[Bf-education] Evening, Project Proposal, I would love feedback
Chris Ward
drpoo at drpooville.org
Fri Sep 22 02:24:36 CEST 2006
Evening everyone (how many members are on this list anyway?)
I'm a new joiner to this list. My name is Chris Ward. I'm 21, a senior
at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor--almost graduated with
bachelors degree in Human Ecology, and a avid advocate of Free / Open
Source Software.
I'm working on a project which deals heavily with Blender3D and
education...I would absolutely love you all to read my initial proposal
and give me some feedback. I feel this is the most appropriate place to
start asking for support. It's a short few pages, and i've never really
been the best writer, but I believe it's pretty clear and concise.
Comment on anything you like. Ask questions. Critique. Suggest. Just let
me have it! There's lots of questions still left unanswered. This is
just my initial vision, and I want the final product to be a product of
the community.
I'll paste it here inline, and i'll also attach it in case you prefer to
snag it and read it in your favorite ODT compatible doc reader. :-)
Thanks, and I hope you enjoy reading it, and that it inspires you a bit.
Sleep tight and happy Blending,
-Chris
Chris Ward College of the Atlantic - Fall 2006
Technologias Abiertas
Centro de Educacion para los Videojuegos y Deseno Graphicos 3D
(Open Technologies
Education Center for Video Games and 3D Graphic Design)
My mission for it all is pretty straight forward, however intricately
complex in the making. For now, I will focus first on simply proposing a
general idea of my project to my college for bureaucratic reasons, and
to you, the public at large, for feedback and critique. (Debo hacerlo en
espanol tambien, no? Si. Lo hare pronto)
For my Final Project at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor Maine, I
would like to develop a business plan for a very unique non governmental
organization called Technologia Abierta. This NGO will be an Education
Center set up in the state of Yucatan, Mexico, that will provide the
resources for students to learn to use the commercial quality 3D
graphic, animation and game design software Blender3D, and will
strive also to make the resources available to as many people as
feasibly possible in the area.
I have a few major visions of the results:
Firstly, I would like to see an environment setup there that
encouraged the productive and fulfilling use of time and potential
resources that computers provide alongside its' general use for
entertainment value. It is also my hope that the consumers of these
technologies in the Yucatan will become also their creators. I hope to
provide opportunities for community building through collaborative
learning, effective use of space, sharing of information and ideas, and
appropriate use of technology. I hope to see Technologias Abiertas
become the start of a center for digital cultural action which the
community will one day call their own.
It is a fact that millions of youth and adults worldwide spend hundreds
of hours each year playing video games on the PC or some gaming console
like Nintendo or Playstation. In Mexico however, this statistic does not
describe the current context of today so clearly, but it is coming
to quite rapidly. Mexico is still known as a third world country
economically and has only very recently dedicated itself to breaking
free from this undesirable label. Life has been changing with great
velocity these days for the citizens of Mexico, and especially so since
Vicente Fox came to office. One of the major political goals in Mexico
since his inauguration was to enhance the economy and the quality of
life as a whole through the increased dependence and use of modern
technologies in everyday life. And in the race to keep up with the quick
pace of developing technologies, the state of Yucatan has become one of
the forerunners in Mexico to effectively integrate themselves into the
new digital world.
Having spent some significant time in the Yucatan recently with Karla
Pena (www.yucatanlearning.com) and the crew of the Yucatan Spanish
Immersion Program from College of the Atlantic (I attended this school
program both in winter of 2004/5 and 2005/6 - more information:
www.coa.edu), I was lucky enough to experience firsthand the growth of
market demands there for computers and other modern digital
technologies the same. One of the first things I noticed, having an eye
for these sorts of things, was that the markets in the consumer
technology industries were growing exceedingly fast. The sale of
electronics, like mp3 players, video players, audio equipment, and home
televisions, etc. was really beginning to pick up. I noticed significant
changes that had occurred even over just one year. The interest in
computer and console gaming was no different. And if anything can be
told by the patterns of growth in this market in other countries like
the United States, Japan, China, Germany, Holland, countries of the
European Union in general, and the like, it leaves me with only one
conclusion: the gaming fever in Mexico has only just begun.
It is my opinion then, one based off of own personal experience in video
gaming culture, inference from the words of others native to Yucatan and
those from abroad, and by observation from within the context of
technological development projects that I took participated in while
living in the Yucatan, the change of landscape the Yucatan is seeing
today could become a double edged sword. If these new technologies are
used appropriately they really could bring about a significant upward
swing in the economy, education of the people, the transparency of
government and the general quality of life. However if abused, or used
with ignorance they can just as easily cause harm to local communities
and hurt the growth of the individual. But that's to say the obvious
without saying much, and for now I'll keep it vague and stay on topic.
It's time to explain how I think Technologias Abiertas could help some
in the Yucatan to avoid some of these the negatives in its own small
way, and how I very generally expect to achieve it.
Firstly, with Technologias Abiertas it is my intention to provide the
newly forming gaming market in the Yucatan a fighting chance to convert
some potentially bad habits of computer gaming that we have all seen
develop in so many other places into something that is highly productive
and fulfilling to the user by turning the passive playing into active
creating. It is too easy to waste away hundreds of hours on
video games without walking away with any tangible gain. Technologias
Abiertas will be dedicated to providing an environment were active
creation is encouraged alongside participation. It will be an Non
Governmental Education Center located in the incredible capital city of
Merida, Yucatan that focuses its course development on 3D graphic and
gaming design using the Free Software 3D Creation Suite Blender3D (and
other Free and Open Source -FOSS- tools that accompany it in creation
needs, i.e. sound, 2D graphics editing and the underlying GNU Linux
operating system as is needed). The courses will cover the basic
education from Beginner to Advanced skill levels, and will use an
educational approach that integrates collaborative learning and project
building, volunteer teaching and curriculum development, multiple
disciplines, and a philosophy of cultural action. This is the first
priority of a small handful that will guide me ('us') in its development.
The next priority will be aimed at giving all Intermediate and Advanced
level students a chance to take their knowledge of 3D design and their
enthusiasm for gaming to a new level by providing them with the tools to
start heading down the path of Game Design and Development. Still using
Blender 3D in combination with other accompanying FOSS tools, learners
would gain ever important experience and exposure through collaborative
project building and design.
And here at this point I would like to pause for a moment to explain a
little more thoroughly my vision of how this aspect of education in game
design at Technologias Abiertas will look in the end.
In the process of teaching the fundamentals of gaming design, it is with
respect to all the people of Yucatan, Mexico and Latin America in
general that I will invite all students and faculty of Technologias
Abiertas to take a step outside the box to incorporate a philosophy of
game design that appeals to local customs and perspectives of life,
culture, and understanding rather than simply creating to meet the
expectations of popular culture. It is my hope in doing this to find
that through the localization of games to present contexts, a larger
potential market could be reached that was generally ignored or
overlooked. Also, as a side-effect of popularity in local contexts, I
hope to find that this approach also encourages the preservation of
culture and community through games by embedding an understanding and
appreciation of local values and world-views into the minds of the
quickly growing video game playing youth of the day. Family values,
community morals and ethics, language, humor, history, and even ways of
problem solving and learning are all valuable and viable aspects of
local cultures that could be incorporated into the content and design of
games that differ in the Yucatan compared with other parts of the world.
And how it would be done would be completely dependent on the students
themselves. They are the ones who know their cultures the best, and so
it will be up to them to develop to their own needs. Technologias
Abiertas will act only as an enabler, allowing the freedom of developers
to create games which can fill the cultural and educational niches in
the gaming market that are currently left void, that respect the
creators own culture.
The third element of Tecnologias Abiertas will be to
provide Yucatan's gaming enthusiasts of today and tomorrow an exciting,
fun, comfortable, clean and modern locale for playing the games created
by the community--gaming cafe-style (likely those of popular culture too
will be played, I don't believe this could be avoided. World of Warcraft
is just too good of a game! And these games are great tools for learning
anyway). This aspect of Technologias Abiertas will play a fundamental
role in drawing in active members of the expanding gaming community in
Yucatan, and will reach out to them to provide the encouragement and
support they might need to turn their passion for the virtual into
something real.
Weaving together all these pieces like a spiders web, the social aspects
of the gaming experience, in combination with the 3D graphic and gaming
design, intimate interaction and commitment between the foreseeable
faculty, staff and students, and enlightened community development
educational models will, I believe, work together to form a synergy of
creative powers that could put Yucatan on a road toward success in the
3D design and gaming markets and the creation of the first human
ecological graphic and gaming design education organizations in the
whole world.
A lot, well, that is not all just yet. In my attempt to provide
a one-of-a-kind environment for learning 3D graphic and gaming design, a
unique environment for gaming in general, and a community for cultural
activism (if that is the best word for it...), Tecnologias Abiertas will
also be dedicating itself to the exclusive use of Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS) where no other reliable or viable alternative option
exists. There will be great effort done to ensure that only as the last
possible choice will any non-free source software, or proprietary
software be used in the courses offered in our education programs or in
the configuration of the gaming cafe parallel either. All software
possible in other words, will need to be licensed according to the GPL
Free Software licensing terms or one of it's close relatives such as
LGPL, Creative Commons, and the like. In doing so it is my intention to
provide the opportunity for all participants to join and take part in
the the global Free and Open Source communities that support their right
to freely learn from, use and profit from such software as Blender3D.
Also, I believe it is the only reasonable option I have based on the
type of community inspired education model I intend to follow, since it
holds sharing, collaboration and dialog as central elements to success.
Knowledge is a thing to share, and so are all things derived from it. At
Technolgias Abiertas, we will be committed to staying open to share
through the act of contribution and dialog with the community which
supports us.
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