-up unless it’s moved immediately to the Video on Demand area of the 4Kids site) is that Di-Gata is going to cause more problems for 4Kids than it’s going to solve. While 4Kids does have some passably written properties that are rumored to be staying around for the fall, Di-Gata is better. Add to that the fact that people who attack 4Kids tend to blame the writing on the voice actors (Don’t ask. I don’t get that one, either.), and that Di-Gata doesn’t involve a single 4Kids actor, and I have a bad feeling they’re going to come under even greater fire.

Di-Gata Defenders is a pretty cool little cartoon. It’ll be interesting to see how it holds up.

Perhaps that should read “Interactive fiction as a training tool”.  Either way, it would appear that I’ve uncovered a way to turn a writing form that intrigues me into a tool that my teaching self would approve of.

The method really kind of reminds me of the SkillSoft course on behavioral interviewing from a few years ago, but I can easily see how that would work. In fact, I think my interactive piece I was working on last summer (that’s currently gathering dust while I try to knock out Dead Bunny work) actually fits within this because it had varying levels of rightness.

I think if done well, it might also be helpful in teaching children how to interact with each other.

Very interesting. Very flexible artform.

As my students frequently note, I am somewhat Socratic in my teaching methods. I teach them a concept, and then as we review and practice it, I ask questions when they are lost. While they grumble about the fact I won’t just tell them what they already know, it’s quick to show me what they’re confused about so I can help clarify and it shows them that they can rely on themselves for the answers. In fact, a number of them have told me that’s how they now get through class. If they can’t remember something, they ask themselves what I would ask them, and get themselves back on track.

Being Socratic has been a wonderful tool for teaching in my current position, but I think I’ve really only developed it in the past two years or so. Of course, because I’ve relied more on it than my old teaching styles, it’s now my reflex teaching method. This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s making things interesting as I create more material for Dead Bunny.

The Socratic method requires the teacher to be there asking questions, probing to help the student find their way through a skill. That’s something a blog post, a PDF quick-facts sheet, and a video tutorial cannot do. I’m still in the process of creating the first tutorial, and I think one of my biggest problem spots right now is the script. I’m used to demonstrating a skill, and then directing practice by questioning, but the video won’t allow for that for obvious reasons. Even when I teach myself how to create a more interactive learning unit, I know I won’t be in the program questioning.

I could try to predict the common questions that will come up, but I know from experience that students don’t always run into the same problems. I’d hate to throw useless questions at a student who just wants a better understanding of a skill. How do I sooth my inner Socratic teacher in this case?

So far, the best I can do is write as clearly as I can, addressing the basic steps necessary for the skill and trying to cover the more common trouble spots. It’s forcing me to teach in a more direct manner than I’ve ever taught in my life. In fact, I’m having to write this material from my training frame of mind instead of my teacher way of mind.

Can multimedia have a Socratic aspect to it, too? I don’t know, but I’m willing to explore and find out.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to a fabulous, free resource in your community. That’s right, in your community. You don’t have to go far to make use of it. It’s your local library. Gone are the days when the library was full of old, moldy books that might or might not help you with school reports. Libraries today house multimedia collections, newest releases, and offer great programming for the public.

Brick-and-mortar libraries have a blended collection of books, videos and DVDs, and music collections. How-to books that come with multimedia components often have their multimedia component included. Books just released to the public can be found through the library on day of release (or shortly thereafter if your library does what mine does and converts certain books to hardcover). If you’re trying to learn about something, the library is a great resource to allow you to find a dearth of information for free. If they don’t have books on the topic, then they have internet access so you can hunt down what you need online.

Many libraries also have websites that will allow you to check on your library account (no more late books because you forgot when they’re due), place holds for books you want to read (and you can see where you are in the hold queue), and allow you to “check-out” e-books and audio books.
More and more libraries are also offering extensive programming, and they’re announcing them through their MySpaces. Toddler storytimes are available in different themes and languages. Adults are invited to brown-bag lectures and book talks. A number of libraries are offering local SCORE consultants and tax-prep professionals space to offer their services to the public. My local library even offers writing workshops with a writer-in-residence several times a year.

All for free, or a tiny donation to the Friends of the Library.

Find your local library. Find out what it can help you accomplish.

This has been a public service announcement from your favorite bibliophile (who has membership in one local library system, and aspires to have membership in two others as soon as she has a working car).

I took my birthday off last week without actually meaning to. I just felt like I had nothing to say, and so appropriately said nothing.

Thanks to the past few days, I have something I’m sort of willing to jabber on about- teaching myself how to play with a presentation program. Fortunately, I love to learn and I have an oversized determination streak.

It all started when I thought it would be nice to not only create this blog and book, but to create something for visual/auditory learners. (Eventually, I’ll get to the haptic learners, but for right now I’ve almost bitten off more than I can chew.) I’d always planned to create a video using Impress, OpenOffice’s equivalent of PowerPoint. (I had to start somewhere, and it’s on my computer.)

Not too long ago, someone reviewed Beyond Bullet Points, and I thought it was as good a place to start as any. Before this, the closest I’d ever been to PowerPoint were a pair of presentations I had to create in grad school several years ago. I’d never opened Impress. I got the book from my local library, sat down and started reading, making notes and creating the tutorial as I went.

The most complicated part, it turned out, wasn’t creating the presentation in the format presented in the book. Translating PowerPoint into Impress was easy. It wasn’t creating the expressions (OOoMath uses a format very similar to LaTeX, which I use to write expressions for Dead Bunny’s blog.). Creating a storyboard and script have even been fairly easy. The hang-up came when I learned not all off OpenOffice’s packages had been installed. This led to all sorts of repeat work in Impress because certain edits weren’t being saved. (We’ll hopefully have this one fixed later today. Thank goodness for the friendly, helpful OOo forums!)

I’ve started working on animating the tutorial (meaning I’ve started fidgeting with the slide timing. There are only two actual animation sequences anywhere in the tutorial.) The next step from here will be to replace my dying microphone (not a pleasant discovery), take a deep breath, push past my stage fright, and record the narration for this thing. Then I’ll get to find out how complicated incorporating audio into Impress is, and how hard it is to sync the slides and the narrating.

If all goes well, I should hopefully be sharing a link to the tutorial by August, and you can tell me if I learned well.

Someone recently posted the question, “Do you create something every single day?” on Facebook. I had to reply.

My current list of projects I’m actively working on: (I work on at least one project every day.)

  • Dead Bunny’s tutorial (which is about to reach an impasse until I replace my microphone)
  • A Deck of Plot Ninjas (which is hopefully being finished today. There are only two plot ninjas left, and one of them is slated to become the last line in the book because I find it really funny.)
  • “Saralin” (which is hopefully going to find time to be written this weekend, but it’s going to have to wrestle with Deathly Hallows for my attention)
  • The Super-Secret Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic (Jen sort of has an inkling about it, but not really. I’m expecting a lot of people to throw things at me once it’s done. As of right now, though, it’s being completely scrapped, outlined, and started again. I only get to work on it at work during my lunch break.)
  • Of course, there’s always the ongoing stick figure project that has become quite popular at work. (It amazes me how many people want to see each new sticky.)

So I do create something, or take steps toward finishing up an in-progress creation.

And I have a whole list of other projects in various stages of completion anxiously waiting to take something’s place on the list. Writing projects I’m being nudged on (speaking of someone who’s about to kill me). Jewelry pieces that need to jump out of the design notebook and into wire and bead. Then there are a couple of hard-to-classify projects shooting me forlorn looks. Seriously, I need to ditch my current job and figure out how to get paid to just sit around and create things.

I’m always creating something. How about you?

A choose-your-own-adventure has been unfolding in the Mission District of San Francisco. Someone has been leaving the story in bites with arrows to direct the reader where to find the next piece. Forks in the story lead in different directions. (I’m sure this works much better if you’re in the Mission District actually following the blurbs.)

Research isn’t turning up a creator, but there are some funny ideas on what this unique story presentation method might spark.

Part of the charm of the interactive fiction format is that it can be presented in a wide variety of ways. The medium possibilities are endless.

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