Re: [Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class
This is a bit of a tangent, but it pertains to how technology is used in a particular workplace, and what foundations may be necessary to underly its use, and how best to teach those foundations. Matt's comments (below) remind me of a conversation I had recently with my brother, who is an art director at Electronic Arts (i.e. he designs video games). He was talking about training new designers, and how they are good with the technology in some ways, but they do not understand the basics of design. He will show them how he does the lighting for a particular scene and how it works with the elements in the scene, and they will take his lighting set-up and just cut and paste it into everything, without understanding the basic concepts needed to actually design the lighting to fit the particular scene they are working with. My brother is known within the company as a very good teacher, but he said by the time young designers start working, some of their practices seem to be so rigidly established that it's very difficult to train them to do otherwise, and they seem to think that they can just cut and paste elements from elsewhere rather than designing a scene. He attributes it partly to a lack of imagination that is produced during formal education. His theory is that it's because the young artists are not taught how to design, but how to use computers to design (and even that not terribly well). He himself is a self-taught artist who learned with paper and pencil, and actually resisted computers for most of the 1980s. Now he works both ways - directly on the computer and with paper and pencil - but he thinks it is better to learn how to draw and paint on paper before moving to the computer, because then at least you develop an understanding of how to put a scene together. In his experience, the best designers work on paper as well as on the computer and are fluent in multiple media. Of course, it's possible that he is on the tail end of a particular way of working that will disappear as designers trained solely on computers take over, and that his methods of design are becoming obsolete. I don't know enough about the field to say. However, he feels that the "cut-and-paste" approach of the younger designers leads to an unimaginative and derivative look, and he is worried about it. It reminds me of the difference between students who can write papers that present an original argument drawing from the work of others and students who cut and paste sentences without really understanding how to put an argument together. They use the technology to pull together a lot of information, but they don't know how to present it in a way that gets their point across to other people. They haven't learned the basics of design. Jericho Jericho Burg Department of Communication University of California, San Diego http://www.communication.ucsd.edu/people/g_burg.html -- "Matthew Bernius" <mbernius@gmail.com> wrote: Blind faith in technology has become a crutch for student to avoid learning fundamentals. While they assume that an answer is "out there," they more often than not, lack both the desire to seek it out or the skills (or even suspicion) to interrogate the information once they find it. I've found that these so called "digital natives" haven't even begun to interrogate the systems (language, practices, heuristics) that they operate in. If anything, they are far worse at switching digital authoring tools than we "immigrants" who were forced to internalize the language and metaphor of the tools we used. This is a common thread that I've heard from numerous employers -- that recent grad have a real hard time switching between tools (sometimes even between different versions of the same software).
Jericho: I interviewed a Madison Avenue designer on Saturday who made the same comments and he is also a paper/pen and computer designer who is self-taught. He blamed the conformity imposed by formal education and its emphasis on rigid standards. I have also seen this problem first hand as a communications professional and a motion picture producer/director. As a scholar and researcher, I believe that theory and history are important, but I also believe that one needs to often start teachings students concretely in the field on real projects with professionals, so that the abstract theories can truly take hold and this is what I have done for the past decade with my student interns who have gone on to do great things professionally. As a person who lives in both worlds, I see the problem that academics have with professionals and vice versa and I see the student as often the victim. Why? The student needs good grades to stay in school, qualify for grad school, satisfy parents and to keep or gain scholarship dollars. Hence, the professors word is law. Conversely, it is fair to say that many, if not most professors, are not as grounded full-time in the real world and the professional usually is a better expert on how to work in the every day work environment. There needs to be a meeting of the minds that requires both students and the professors to take the classroom to the work environment. This was suggested to me by a Madison Avenue Advertising executive. Neither side fully appreciates the gifts that each brings to the equation. The professor can help teach a student to critically analyze, evaluate and be creative. The professional can bring out the full talent that resides within the student once they have the basics mastered and have tested it in the field with fellow professionals. Perhaps each student should have internships every semester that involves satisfying qualifications for several classes simultaneously so that students become accustomed to putting together multiple facets of a project and using their imagination. Chris -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of jerichob@juno.com Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:34 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class This is a bit of a tangent, but it pertains to how technology is used in a particular workplace, and what foundations may be necessary to underly its use, and how best to teach those foundations. Matt's comments (below) remind me of a conversation I had recently with my brother, who is an art director at Electronic Arts (i.e. he designs video games). He was talking about training new designers, and how they are good with the technology in some ways, but they do not understand the basics of design. He will show them how he does the lighting for a particular scene and how it works with the elements in the scene, and they will take his lighting set-up and just cut and paste it into everything, without understanding the basic concepts needed to actually design the lighting to fit the particular scene they are working with. My brother is known within the company as a very good teacher, but he said by the time young designers start working, some of their practices seem to be so rigidly established that it's very difficult to train them to do otherwise, and they seem to think that they can just cut and paste elements from elsewhere rather than designing a scene. He attributes it partly to a lack of imagination that is produced during formal education. His theory is that it's because the young artists are not taught how to design, but how to use computers to design (and even that not terribly well). He himself is a self-taught artist who learned with paper and pencil, and actually resisted computers for most of the 1980s. Now he works both ways - directly on the computer and with paper and pencil - but he thinks it is better to learn how to draw and paint on paper before moving to the computer, because then at least you develop an understanding of how to put a scene together. In his experience, the best designers work on paper as well as on the computer and are fluent in multiple media. Of course, it's possible that he is on the tail end of a particular way of working that will disappear as designers trained solely on computers take over, and that his methods of design are becoming obsolete. I don't know enough about the field to say. However, he feels that the "cut-and-paste" approach of the younger designers leads to an unimaginative and derivative look, and he is worried about it. It reminds me of the difference between students who can write papers that present an original argument drawing from the work of others and students who cut and paste sentences without really understanding how to put an argument together. They use the technology to pull together a lot of information, but they don't know how to present it in a way that gets their point across to other people. They haven't learned the basics of design. Jericho Jericho Burg Department of Communication University of California, San Diego http://www.communication.ucsd.edu/people/g_burg.html -- "Matthew Bernius" <mbernius@gmail.com> wrote: Blind faith in technology has become a crutch for student to avoid learning fundamentals. While they assume that an answer is "out there," they more often than not, lack both the desire to seek it out or the skills (or even suspicion) to interrogate the information once they find it. I've found that these so called "digital natives" haven't even begun to interrogate the systems (language, practices, heuristics) that they operate in. If anything, they are far worse at switching digital authoring tools than we "immigrants" who were forced to internalize the language and metaphor of the tools we used. This is a common thread that I've heard from numerous employers -- that recent grad have a real hard time switching between tools (sometimes even between different versions of the same software). _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
pleaseuseparagraphbreakswhenyouwrite;itisjustashardtoreadtextwithnoparagraphbreaksasitistoreadasentencewithnospaces.particularlyifyouwritequitealongblockoftextthatpeopletrytoread. </vitanza> thanks. --e On Tue, 22 May 2007, Heidelberg, Chris wrote:
Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 15:17:03 -0400 From: "Heidelberg, Chris" <Chris.Heidelberg@ssa.gov> Reply-To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class
Jericho:
I interviewed a Madison Avenue designer on Saturday who made the same comments and he is also a paper/pen and computer designer who is self-taught. He blamed the conformity imposed by formal education and its emphasis on rigid standards. I have also seen this problem first hand as a communications professional and a motion picture producer/director. As a scholar and researcher, I believe that theory and history are important, but I also believe that one needs to often start teachings students concretely in the field on real projects with professionals, so that the abstract theories can truly take hold and this is what I have done for the past decade with my student interns who have gone on to do great things professionally. As a person who lives in both worlds, I see the problem that academics have with professionals and vice versa and I see the student as often the victim. Why? The student needs good grades to stay in school, qualify for grad school, satisfy parents and to keep or gain scholarship dollars. Hence, the professors word is law. Conversely, it is fair to say that many, if not most professors, are not as grounded full-time in the real world and the professional usually is a better expert on how to work in the every day work environment. There needs to be a meeting of the minds that requires both students and the professors to take the classroom to the work environment. This was suggested to me by a Madison Avenue Advertising executive. Neither side fully appreciates the gifts that each brings to the equation. The professor can help teach a student to critically analyze, evaluate and be creative. The professional can bring out the full talent that resides within the student once they have the basics mastered and have tested it in the field with fellow professionals. Perhaps each student should have internships every semester that involves satisfying qualifications for several classes simultaneously so that students become accustomed to putting together multiple facets of a project and using their imagination.
Chris
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of jerichob@juno.com Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:34 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class
This is a bit of a tangent, but it pertains to how technology is used in a particular workplace, and what foundations may be necessary to underly its use, and how best to teach those foundations.
Matt's comments (below) remind me of a conversation I had recently with my brother, who is an art director at Electronic Arts (i.e. he designs video games). He was talking about training new designers, and how they are good with the technology in some ways, but they do not understand the basics of design. He will show them how he does the lighting for a particular scene and how it works with the elements in the scene, and they will take his lighting set-up and just cut and paste it into everything, without understanding the basic concepts needed to actually design the lighting to fit the particular scene they are working with. My brother is known within the company as a very good teacher, but he said by the time young designers start working, some of their practices seem to be so rigidly established that it's very difficult to train them to do otherwise, and they seem to think that they can just cut and paste elements from elsewhere rather than designing a scene. He attributes it partly to a lack of imagination that is produced during formal education. His theory is that it's because the young artists are not taught how to design, but how to use computers to design (and even that not terribly well). He himself is a self-taught artist who learned with paper and pencil, and actually resisted computers for most of the 1980s. Now he works both ways - directly on the computer and with paper and pencil - but he thinks it is better to learn how to draw and paint on paper before moving to the computer, because then at least you develop an understanding of how to put a scene together. In his experience, the best designers work on paper as well as on the computer and are fluent in multiple media.
Of course, it's possible that he is on the tail end of a particular way of working that will disappear as designers trained solely on computers take over, and that his methods of design are becoming obsolete. I don't know enough about the field to say. However, he feels that the "cut-and-paste" approach of the younger designers leads to an unimaginative and derivative look, and he is worried about it. It reminds me of the difference between students who can write papers that present an original argument drawing from the work of others and students who cut and paste sentences without really understanding how to put an argument together. They use the technology to pull together a lot of information, but they don't know how to present it in a way that gets their point across to other people. They haven't learned the basics of design.
Jericho
Jericho Burg Department of Communication University of California, San Diego http://www.communication.ucsd.edu/people/g_burg.html
-- "Matthew Bernius" <mbernius@gmail.com> wrote:
Blind faith in technology has become a crutch for student to avoid learning fundamentals. While they assume that an answer is "out there," they more often than not, lack both the desire to seek it out or the skills (or even suspicion) to interrogate the information once they find it.
I've found that these so called "digital natives" haven't even begun to interrogate the systems (language, practices, heuristics) that they operate in. If anything, they are far worse at switching digital authoring tools than we "immigrants" who were forced to internalize the language and metaphor of the tools we used. This is a common thread that I've heard from numerous employers -- that recent grad have a real hard time switching between tools (sometimes even between different versions of the same software).
_______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (3)
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elw＠stderr.org -
Heidelberg, Chris -
jerichob＠juno.com