(Semester 2) Lesson 1: Overarching factors affecting the elderly in Singapore.

Essential Question:
What are the key overarching factors that affects the quality of life of the elderly here in Singapore?

As an individual work, you are to work on coming out with a mindmap that covers the various factors that may answer the EQ above. Do explain in a single sentence or more, each of the points that you are highlighting. Produce AT LEAST a MINIMUM of 8 points.

Capture this mindmap as a photo and upload this into the Facebook page below, which would be used for our lessons this Semester.

The link for the Facebook page is:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elderly-Challenge-108-2011/213730751997546

(Semester 2) Lesson 0: Expectations

Here are some details regarding The Elderly Challenge:

• The project is supposed to be done as an individual project, instead of paired or group work.
• 3 key deliverables that are expected from each of you are:
• An individual design journal (you can use Pages instead of Google Docs)
• Google SketchUp model of your proposed solution/s to your challenge/s
• Two Multimedia Presentation (MMP) that best captures your resolution to your intended challenges.
•  The intended deadlines for all of the above deliverables are by Term 4 Week 4. However there would be occasions when intermediate submissions would need to be made.
• For the first MMP, the proposed submission date would be in Term 3, Week 6
• The two MMP's must show coherence in communicating the proposed solution/s to the intended challenge/s.

Initial Review of the first reading on 'The Elderly Challenge'

1. What do you think are some of the KEY challenges of a greying Singapore?
2. What are some policies that have been implemented, or that are going to be implemented, that would help to mitigate these challenges?
3. How do you think some of these challenges can be researched on further? Identify THREE of these challenges with your team mates and identify possible Essential Questions to these challenges

Readings for 'The Elderly Challenge' in Semester 2 for ADMT

Here is the first set of readings for ADMT's 'The Elderly Challenge' in Sem 2.

Follow-up details from the animation programme

Here are follow-up details from the Anination Programme that we are having:

Template for Group Journals:
The link below is the downloadable template that you would need to use for your group journals. Please organise them as such.



Submission methods and deadline:
Your team would need to submit the following 3 items for submission:

• The Animation Clips
• The Group Journals
• The Storyboards/Paper Cut-outs

For the first 2, please submit them, with the correct file-naming conventions, into the SUBMIT folder. Alternatively, you can also pass the files to me personally. The Storyboards and Paper-Cut-outs have to be submitted to me personally too.

The deadline for the above 3 items are on Wednesday, 18th May, by 5:00 pm.

Rubrics for Group Journal and Animation Clip

In case you might have missed, these are the rubrics for the 2 remaining pieces of your works that are going to be assessed. Please take note of the percentages and the marking criteria involved.

Rubrics for Assessment 2: Group-based Journal

Rubrics for Assessment 3: Animation Clip

Reflections on the Photography and Storyboard performance tasks...

Do give a short statement on ONE key reflection or learning point that you had while doing the storyboarding assignment. Include your reflection in the 'Comments' section of this post.

Comments on your classmates' storyboards...

Please use the 'Comments' section in this blog post to comment on your classmates' presentation and presentation boards.

Using Photography to tell a story

In this exercise, you would be pairing up with another classmate to do up a storyboard-cum-comic strip that would enable you to communicate your intended idea or messaging to a general audience. These are the activities that you would need to do:

1. Develop a story idea for your comic strip. Just write down, in 1 paragraph the basic idea of your story. Be mindful of the theme that you and your classmate have in mind, as it must also be appropriate to the toys that you have brought to class. Some examples of universal themes that you might want to consider are LOVE, INNOVATION and TRAGEDY.
2. By dividing each of your sketchbook page into 4 separate boxes, produce a storyboard of between 4 to 8 scenes (boxes) that would help you to tell your story. Take note of the types of shots that you and your classmate would be taking. I will explain concepts like CLOSE-UP SHOTS, MID-SHOTS, LONG SHOTS and PANORAMIC SHOTS during my class
3. Once I have approved your story, you can start to take your pictures of your scenes. With thorough planning, you should be able to finish this part in 30 to 40 minutes
4. Using the Storyboard template in Pages, work on developing and including your selected relevant pictures to tell your story. You might want to include Title Scene, Concluding Scene, Dialogue Boxes and Story Boxes in your storyboards to help  you to tell your story.
5. For submission, you and your classmate will need to submit these:
• The Pages storyboard document. Below is a sample picture of what you need to fill up in the template (the first 2 scenes/shots have been done for you as reference). Please rename your file as: 108_Storyboard-TanAhSeng+LimAhLeng
• Pass the selected pictures to me so that I may upload them later for you
6. DEADLINE: By next Tuesday, 8th March 2011

Sample storyboard (incomplete); the first 2 scenes/shots have been done as reference

Environmental Challenge: Developing Essential & Guiding Questions

As a team, continue working on your Environment Journal to complete the following tasks:

1. List about 3 or more questions that your team have deemed to be important that needs to be uncovered, based on your previous works on your concepts maps and research
2. Rank these questions, and identify the ONE Essential Question that your team would like to highlight as a good challenge to uncover in your research. The notes at the bottom of this blog post are some guides to what is defined as an Essential Question (EQ).
3. From the selected EQ, work on developing a few (3 to 6) Guiding Questions (GQ) that would help you in your research further.

I would explain further on the work required in class later.

Notes on EQ:

(taken from: http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/article.lasso?artId=53)

A question is essential when it: 

1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;
2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;
3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;
4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;
5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;
6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

Picasa Getting Started Guide...

For your download...

Basic Photography: Lesson 2-The Rule of Thirds

The ancient Greeks are amongst the first to realise the more pleasant effects that a visual presentation using the rule of thirds would present. Hence most of their works of art uses this rule in its visual presentation. In fact the rule of thirds are amongst the first few rules that are taught in basic photography classes.

The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. As follows.

As you’re taking an image you would have done this in your mind through your viewfinder or in the LCD display that you use to frame your shot. With this grid in mind the ‘rule of thirds’ now identifies four important parts of the image that you should consider placing points of interest in as you frame your image. Not only this – but it also gives you four ‘lines’ that are also useful positions for elements in your photo.

The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot – using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it.

Some examples of such photos are presented below:

 

In learning how to use the rule of thirds (and then to break it) the most important questions to be asking of yourself are:

• What are the points of interest in this shot?
• Where am I intentionally placing them?

Once again – remember that breaking the rule can result in some striking shots – so once you’ve learnt it experiment with purposely breaking it to see what you discover.

Adapted from: http://digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds

Basic Photography: Lesson 1-Knowing your focal point

It is important in basic photography for you to be able to know what are the focal points of the photos that you are taking. Are you taking a single subject matter or a group of people engaging in a certain activity? The reason why a focal point is important is to allow your viewers to maintain their focus on the intended subject matter. Hopefully the ideas and messages that you would want to show, highlight or put across in the photos would be put forth across successfully.

For example, compare the 2 pictures below:

 Picture 1

Picture 2

Which of these pictures would show more clearly the idea of students being engaged in an IT-based activity?

 6 Techniques to Enhance the Focal Point in an Image

A focal point can be virtually anything ranging from a person, to a building, to a mountain, to a flower etc. Obviously the more interesting the focal point the better – but there are other things you can do to enhance it’s power including:

• Position – Place it in a prominent position – you might want to start with the rule of thirds for some ideas.
• Focus – Learn to vary your depth of field to blur out other aspects in front or behind your focal point.
• Blur – If you really want to get tricky you might want to play with slower shutter speeds if your main subject is still and things around it are moving.
• Size – making your focal point large is not the only way to make it prominent – but it definitely can help.
• Color – using contrasting colors can also be a way of setting your point of interest apart from it’s surroundings.
• Shape – similarly contrasting shapes and textures can make a subject stand out – especially patterns that are repeated around a subject.

Keep in mind that a combination of above elements can work well together.
Lastly – don’t confuse the viewer with too many competing focal points which might overwhelm the main focal point. Secondary points of interest can be helpful to lead the eye but too many strong ones will just clutter and confuse.

Adapted from: http://digital-photography-school.com/using-focal-points-in-photography

Sketchworks 8...with Playdoh!

Some of the potential problems that most students would have are in the areas of visualisation of their proposed ideas. For today's lesson, what we are going to do is to leverage on the flexibility of Playdoh for ideation and visualisation.

Design Challenge 4:
For your first challenge, you are tasked to design a door-wedge or stopper that is going to be used for a toddler or for a child up to the age of 6 years of age. The design should fulfill the following considerations:

• Use only a SINGLE colour material
• Should not have sharp corners
• Is secure when placed as a door stopper, meaning that it cannot be removed easily without adult supervision
• Must have an interesting theme relevant to their age group, i.e. favourite cartoons, shows, fairy tales, etc

Use the Playdoh to create a model of your intended design or designs, and sketch it out on your sketchbooks. Take a picture of BOTH your models and sketches and upload them in your ADMT personal blog, putting in the URL in the 'Comments' section of this post.

Design Challenge 5:
One of the main problem that one faces when charging a few electrical appliance at one go is the mess created by all the cables from a single power point. A possible scenario would look something like the picture shown below:

Take from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/2391255651_b543422e66.jpg

For your second challenge, you would need to design a phone charger set or unit that would allow one to use it without the hassle and mess of having the wires and cables being all over the place. Your proposed designs should fulfill the following considerations:

• Able to hold and secure a maximum of 2 phones concurrently
• Able to be secure the charging cables neatly and safely
• Can be used for most power-points in Singapore (either 3-pin or 2-pin plugs)
• No sharp corners and easy to be used by the target group
• Target group is anybody who has a mobile phone

Use the Playdoh to create a model of your intended design or designs, and sketch it out on your sketchbooks. Take a picture of BOTH your models and sketches and upload them in your ADMT personal blog, putting in the URL in the 'Comments' section of this post.

One Shot@Fame

Inviting all students who are interested in photography, don't really matter whether you are a beginner or someone who have been taking photos the last few years of your school life. Here's an opportunity for you to showcase your talents in the Canon Singapore Photography competition! I hope that some of you would be taking part in this after the initial photography lessons that I would be conducting from week 8 onwards.

http://www.canon.com.sg/eosacademy/schoolchallenge/

Week 7: Sketchworks 7...Design Challenge 3

Design Challenge 3...

Picture taken from: http://www.weaverairproducts.com

Current Situation: The above picture shows the typical wall fan that is used mostly in classrooms or office environments. One of the most challenging part about this fan types is to clean the fan blades. You would still need to remove the front portion of the fan to access the blades, but it would take someone quite a fair bit of time to clean all the 3 blades as shown.


Design Specifications: 
Your task: Design and sketch a simple gadget or device that would help an average adult to clean the fan blades more efficiently, i.e. at a quicker rate. Your idea or ideas must include or use at least one recyclable material, and must be lightweight and simple to be cleaned too. It must be manually operated and is able to be used simply and effectively for those between the ages of 10 to 50. It should primarily be used at a home or classroom environment.

Sketch your idea or ideas in an isometric view, and include relevant details and information on how the device works. You may or may not use shape borrowing for this proposed solution/s.

Please take a photo or scan of your proposed idea/s and upload it into your personal ADMT blogs. Put in the URL of your blog posts into the 'Comments' section of this post. Follow this up with comments on at least 2 of your classmates' ideas! Consider the Creativity of their solutions, the quality of the sketches, and the overall presentation...as these 3 are key criteria of your test.

Environment CBL: Report on 'Strategies for Sustainable Growth'

Here is a useful report that was prepared for our Prime Minister on the strategies that Singapore would need to adopt in order to ensure her sustainable growth. There are useful information on the topic of 'Energy Conservation' that you might want to glean and refer to as part of your project work on the CBL theme of 'Environment: Energy Conservation'.

SketchWorks 6: Design Challenge+Shape Borrowing

Using the shape borrowing technique that you have learned in the previous post, resolve the following design challenges by applying it:

Design Challenge 1...
Design Specifications: Design a simple book stand/support that is able to support between 15 to 20 A4-sized sketchbooks vertically. It must be suitable to be used in a desktop or study-table environment, and is catered primarily to secondary or high school students between the ages of 12 to 17.

Your task: Sketch out your ideas in an isometric view. Include relevant annotations/notes in your sketches to explain how your ideas work


Design Challenge 2...
Design Specifications: Design a desk tidy/stationery organizer that is able to store the following items:

• 3 x 2B pencils
• 2 x pens
• 1 x 20cm ruler
• 1 x soft eraser
• a pair of scissors

The owner of these items loves the colour RED as a symbol of good luck, and would like the design of the desk tidy to be inspired by any one of the 12 Chinese zodiac signs.

Your task: Sketch out your proposed ideas of the desk tidy design in an isometric view. Include relevant annotations/notes in your sketches to explain how your idea or ideas is going to store the abovementioned stationery items.

Shape Borrowing...

Shape Borrowing technique is a very good way for one to generate new and creative ideas for new products, shapes and forms. One of the key advantage of using this technique is that there is inherently an unlimited number of product shapes and forms that are available around us. What would be the challenge is to then creatively use these shapes and forms to morph them into something unique, creative and yet able to be produced and accepted by your target audiences. Take a look at the slideshow below:

Ideation: Shape Borrowing

View more presentations from irfan darian.

Rubrics for Sketching & Ideation test in Week 8

The test in week 8 would test students on their sketching and ideation skills. The following is the marking rubrics for the test.

Marking rubrics for 'Sketching & Ideation' test

Week 5: Showcasing your sketchworks

For your follow-up 'homework' over the long weekend:

Activity 1:
Please upload a minimum of 3 pages of your best sketches into your personal ADMT blogs by midnight on Saturday, 5th February. You can either take a picture of them and upload, or a better and more preferred way would be to scan them in instead. Please key in the URL of your blog post of your uploaded sketches into the 'Comments' section of this post.

Activity 2:
Comment on at least 2 of your classmates' works and sketches. Some rules that you would need to follow are:

• No disparaging remarks are allowed
• Do give your positive or constructive comments ONLY

Some areas that you can comment on are:

• The linework or isometric lines being sketched
• How your classmate can improve on his or her lineworks/sketches
• Compliment on certain aspects or components of his sketches

The commenting should be done by Monday, 7th February at 6 pm.

Week 5: Group task for the day...

Essential Questions on 'Energy Conservation' for today:

• Why is 'Energy Conservation' important in this day and age?
• How can you and your team adopt workable solutions for this theme and communicate them effectively?

As a team and using the above as a guide, work on coming out with more questions that you think your team would need to work on in uncovering an even deeper understanding of the theme on 'Energy Conservation'

Group Work (30 mins):
The following exercises are to be done in your Group Journal:

Activity 1: 
Based on the Graphic Organizers and Mindmaps that your team members have produced individually in the previous lessons, choose 8-10 questions that your team would like to shortlist for further consideration

Activity 2:
From the list of these 8 to 10 questions, select (and modify) THREE questions as your team's ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS (EQ's), and the questions that your team would like to uncover in your project. Please indicate the modified EQ's into your team's journals.

Activity 3:
From Activity 2, rank and select these 3 questions, in order of importance, so that you and your team can work out in greater detail the question/s that you are trying to uncover in your projects.

Energy Conservation video...Messaging for Kids

Watch the following video clip and answer the questions that follow in a separate blog post in your personal ADMT blog. Put the URL of your blog posts into the 'Comments' section of this post:

1. Who do you think are the target audience of this clip?
2. What do you think are the main key messages that the clip is trying to communicate?
3. Do you think the clip is effective? Why or why not?
4. How do you think the messaging/clip could be further improved?

Energy Conservation video...

Watch the following clip and answer the following questions in your personal ADMT blog post. Put the URL of your blog post into the 'Comments' section of this post:

1. What do you think are some of the limitations of using renewable energy resources, based on the clip that you have seen?
2. What are some possible solutions that the video have suggested?
3. How do you think Energy Conservation messages can be communicated effectively in the school or local context? Give or suggest some examples.

Week 4: Group work on 'Environment'

In your teams of between 4 to 5 members, do the following first:

• Select a team leader. The leader would create a new Google doc document and share them with the rest of the team members, as well as to me. This would be the team's DESIGN JOURNAL for Semester 1. Please name the file as: ADMT_DesignJournal_108_GroupX
• The rest of the team members would adopt the following roles:
• Team Leader: Job is to ensure that the entire team is on task with the given work allocated to the team.
• Journal Recorder 1: Job is to ensure that the works done in the design journal is updated and meet the deadlines and standards set.
• Journal Recorder 2 and Assistant Team Leader: Job is to ensure that all the photographs and sources of information are attributed correctly. He or she is also to ensure that the research information is organised correctly.
• Media Developer 1: Job is to look for ideas and work on developing any sort of media works, whether be it in the forms of sketches, photographs, music clips, etc, for the design journal
• Media Developer 2 (if the team has 5 members): Job is to support and work on additional media works, should there be a need to
  

Individual task for the day...

Individual work (15 mins):
Work on uncovering your basic understanding of 'Energy Conservation' by mindmapping your answers to the following questions on Mind Node, or any other mindmapping software.

• What do you mean by 'Energy Conservation'?
• Why is 'Energy Conservation' important?
• Who do you think is responsible for it?
• Where do you think are the possible areas for one to adopt 'Energy Conservation' practices?
• When would it be a good time for one to adopt 'Energy Conservation' practices?
• How can one understand more on 'Energy Conservation' practices?

Once you have completed the mindmap, export it as a graphic file and place it into your personal ADMT blogs as a blog post, with the title: 'Initial view on Energy Conservation'.

Input your URL to the blog post in the 'Comments' section of this blog post.

The Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) Framework

The diagram below shows the CBL framework that would be adopted as we move forward in tackling 'The Environmental Challenge: Energy Conservation' in Semester 1.

Framework on CBL

Source: http://ictedservices.typepad.com/icted_services/2009/10/challenge-based-learning-professional-learning-module.html

Introduction to Challenge-Based Learning (CBL)

Here's an introductory clip to CBL...

SketchWorks 5: 3 objects from a cube

The following objects are sketched out from the shape of a cube. You are to sketch out a minimum of 2 times for each of them in  your sketch books.

3 objects from a cube

Crating (Cubing) methods

A sketching method that uses guiding lines from a cube/cuboid to form other shapes and forms. The picture below is a good example of the derived shapes that could be formed from the crating or cubing method:

Crating Method

Week 3: SketchWorks 4

SketchWorks 4:
Title: 12 shapes
Sketch out the 12 boxes shown below, by applying the crating methods, which would be shown in class. You are allowed to draw out these shapes on MORE than one page.

12 shapes

Week 3: SketchWorks 1 to 3

From the activities that you have done in previous lessons, you would have realised the importance of sketching as a skill-set that you would need in ADMT. There would be a few sketching exercises this week, and I hope you would learn and enjoy the activities that have been planned.

SketchWorks 1:
Title: Pre-Sketching...
Pre-activity and explanation on the tools, equipments and physical practise required and necessary to sketch comfortably.

SketchWorks 2:
Title: Points and Parallel Lines...
Drawing of parallel lines of various lengths and thicknesses

SketchWorks 3:
Title: Isometric Boxes
Drawing of Isometric Boxes

Your first task...

Your first task for the subject is to create a personal ADMT blog that would be used to key in your work, as well as your works of Art and Media for the entire duration of 2 years that you would be doing ADMT. Some guidelines that you might want to consider:

• Make your ADMT blog URL as generic as you can, so that it can still be used by you in Year 2
• Ensure that the template that you use is also decent and easy to manage and maintain. It is no point having a nice template, but in the end you have to spend time coding and doing other non-essential items just to make your blog look 'nice'
• Try to avoid superfluous items on your blog. Aim for simplicity and a clean look. This would help in telling your users, including myself, the essential things that you would want to present on your blogs
• Last but not least, always make it a point to 'maintain' and update your blogs at least once a week. This would help to keep out spammers, as well as help you to discipline yourself to maintain a virtual presence that you can be proud of

Please remember to 'Follow' the blog, so that the whole class would be able to know who are the members of this blog. And don't forget to input the URL of your ADMT blog in the 'Comments' section of this blog post too...just in case.

T1W2: Welcome...

Firstly a great welcome to SST, to the class of 1-08 of 2011, and here's welcoming you too to the world of Art, Design, Media and Technology (ADMT). I hope that you would have as much fun and are excited about uncovering ADMT, as I have teaching you. Here's hoping that the programs that I have lined up for you ahead this year, would be something that would enable you to develop and grow as a person, not only in the areas of ADMT, but also as a person in general. And here we go...

Mr Irfan Darian
ADMT teacher for Class 1-08 (2011)