visual – Jason Toal

May 19, 2016

Story shapes – EdMedia at work

JD_gestures — Drawing can be exhausting. After a couple of weeks working with our EdMedia participants, I’m feeling about the same as our little buddy JD here. Check out some of the other work generated from the EdMedia version of Grids and Gestures in this post.

It’s been 2 weeks since the last Going Visual (III) session, and I’m just now gathering my thoughts and posting the galleries up. I shared some reflections over on jasontoal.ca diving deeper into the connection between drawing and music making (more to follow), and will be sharing some of the work below.

Story shapes, grids and gestures: Visual activity at play

This activity generated some interesting drawings as can be seen in our flickr gallery. The response from the group was mixed, but in general all were able to use the “story shape” seen in the Vonnegut video as a structure for “the shape of their day”. Note the continuity of the sine curves in almost every drawing. Plenty of creativity and potential for developing this work, like in some cases the shape is represented as a map. What was most important for us was if, and how they were able to use this activity to move their own projects forward.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/empgrids2016

Today we are doing the Show and tell day with our EdMedia participants, and its great to see so many doodles and storyboards being posted. Looking forward a lively discussion!

March 14, 2016

GIF JAM

Animated GIFs have been featured on this site as regular media assignments in the EdMedia program as a means to practice techniques in photography, videography and web publishing to name a few. The GIF JAM occuring for the EdMedia Monday this March 14th will showcase sources of GIFs, excellent courses and tools for making GIFS and open a discussion about how they can be used for educational purposes. ON this post I will try to cover some of the history of the GIF, review past educational GIF projects and point you to some next steps for using GIFs in your course, or just for playing around.

GIFstory

To kick things off lets go back the beginning and review some GIFstory. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format and its important to remember how integral the characteristic of this format have led to the GIFs proliferation.

You can read this piece from the website Mashable for good synopsis on the history of the GIF and also check out this 6 min documenary covering the rise of the GIF to from its inception in 1987 to today.

GIFs Today

Today GIFS can be found everywhere. The popular website Giphy has become the defacto clearing house for sharing and showing all the latest, and the GIF Keyboard is popping up on many social media platforms including twitter and facebook. I have posted a few of my favorite sites and recent pages below, but you do not have to look far to find an animated GIF these days.

Eg. of Cool GIFS

https://www.pinterest.com/sinremite/illustrated-gifs/
Old Paintings, Grotesquely Reanimated | GIF Six-Pack – http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/old-paintings-grotesquely-reanimated–gif-six-pack?utm_source=tcptwitterus
GIF Six-Pack: ‘1984’ and the Surveillance State – http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/gif-six-pack-endless-sci-fi-to-celebrate-1984?utm_source=tcptwitterus
Artsy GIFS (cinemagraphs) – http://cinemagraphs.com/
http://bionicteaching.com/gifseum/
Stereoscopic GIFs – http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/learn-how-to-make-stereoscopic-gifs

GIFs in Education

As a form of cultural expression you may be surprised to learn that the animated GIF has a strong and growing place in the landscape of educational media. Several of our past EMP participants have created GIFs for Physics, Physics, Archives, Library, Mathematics, to name a few. The assignments I’ve created have been design to test technical knowledge and use the media theory.

GIF assignment 1:

GIF assignment 2: (as OERS)

There are many great courses on the internet dedicated to the animated GIF so for further exploration please check out these pages.

GIF MASTERS

@eleanor_lutz

http://tabletopwhale.com/index.html

http://tabletopwhale.com/2014/11/03/how-to-make-an-animated-infographic.html

How to make GIFS

https://giphy.com/create/gifmaker
http://giphy.com/posts/how-to-upload-gifs-to-giphy
Make GIFS from video: http://imgur.com/vidgif

December 16, 2015

Going Visual II – a new graphic studio session

GVII — Going Visual II – Studio session will build on skills acquired in previous workshop

With an overwhelmingly interest from SFU faculty to use visuals and drawing in their teaching activities, we are pleased to be offering Going Visual II, a studio session in February 2016. This will be picking up where the first workshop left off, or in the case of past EdMedia program participants, building on the introductory work completed there.

This studio will include many opportunities to practice drawing in a variety of media, tips on using new software and hardware (such as tablets and web based drawing tools) and real world demos from other faculty. We are devoting time in this studio to discuss and develop your specific projects and address the practical issues you are facing when going visual in your class!

Check out the registration page on the teaching centre website for dates and to sign up (coming soon).