Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Homework the Week of 4/6 & 4/8



Estudiantes,

Since we won't be in the classroom this Thursday to touch base, I wanted to post with plenty of time your reading for the following week.  We dig into Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do in April and you'll need to have read the first 39 pages (up to New Publicness) by Tuesday, 4/6 and the next 50 (up to New Ethic, pg 90) by Thursday, 4/8.  Come to class prepared to discuss because this stuff is GOOD.

You should also immediately start working on the items for your Pink Portfolio (listed at left).  Some will take more time than others and require more than just writing an essay or responding to questions (for instance, recording an interview), and some will require some cooperation with teammates (the Creativity Map, for instance) so don't let the time get away from you!

~mrc

Epic Creativity with Elders

Students!

Have you seen this?  An artist has re-created famous images from the 20th Century with a cast of senior citizens!  Elder epic!



http://h8w.net/work/im.html

~mrc

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Bunko by Barber, Calloway and Royal!

Students,

Check out another awesome slide show made by your classmates; this time Miss Barber, Miss Calloway and Ms Royal banded together to make a succinct and creative treatment of Pink's Johnny Bunko with a little assist from Angelina Jolie and the movie Wanted. Nice job, ladies.

~mrc

Friday, March 26, 2010

Meaning, Randy Pausch & Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

As promised in class, I've embedded the Randy Pausch lecture from Carnegie Mellon here on the course website.  Enjoy with a box of tissues, and consider what has meaning to you, and which dreams you're going to pursue.

~mrc

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Week of 3/30- 4/1


For Tuesday, please come to class having read The Adventures of Johnny Bunko.  We will discuss the book, our agenda for the Improv Everywhere activity, plus have a media demo in the Earp Lab.

For Thursday, April Fool's Day, we will be performing our Improv Everywhere activity.  Stay tuned for details!

~mrc

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Class Cancelled Tuesday, 3/23

Students,

I am dealing with an unexpected veterinary situation at present and will be unable to attend class this evening.  Please check back at this space later today for more information on the week's assignments.

Be sure to come to class Thursday having read the final chapter of A Whole New Mind, MEANING, plus the 3 page Afterword.

Also, please post a comment below this to check in for an attendance mark.

Best
~mrc

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Class The Week of 3/9 & 3/11



Next week we're reading Chapters 7 & 8 in A Whole New Mind, "EMPATHY" and "PLAY."

Please take the empathic ability tests linked to below.  We'll do some of these in class Tuesday, but be sure to make a note of your scores for discussion and homework assignments:

  1. SQ Test (Systematizing Quotient aka "male brain")
  2. EQ Test (Empathizing Quotient) aka "female brain")
For Thursday's class, know your team (decided during Tuesday's class), and be ready to play!

~mrc

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Class This Week 3/2 & 3/4

Students,

Trying to reproducing the work of a master is an art practice for students that's been around almost forever.  Much more recently is the idea to reproduce a Picasso drawing, and more recent still is the task before you now:
  1. In your Pink sketchbook, reproduce (by drawing, not any other means) the image below.  It's a line drawing by artist Pablo Picasso of composer Igor Stravinsky.  The reason you're being asked to draw this upside down is explained well by Pink:
"[This is] so you know nothing about what you're drawing. The goal is to trick the left hemisphere and clear the way for the right. When the left doesn't know what the right is doing, the mind is free to see relationships and to integrate those relationships into a whole."
As you know from your reading, the aptitude of Symphony is all about seeing relationships and integrating them into a whole.  A great path to that end is Drawing, and it's especially appropriate that we use a portrait by a master artist of a master composer to get a better understanding of our own aptitude for Symphonic capacity.

We'll work on this in class on Tuesday, and you can take more time out of class if you need it.  For Thursday's class, we'll be working on self-portraits!

~mrc