A story embedded in a page

When I started to read this week’s assignment of redesigning a webpage to tell a story, I at first thought it meant embedding a story within an existing webpage. And I got REALLY excited. This seemed like such a cool idea – the story could be relevant to the page content, or a complete non sequitur.

But then I continued reading, and realized the assignment meant something more like this. Which, don’t get me wrong, was a lot of fun. But I was still excited by my initial interpretation. So I decided to go ahead and do it and submit this as an assignment proposal.

I took the non sequitur approach, writing a story embedded in Google Apps integration documentation. (I wanted to use something long to accommodate the story structure and inherently uninteresting to most people so that they wouldn’t be distracted by it.) The story began with the idea of someone crying out for help, and then it went off in its own … surprising direction.

The poem is one that I wrote back in high school, with the enticing description of “Crappy poem I wrote while bored and procrastinating on homework.” I honestly do not remember what inspired it, but in rereading it I found the mawkishness and the self-importance to be so entertaining that I decided to use it here. (I used to write a lot of humorous poetry, and initially wanted to use one of those poems, but then I came across this one, and immediately knew I had to use it. Because it gave me my ending.)

Here is a pdf version of the story, or you can download the webpage here.

UPDATE: Assignment has been submitted! http://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/hidden-story-in-a-page/ Hope you enjoy it. I had fun creating the thumbnail for the assignment page:

Tweetz

Feeling a little twittery, I’ve decided to go ahead and do the Phun with Phake Tweets DS106 assignment. It involves a couple simple steps. Coming straight from the DS106 assignment page, all you have to do is “Use the Twister tool from ClassTools to generate a series of images representing the voices of past figures if they could express themselves in twitter. Notch it up, and recast a historical event with a new plot line, and notch it up again, but making it a back and forth between two figures (use @person!) – my example is not developed as a fanfic, but should give you an idea of what to do (okay, okay, I will do a real assignment, sigh).”

So for my spin on things, I chose to do a conversation with some well known historical figures, Socrates and Plato. The fake conversation I made between them concerns the trial that Socrates went through that eventually condemned him to death. Plato, a disciple of Socrates, is the person who we have to thank for putting most of that account in written record. If you guys aren’t that familiar with the either Socrates or Plato, I do advise reading up on them to at least familiarize yourself with some of our most beloved ancient philosophers. So just click the links below to see what I wrote!

What I wrote is definitely historically accurate.

*cough*

Definitely.

Socrates

 

Plato

I hope you enjoyed that tweet on history! Did you notice how Socrates and Plato look shockingly similar? Must of been that ol’ Greek Physique! Ahaha…

Feel free to leave any comments below! Thanks!

Is Social Networking A Different Language?

I have chosen This writing assignment.

Instruction:”Some professionals believe the language we use on social networking sights is different from everyday language. They say this because of the words like g2g, ttul that we use on a consistent basis over text messaging, aim, and Facebook messenger. Write a short paper on this topic. Be sure to include some of the saying we use, which one’s you understand and don’t understand, and most of all discuss if social networking language is in fact different from our every day language.

At first instruction says, “g2g” but I don’t understand what g2g means, so I checked on the internet.
and I found out this page.
You can know a lot of internet slang words in there.(and eventually I understood g2g means gotta go.)

Actually I use internet slang a lot.for example I know,
tmrw=tomorrow.
w/= with.
2=to.
4=for
u=you
r=are.
lol=Laughing Out Loud.
BTW= by the way.
asap= as soon as possible.
cuz=because like that.
(by the way, when I saw lol first time, I thought two ‘l’s are hands and ‘o’ is head and I misunderstood that lol means hands up).

Those are very comfortable because some of SNS have a word limit like twitter. In twitter, you can type only 140 words, so if you write long sentences, you need slang in order to make it shorter than usual. Also, I use those slang when I take a note. when I have to take a memo from lecture and professor dose not write anything on the blackboard, I use slang because I can not write everything as fast as professor’s speech. So, we can make good use of slang in your own life. And I don’t think this is not different from the language which is used in our real life. 2=to 4=for u=you r=are, are based on pronunciation. When we look at the word form, that’s totally different, but as long as those are based on primary word’s form or pronunciation, we can not say those are different.

However, It has a big problem. Spelling. I make a tons of misspelling, look at my previous sentences, probably you can find so many mistakes out from my articles. slang is not the only reason why I (people) make a misspelling, but it could be one reason and that might be a big problem for the future. SNS are really popular now, and children use SNS and they use slang. Children will have a misspelling more than people who do not use internet slang.

TWIT, thx 4 reading my post :)
Like that?

Whatever humans can do…

…computers can do it better!

Right?

???????????????????????????????? ?That we fear in the industry and we welcome war to the consumption tax hike in two years after the first bullet.

Eh…maybe not.

For this DS106 assignment, “Google Translate Fail”, one must “find something in a foreign language and use Google Translate and laugh about how awful it is.” Oh, and while you’re at it, “if its a language you know, give an explanation of what it should be and list possible reasons it got messed up.” For this assignment, I chose to translate something from Japanese to English. The results, as you have seen, are quite..um, remarkable (kind of, at least).

For my line, I took it from a news page after typing in ? ???in Google search.

First, in regards to why the explanation is “messed up”, is because Google translate does not have the ability to understand the complex nuances of the language. Taken from a video (produced by Google presumably) found on the blog entitled Google Operating System, “these computers use a process called ‘statistical machine translation’ — which is just a fancy way to say that our computers generate translations based on patterns found in large amounts of text.” That means that there is really is no true “understanding” of a language to a computer. Translating comes down to, in simple terms, numbers or statistical correlations. So, in terms of quality, the translations are usually more wrong than correct. In terms of speed, however, it is certainly much faster.

So while Google translate isn’t the greatest in terms of quality, the speed it is able to translate at is incredible and will no doubt have us coming back to it again and again regardless of the lack of quality.

Part III: Infection

This next DS106 assignment, The Role Playing Game, was probably the most thought provoking challenge I have done yet. Not only does this assignment test one’s writing skills, it also tests one’s creativity to bring an interesting story to the blogging and DS1o6 community.
I will refrain from going into too much about how I wrote what I wrote, because I don’t believe that stories gain any more meaning that way. I think that, on the contrary, it takes away something from it. In this post, I have listed the previous two parts (in italics) before mine , in order for you, the reader, to have an easier time getting into the story. One of the previous posts was posted by Roundhouse slap, so maybe check out her page, too, and tell her what you thought!

Just so everyone knows, the original entries were not titled with the names “The Beginning: Part I” or “The Beginning: Part II”. I added them to make it easy for you to discern who’s work was who’s and make it look more structured as well.

When you’re done reading, please feel free to leave a comment below. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have, as well! You should try to do it, too, and try to add your own twist to the story!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

The Beginning Part I: Exodus

“Joe the clown was not a happy camper this morning. This was evidenced by the fact that he had put four lumps of sugar into his coffee, instead of the regular two. He only ever broke his two-sugars rule on special occasions, so going by that particular string of logic, this was a very special occasion indeed. Nevertheless Joe had little time to sulk, hunched over his kitchen table with remnants of buttered toast still clinging to the sides of his lips. And so it was that with a labored sigh he propped himself up off his seat and began the dreaded walk towards the front door, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a red rubber nose as he did so. He finished fixing the rubber implement on his own nose at about the same moment that his other hand fell on the cold, brass doorknob that led to the outside world. He paused for a moment, just a little longer than what he would usually allow himself (but this was a special occasion, remember). He then took a deep breath, turned the knob and stepped outside into the cold chilly morning air. It was time to have a word with the neighbours who had kept him up all night…”

The Beginning Part II: Victoria Powers

The moment that Joe stepped over the threshold of his apartment, the blinds on his neighbor’s window quickly flicked shut. “He’s bound to head over here to complain.” Victoria assured herself as she tugged her black leather gloves so they fit ever more snugly upon her fingertips. Her eyes flicked from the window down to the floor, where the motionless figures of the home’s actual inhabitants were sprawled.  She had only precious little time before the effects of the drugs wore off. She stepped gracefully but purposefully over their slumbering bodies as she moved on to the task at hand.

She quietly traversed the room until she was poised behind the front door. Reaching into the pocket of her coat she withdrew a rather large syringe, filled halfway with an opaque yellow liquid. She was both delicate and determined as she removed the cap and flicked the tip of the half-inch needle with the back of her gloved fingertips. A little pressure on the end of the syringe with her thumb forced a single droplet of liquid out of its tip. It was at this moment she heard Joe’s steps come to a halt on the other side door. The edges of her lips tugged upwards into a satisfied smirk.

In one swift motion the door swung open, and before the clown could react they were pressed up against one another. A passer-by could have mistaken this as an embrace from afar; Victoria, much shorter than Joe, looked like she had rushed into the arms of her lover. However, hidden betwixt their mashed up bodies her hand held and empty syringe, its needle buried deep into the clown’s chest. She wrapped her free arm around his back as his form slumped lifelessly onto hers, and dragged him into the home as the door shut behind them.”

Part III: Infection

The house, of late Victorian style, was quite bare on the inside. Contrary to the incredibly well maintained, lavish exterior of the house, the interior was surprisingly dull and bare. The first floor was quite open, partially exposing all the rooms except for the kitchen, which was, from the entrance of the house, completely obscured from sight. Immediately upon entering, one was first greeted with the sight of an ancient winding staircase that led up to the higher floors. Once inside, Victoria, with an unexpected strength, carried the limp, twitching clown up the stairs. As they ascended, the heavy door to the entrance slowly closed behind them.

After reaching the second floor, Victoria casually strode into the room directly in front of the stair case. Contradictory to the rest of the house, this large, spacious room was quite cluttered.  Like stacks of paper, several bodies in piles of two littered the floor. Apparently accustomed to the sight, she proceeded to walk over to a single, lonesome looking creature and began to place the body of the unlucky performer she held, on top of it, in a most particular manner. After examining her seemingly dead captives on the floor, she became slightly irritated. Victoria, always in complete control of the situation, was deeply bothered by the scene before her. Something was wrong, but luckily she knew just what it was and how to fix it.

Slowly but surely she began to make her way back over to Joe the Clown. As the elegant figure reached the near lifeless lumps of flesh, she gracefully stretched her arm forward and plucked off Joe’s bright-red nose piece. After fingering it in her hand for just a moment, she tossed it callously into the far left corner of the room.

The visage of Joe the Clown without his signature cherry-colored snout, seemingly lifeless on the floor, pleased her greatly. Ready to move on to the next phase of her plan, she quickly exited the room just as she entered. Curious as one may be, to peer into her thoughts now, one would find the truth to this grisly reality.

The thought of several potential hosts for her “children” is what really made her shiver with joy. The yellow liquid injected into the chests of the victims, now coursing through their bodies, contained a single egg of a being that was not from this world. Unknown to the human incubators covering the floor, her terrifying plan was already underway with chance of little interference. Victoria’s curly, auburn hair bounced gently off her soft, supple cheeks as she further admired her victims, relishing the fate that she has brought them.

Part III: Infection

This next DS106 assignment, The Role Playing Game, was probably the most thought provoking challenge I have done yet. Not only does this assignment test one’s writing skills, it also tests one’s creativity to bring an interesting story to the blogging and DS1o6 community.
I will refrain from going into too much about how I wrote what I wrote, because I don’t believe that stories gain any more meaning that way. I think that, on the contrary, it takes away something from it. In this post, I have listed the previous two parts (in italics) before mine , in order for you, the reader, to have an easier time getting into the story. One of the previous posts was posted by Roundhouse slap, so maybe check out her page, too, and tell her what you thought!

Just so everyone knows, the original entries were not titled with the names “The Beginning: Part I” or “The Beginning: Part II”. I added them to make it easy for you to discern who’s work was who’s and make it look more structured as well.

When you’re done reading, please feel free to leave a comment below. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have, as well! You should try to do it, too, and try to add your own twist to the story!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

The Beginning Part I: Exodus

“Joe the clown was not a happy camper this morning. This was evidenced by the fact that he had put four lumps of sugar into his coffee, instead of the regular two. He only ever broke his two-sugars rule on special occasions, so going by that particular string of logic, this was a very special occasion indeed. Nevertheless Joe had little time to sulk, hunched over his kitchen table with remnants of buttered toast still clinging to the sides of his lips. And so it was that with a labored sigh he propped himself up off his seat and began the dreaded walk towards the front door, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a red rubber nose as he did so. He finished fixing the rubber implement on his own nose at about the same moment that his other hand fell on the cold, brass doorknob that led to the outside world. He paused for a moment, just a little longer than what he would usually allow himself (but this was a special occasion, remember). He then took a deep breath, turned the knob and stepped outside into the cold chilly morning air. It was time to have a word with the neighbours who had kept him up all night…”

The Beginning Part II: Victoria Powers

The moment that Joe stepped over the threshold of his apartment, the blinds on his neighbor’s window quickly flicked shut. “He’s bound to head over here to complain.” Victoria assured herself as she tugged her black leather gloves so they fit ever more snugly upon her fingertips. Her eyes flicked from the window down to the floor, where the motionless figures of the home’s actual inhabitants were sprawled.  She had only precious little time before the effects of the drugs wore off. She stepped gracefully but purposefully over their slumbering bodies as she moved on to the task at hand.

She quietly traversed the room until she was poised behind the front door. Reaching into the pocket of her coat she withdrew a rather large syringe, filled halfway with an opaque yellow liquid. She was both delicate and determined as she removed the cap and flicked the tip of the half-inch needle with the back of her gloved fingertips. A little pressure on the end of the syringe with her thumb forced a single droplet of liquid out of its tip. It was at this moment she heard Joe’s steps come to a halt on the other side door. The edges of her lips tugged upwards into a satisfied smirk.

In one swift motion the door swung open, and before the clown could react they were pressed up against one another. A passer-by could have mistaken this as an embrace from afar; Victoria, much shorter than Joe, looked like she had rushed into the arms of her lover. However, hidden betwixt their mashed up bodies her hand held and empty syringe, its needle buried deep into the clown’s chest. She wrapped her free arm around his back as his form slumped lifelessly onto hers, and dragged him into the home as the door shut behind them.”

Part III: Infection

The house, of late Victorian style, was quite bare on the inside. Contrary to the incredibly well maintained, lavish exterior of the house, the interior was surprisingly dull and bare. The first floor was quite open, partially exposing all the rooms except for the kitchen, which was, from the entrance of the house, completely obscured from sight. Immediately upon entering, one was first greeted with the sight of an ancient winding staircase that led up to the higher floors. Once inside, Victoria, with an unexpected strength, carried the limp, twitching clown up the stairs. As they ascended, the heavy door to the entrance slowly closed behind them.

After reaching the second floor, Victoria casually strode into the room directly in front of the stair case. Contradictory to the rest of the house, this large, spacious room was quite cluttered.  Like stacks of paper, several bodies in piles of two littered the floor. Apparently accustomed to the sight, she proceeded to walk over to a single, lonesome looking creature and began to place the body of the unlucky performer she held, on top of it, in a most particular manner. After examining her seemingly dead captives on the floor, she became slightly irritated. Victoria, always in complete control of the situation, was deeply bothered by the scene before her. Something was wrong, but luckily she knew just what it was and how to fix it.

Slowly but surely she began to make her way back over to Joe the Clown. As the elegant figure reached the near lifeless lumps of flesh, she gracefully stretched her arm forward and plucked off Joe’s bright-red nose piece. After fingering it in her hand for just a moment, she tossed it callously into the far left corner of the room.

The visage of Joe the Clown without his signature cherry-colored snout, seemingly lifeless on the floor, pleased her greatly. Ready to move on to the next phase of her plan, she quickly exited the room just as she entered. Curious as one may be, to peer into her thoughts now, one would find the truth to this grisly reality.

The thought of several potential hosts for her “children” is what really made her shiver with joy. The yellow liquid injected into the chests of the victims, now coursing through their bodies, contained a single egg of a being that was not from this world. Unknown to the human incubators covering the floor, her terrifying plan was already underway with chance of little interference. Victoria’s curly, auburn hair bounced gently off her soft, supple cheeks as she further admired her victims, relishing the fate that she has brought them.

Part III: Infection

This next DS106 assignment, The Role Playing Game, was probably the most thought provoking challenge I have done yet. Not only does this assignment test one’s writing skills, it also tests one’s creativity to bring an interesting story to the blogging and DS1o6 community.
I will refrain from going into too much about how I wrote what I wrote, because I don’t believe that stories gain any more meaning that way. I think that, on the contrary, it takes away something from it. In this post, I have listed the previous two parts (in italics) before mine , in order for you, the reader, to have an easier time getting into the story. One of the previous posts was posted by Roundhouse slap, so maybe check out her page, too, and tell her what you thought!

Just so everyone knows, the original entries were not titled with the names “The Beginning: Part I” or “The Beginning: Part II”. I added them to make it easy for you to discern who’s work was who’s and make it look more structured as well.

When you’re done reading, please feel free to leave a comment below. I will be more than happy to answer any questions you have, as well! You should try to do it, too, and try to add your own twist to the story!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

The Beginning Part I: Exodus

“Joe the clown was not a happy camper this morning. This was evidenced by the fact that he had put four lumps of sugar into his coffee, instead of the regular two. He only ever broke his two-sugars rule on special occasions, so going by that particular string of logic, this was a very special occasion indeed. Nevertheless Joe had little time to sulk, hunched over his kitchen table with remnants of buttered toast still clinging to the sides of his lips. And so it was that with a labored sigh he propped himself up off his seat and began the dreaded walk towards the front door, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a red rubber nose as he did so. He finished fixing the rubber implement on his own nose at about the same moment that his other hand fell on the cold, brass doorknob that led to the outside world. He paused for a moment, just a little longer than what he would usually allow himself (but this was a special occasion, remember). He then took a deep breath, turned the knob and stepped outside into the cold chilly morning air. It was time to have a word with the neighbours who had kept him up all night…”

The Beginning Part II: Victoria Powers

The moment that Joe stepped over the threshold of his apartment, the blinds on his neighbor’s window quickly flicked shut. “He’s bound to head over here to complain.” Victoria assured herself as she tugged her black leather gloves so they fit ever more snugly upon her fingertips. Her eyes flicked from the window down to the floor, where the motionless figures of the home’s actual inhabitants were sprawled.  She had only precious little time before the effects of the drugs wore off. She stepped gracefully but purposefully over their slumbering bodies as she moved on to the task at hand.

She quietly traversed the room until she was poised behind the front door. Reaching into the pocket of her coat she withdrew a rather large syringe, filled halfway with an opaque yellow liquid. She was both delicate and determined as she removed the cap and flicked the tip of the half-inch needle with the back of her gloved fingertips. A little pressure on the end of the syringe with her thumb forced a single droplet of liquid out of its tip. It was at this moment she heard Joe’s steps come to a halt on the other side door. The edges of her lips tugged upwards into a satisfied smirk.

In one swift motion the door swung open, and before the clown could react they were pressed up against one another. A passer-by could have mistaken this as an embrace from afar; Victoria, much shorter than Joe, looked like she had rushed into the arms of her lover. However, hidden betwixt their mashed up bodies her hand held and empty syringe, its needle buried deep into the clown’s chest. She wrapped her free arm around his back as his form slumped lifelessly onto hers, and dragged him into the home as the door shut behind them.”

Part III: Infection

The house, of late Victorian style, was quite bare on the inside. Contrary to the incredibly well maintained, lavish exterior of the house, the interior was surprisingly dull and bare. The first floor was quite open, partially exposing all the rooms except for the kitchen, which was, from the entrance of the house, completely obscured from sight. Immediately upon entering, one was first greeted with the sight of an ancient winding staircase that led up to the higher floors. Once inside, Victoria, with an unexpected strength, carried the limp, twitching clown up the stairs. As they ascended, the heavy door to the entrance slowly closed behind them.

After reaching the second floor, Victoria casually strode into the room directly in front of the stair case. Contradictory to the rest of the house, this large, spacious room was quite cluttered.  Like stacks of paper, several bodies in piles of two littered the floor. Apparently accustomed to the sight, she proceeded to walk over to a single, lonesome looking creature and began to place the body of the unlucky performer she held, on top of it, in a most particular manner. After examining her seemingly dead captives on the floor, she became slightly irritated. Victoria, always in complete control of the situation, was deeply bothered by the scene before her. Something was wrong, but luckily she knew just what it was and how to fix it.

Slowly but surely she began to make her way back over to Joe the Clown. As the elegant figure reached the near lifeless lumps of flesh, she gracefully stretched her arm forward and plucked off Joe’s bright-red nose piece. After fingering it in her hand for just a moment, she tossed it callously into the far left corner of the room.

The visage of Joe the Clown without his signature cherry-colored snout, seemingly lifeless on the floor, pleased her greatly. Ready to move on to the next phase of her plan, she quickly exited the room just as she entered. Curious as one may be, to peer into her thoughts now, one would find the truth to this grisly reality.

The thought of several potential hosts for her “children” is what really made her shiver with joy. The yellow liquid injected into the chests of the victims, now coursing through their bodies, contained a single egg of a being that was not from this world. Unknown to the human incubators covering the floor, her terrifying plan was already underway with chance of little interference. Victoria’s curly, auburn hair bounced gently off her soft, supple cheeks as she further admired her victims, relishing the fate that she has brought them.

Arthur C. Clarke Blackout Poetry

Though it’s not a newspaper (as the original #Ds106 assignment prescribes), I had the idea this afternoon while my teaching parnter was teaching the Arthur C. Clarke short story, “I forget thee, Earth” to give the front page of our handout the blackout poetry treatment.

The text of the new work, Art Clark’s “I forget Earth…” is below, should anyone want to give the piece a Tom Woodward “snowball” and turn the text into something else: song, dialogue, a rock opera…

Ten years old, his father
took up Administration and
Power, the uppermost and
swiftly growing Farmlands.

Great, slender plants creeping
creeping towards the sun,
Down the domes to meet
the smell of life.
Everywhere,
inexpressive in his heart

no longer.

Breathing dry cool air,
residential levels, purged
of smells but ozone.

Here, little father, onwards.

Reach to the observatory.
Never visit, but sense rising
excitement.

One goal: life, outside, surface wide,
and pressurized. Servicing scout car['s]
circular door.

Tense expectancy, settled down in
cramped cabin.

‘ReCaptcha Illustrated’: A Unique Assignment

Although this assignment and tutorial has been created as part of my contribution to the Ds106 learning community, it also has great potential as an activity/project for our Senior Years’ students. “ReCaptcha Illustrated” is a unique Visual Assignment that was proposed by Alan Levine (aka cogdog), who challenged DS106 students to:

Include a screenshot of a word pair from a reCapctha in an illustration or visual mashup that shows what the words might mean. Use your imagination to create something meaningful out of the random words.

When you write it up, provide some narrative that puts the image in context.

As someone who can trace his heritage back to the “Emerald Isle”, it would have been ideal if my visual mashup creation, and its equally important narrative, could have been posted on March 17th.

I will provide a step-by-step tutorial to help engage others in this unique learning experience.

1.   After reading the description of the “ReCaptcha Illustrated” assignment, I searched for a web site that would allow me to activate a ReCaptcha display.

2.  My Google search led me to the “What is a reCAPTCHA?” site with an active reCAPTCHA “generator”.

3.   I examined the initial “two string” display, which made no sense, so I kept pressing the “recycle” button located above the “speaker” icon to generate a new text combination for consideration.

4.  I admit that I rejected perhaps 80% of the reCaptcha images generated because I was unable to visualize a context under which the displayed text might apply.

5.   However, when I found a reCaptcha display which looked promising, I took a screen capture and saved the image. Some of my “possibles” are shown below:

This one had possibilities if I could find an image of a “farming family”. I could then manipulate the photo and add a speech bubble having the children complain that “Ma …kills o(ur) farming”.

 

 

This one looked much more promising. I envisaged a teenaged boy, texting his buddy and (with an unfortunate slip on one letter) proudly announcing “I’ve dat3d Lisa”. Perhaps this display might also be a person typing in a 15 character password using the popular technique of replacing the letter “E” with the image reversed number “3″.

6.   When the reCaptcha displayed this one, based on my Irish heritage, I immediately imagined “a bubble in green beer”.

 

 

7.   The next step was to find an image of a “green bubble” using Flickr’s “Advanced Search Tool”.

8.   In the “search field” at the top of the page, I entered the two words “green bubble” (without quotes). Since I only wanted Creative Commons-licensed images that I could modify or mashup, I clicked on the check-boxes in front of the following two statements near the bottom of the search screen:

  • Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content; and
  • Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon

9.   I began searching for images that I felt had potential. Whenever I found an image that I thought I might use, I clicked on Flickr’s “Actions => View all sizes” menus to check the “license type”, and verified that the image was available for downloading.

10.   Whenever I found a possible image, I always recorded the image’s URL address in my Research URL File, together, with a brief description and a 1-10 rating. Experience has taught be that it takes little time to record the URL at the time of download as opposed to deciding to use an image and then having to go back later to find the image address. If you finally decide on an image and then have to go back later to find its URL for citing purposes, you often can no longer remember the exact search parameter terms which can be very frustrating and a real time waster!

11.   I decided on this “Green Bubble” Flickr image with its Creative Common’s Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike attributes. Under this photo’s license, I could “Share” and, most importantly “Remix” or modify/manipulate it by adding a speech or thought bubble. I proceeded to download the largest format size available that didn’t exceed 1024 x 768 pixels.

12.   I think that one should always follow the DS106 “ABC” mantra of “Always Be Commenting”. In particular, I believe that it is proper etiquette to leave a “Thank You” comment below the original Creative Commons image that you are going to use. Furthermore, I try to provide a URL link to the the remixed image in your own Flickr photostream. This provides an opportunity so that the individual who uploaded the original file can visit your remixed or modified creation so s/he can see how you utilized the original.

13.   Next I decided that I would need to add a speech bubble to the image. The only mechanism that I knew for accomplishing this task (at that time) was to use PowerPoint 2007. I started this application and used the Insert => Picture menu items to transfer this image on to a PowerPoint slide.

14.   After dragging the image’s corner handles out to fill the entire slide, I clicked on PowerPoint’s Insert => Shapes => Callouts menu items and selected the “thought bubble” icon. I clicked on the slide and dragged the “thought bubble” into position.

15.   Since the reCaptcha’s “A green bubble.”  text was displayed on a white background, it is very important that one right-clicks on the active “thought bubble”, selects the Format Shape => Fill => Solid Fill => Color, and selects the white “Theme Color” to match the white background of the reCaptcha disply.

16.   Next one must choose the Insert => Text Box menu items and enter an appropriate “thought” as a layer above the bubble image.

17.   One must now use a graphic viewer, such as the Irfanview freeware for Windows, or image editing software to capture only the reCaptcha’s “A green bubble.” text with its white background. Once this portion has been saved as a new image, it can be inserted onto the PowerPoint slide.

18.   All that remains is to add appropriate text into the thought bubble, add the ”A green bubble.” image, and experiment with resizing and positioning these components.

19.   Once you are satisfied with the thought bubble text and it’s position on the slide, it is important to save this file. Certainly one can save this PowerPoint file (of one slide) as “Greeen Bubble.ppt” or (.pptx using the newer 2007 file format) or any suitable file name. However, it is also important to save this single slide as an image. To do so one must click on PowerPoint’s Office Button” in the top left corner of the screen and select Save As => Other Formats menu items. Under the “Save in:” location options, navigate to an appropriate folder or location on your hard drive. Next, click the “Down arrow” at the right end of the “Save as type:” field, scroll down, choose the “JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg), enter an appropriate “File name:” and click the “Save” button. When prompted “Do you want to export every slide in the presentation or only the current slide?”, click the “Current Slide Only” button to save the following creative image for display and/or later use.

 

Teachable Moment

“Enquiring Minds Want to Know”
Providing a narrative to put the image in context


Background

This assignment has great potential for being used to engage students in Manitoba’s Senior Years Information and Communication Technology (ICT) courses. Undoubtedly, it could be introduced in both the “Applying ICT” and the “Digital Pictures” courses.

One might consider having students investigate the work of Luis von Ahn at Carnegie Mellon University as he developed different CAPTCHA processes. Some excellent resources were provided in my earlier blog post entitled “CAPTCHAs Reduce Blog Comment Spam“. Once students are more familiar with CAPTCHAs, this “hands-on”, multidisciplinary assignment will complement the theory and provide an excellent opportunity for students to demonstrate their creativity.

Although the somewhat technical portion of this Visual Assignment is completed, there are still ample ways to demonstrate creativity. This “reCaptcha Illustrated” activity has many learning opportunities for Senior Years students. Why not request that pairs of students work on this activity together? One person may take the lead in the more technical areas while his/her partner may wish to focus more on this narrative component. Regardless of how the work load is divided, students will learn more through communication in a collaborative environment.

ReCaptcha Illustrated – The story behind the image
The scene opens on St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. The story centers around a wee, Irish leprechaun by the name of Tommy O’Toole. Since early morning,Tommy has been celebrating all by himself in the local public house (or bar) called “Clancy’s Cellar”.

Tommy has not been keeping track of the number of beers that he has consumed. but it is safe to assume that even the locals would agree that “wee Tommy” is, indeed, intoxicated.

Tommy shouts to the barman … “Clancy  … draw me another pint of your best green beer, my good man.” Within moments a large glass tankard automatically appears in front of Tommy.

Just as Tommy toasts St. Patrick, hoists the tankard to his lips, and is about to pour the green nectar down his throat, he stops abruptly. He spies a large green bubble staring back at him from the frothy surface of his beer. Grasping the mug in both of his alcohol-induced shaky hands, Tommy slowly lowers his tankard and gingerly sits it carefully on the bar so as not to upset the delicate equilibrium.

Although his mind is somewhat clouded, after spending more than seven hours sampling all varieties of green beer, Tommy says to himself … “Faith and begorrah … have ye ever seen such an amazing green bubble? I wonder if St. Patrick is, indeed, sending me a sign of future good luck? I must share this good fortune with my closest friends.”

Through squinting eyes Tommy surveys the patrons of “Clancy’s Cellar” and, regretfully, does not recognize any of his friends. “How can I share this moment with my personal learning network?”, Tommy thinks.

“I could take out my cell phone and take a picture of the bubble”, thinks Tommy, but he quickly dismissed that poor idea. He says to himself. Although my brain is a bit fuzzy, the picture would be worse, as my hands would shake so much while taking the picture.

He continues problem solving as he thinks of a strategy. “I could brace my shaking hands on the bar and take a much steadier photo to send to my friends. No … even if I they were to receive a good quality picture of this green bubble, they would all accuse me of “Photoshopping” it. There has to be a better solution”, he thought.

Then Tommy shouted out loud … “OMG!”

He quickly realized that he had to invite all his Irish friends over to this bar ASAP, so they could witness for themselves, this wonderful green bubble.

He reached into his pocket with one shaky hand and slowly withdrew his cell phone. He grasped the device in both shaky hands as he navigated his thumbs over the keypad. Even in his drunken stupor, “wee Tommy” remembered he had to be extra careful with that one key that kept sticking.

“Was it the letter ‘e’ or the number ’3′?”, he muttered under his breath.

“I’m sure that every sober person knows that the uppercase ‘E’ looks like a backwards ’3′”, however Tommy was far from sober. “It’s understandable that everyone becomes confused over their similarities. They look so much a like”, thought Tommy in his drunken state.

Tommy realized that there was some urgency in sending a quick message to members of his PLN, so they could quickly travel to “Clancy’s Cellar” and view this amazing green bubble.

In his mind he began formulating a message he could send out through Twitter. Wee Tommy struggled to compose a coherent message. Furthermore, he knew he had less than the standard message length of 140 characters, because he needed to alert his friends using the important “#Irish” hashtag.

Tommy’s brain tried its best to send signals to activate both thumbs appropriately as Tommy stabbed at each key in turn.

As displayed below, there was a close correlation between the thought image in “wee Tommy’s” brain and the message that each of his friends actually received through Twitter …

 

Take care & keep your “Irish eyes” smiling :-)

Credits:
-   Flickr – Creative Commons image “Green Bubble
by jacsonquerubin – http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacial/4861327151/

-  Brian Metcalfe’s DS106 “photostream”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/life-long-learners