[Bf-education] Blender conference and curriculum

Fri Nov 1 16:19:33 CET 2013

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for all the links, and Jamie I would be very grateful for some ways I can link it to the curriculum I have a couple of emails now from teachers keen to integrate into the Australian Curriculum(John from Coffs Harbour who has been at the coalface since before the 2.50 interface changes… Respect John :) ). School days are short and having enough time for anything other than the basics is hard. I have an advantage being a year 7 teacher in Queensland in that I have the same group of kids everyday all day for a year. Not having to work to a high school schedule means if we finish up the term’s work early we can donate whole days to projects. The bad side is I have 16 laptops, 13 mice and 26 students of whom only 50% will never remember to bring their USBs to school. But I do think clear links to the curriculum are essential to have any hope that admin will support Blender in the school and providing them with the paperwork for each jurisdiction's curriculum will just make it that much easier to integrate Blender. Most curricula are pretty much the same in the formative years, everyone has to do fractions :) 

Brian, you have my dream job, what are your formal qualifications?...If that’s not to forward, I have looked into doing some post grad study but I don’t know if I can do the time again with a full teaching load. 

For me if I thought about how best I could work with kids in blender and get more teachers involved I would have to say we make it so easy any teacher would be mad not to. As an example concept I'd like to point out Khan Academy   https://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard    this page shows a learning map that takes anyone from basic number concepts to L'Hôpital's rule, I have no idea what that is, but if you follow the steps all the way though, you will get there. The site has video tutorials and exercises that kids can access at school and at home all free. It allows kids/teachers a way to map their progress towards particular goals and shows how individual skills are required to complete more complex tasks. Could each node in a learning map be a project or sub project on the way to a greater goal? And while each of the greater goals may be different to suit student or teacher taste they share nodes teaching the same skills if those skills are required.

I think this is similar to the site design envisioned in the presentation by Nick at the conference but for really young kids (11-13 years old)  instant gratification is pretty important it’s a sad reality in today’s society. Peter Romero said in an email 

“A curriculum and lesson plans could develop starting with basic already made projects at the elementary age, adding more features at the middle school, and then moving to more detail and self work at the high school age.”

And I think this may be a very good way to go, we have math text books that provide the problems they already have all the graphs, diagrams etc. drawn up, the kids just plot the extra steps or fill in the gaps in the number sequence. With a project aready set up and ready to go, kids could complete the tasks like for instance  “apply an array and add materials to the project” hit F12 and the scene already has lighting and environment and anything else that might make it look awesome and they can go home and show off to their parents (which for them is the best bit…very few of my kids parents can believe it possible). 

It is hard to imagine that a primary school teacher like myself could contribute here. I know that everyone on this discussion list have a stronger Blender skills and knowledge than me. For me Blender is primarily a therapeutic device, it’s fun and relieves stress. But in my professional capacity I know how to start with basics and build knowledge on any topic. I teach math, science, SOSE, English, history, geography, P.E. drama, art and media, dance, computer skills and coach 2 AFL teams. (We won both games today :) ) . 

Teachers combine content knowledge with curriculum and pedagogy which is based on developmental psychology and do it in sociological context. And at the level of education I work, the answer to  the question "How do kids learn?" is essential to success and should guide the decisions made when kids start down the road of any new concept. (As I listen to the conference discussion again the discussion session finishes with reference to pedagogy and building the knowledge)

Finally, I think the gentleman from Costa Rica in the audience needs to come to Australia and speak in universities and schools, that was the best part of the conference for my money, I hope to hear from him in this forum. And I’d like to know how the people working on blender contribute to a shared document like a concept mapping project for a framework to start with…I use OneNote…Google docs might be a little more available I'm not sure if it has concept mapping but that would be a good way for lots of people to contribute to an overall project ( I really have no end of ideas on how this could go forward but I am enthusiastic :) ). I am going to respond to all the emails I got as a result of this post…Thanks to everyone, made my day having someone talk to me about Blender. Also going to share some work (those are real costumes not just cloth simulations :) )

http://vimeo.com/75186942

Kind Regards, 
Doug Sutherland

-----Original Message-----
From: bf-education-bounces at blender.org [mailto:bf-education-bounces at blender.org] On Behalf Of Blasgund Brian
Sent: Friday, 1 November 2013 9:34 AM
To: Blender Educators and Trainers
Subject: Re: [Bf-education] Blender conference and curriculum

Hi all.

I have been lecturing with blender since 2008 at Polytechnic West, animation production, game design and VFX. Blender is such a wonderful multifunctional application that it is used heavily in our project production pipelines. I have been preparing the students from Cert III - Diploma for the Indie game, VFX and Animation industries using blender as a major backbone and the students love it :)

Regards
Brian Blasgund
Lecturer IT/Multimedia
Midland Campus
[cid:image002.jpg at 01CA6DF0.F0DF11D0]
0438 938 364
Brian.Blasgund at polytechnic.wa.edu.au<mailto:Brian.Blasgund at polytechnic.wa.edu.au>
www.polytechnic.wa.edu.au<http://www.polytechnic.wa.edu.au>
________________________________
From: bf-education-bounces at blender.org [bf-education-bounces at blender.org] on behalf of Anthony Bailey [ABailey at lbc.school.nz]
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2013 7:07 AM
To: 'Blender Educators and Trainers'
Subject: Re: [Bf-education] Blender conference and curriculum

Hi Guys

I teach L1A & L1B (Year 10 & 11) students Blender. They love it, and have come up with some great designs within a short time.

The newest version is so much easier to teach as well.

Regards
Tony
Tony Bailey
DIT Teacher

Dept. Digital Technologies
[Description: Description: cid:image001.jpg at 01CCDAB0.EF7A7120]
Phone: + 64 9 477 9009 x307
PO Box 89-007,Torbay, North Shore City 0742, New Zealand Fax:+ 64 9 477 9105 │ www.longbaycollege.com<http://www.longbaycollege.com/>
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From: bf-education-bounces at blender.org [mailto:bf-education-bounces at blender.org] On Behalf Of Jim Hoffman
Sent: Friday, 1 November 2013 11:56 a.m.
To: Blender Educators and Trainers
Subject: Re: [Bf-education] Blender conference and curriculum

I am very interested as I have been using blender as my intro for students and the world of 3d

Jim Hoffman
Math and Graphic Arts Educator
Email: jhoffman at sasktel.net<mailto:jhoffman at sasktel.net>
Web Site: http://www.jimahoffman.com

On Oct 31, 2013, at 4:21 PM, J Le Rossignol <jlerossignol at gmail.com<mailto:jlerossignol at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Doug,

I have an entire Blender course written for the Australian Curriculum, and I'm happy to share. Even though I'm teaching in secondary school the first half could easily be used with primary students.
Cheers,
Jamie Le Rossignol

On 31 October 2013 23:18, John Nyquist <john.nyquist at gmail.com<mailto:john.nyquist at gmail.com>> wrote:
Doug,

Have you seen James Chronister's work?
http://www.cdschools.org/Page/455

Regards,
John

--
John R. Nyquist
Nyquist Art + Logic
864-NYQ-UIST
http://nyquist.net/
http://AstraItinera.com/<http://astraitinera.com/>

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 3:36 AM, Douglas Sutherland <dsutherland10 at bigpond.com<mailto:dsutherland10 at bigpond.com>> wrote:

Hi Everyone,
I have enjoyed watching all of the conference presentations this weekend. I was really looking forward to the education talk and I am looking for where the guys in the audience are having their discussion. I am a primary school teacher in Australia, I have had growing success with Blender and have a few ideas on where the best place to start with very young Blender users. I think that although Blender has many different facets there are some core skills and knowledge that effect nearly all aspects of the program. I have also found that there are some definite no nos when starting kids off with Blender many I have committed and in doing so killed a lot of the kids motivation through frustration. This is entirely the fault of the teacher (me) not the program but I began to think after the conference talk that if I had a curriculum to work to as I do for math, science etc. I could have avoid these pitfalls. I applaud all the speakers for their work in blender education, I now extra ideas for projects and I am humbled by the guys who run the free not for profit course. I was perhaps most fascinated by the audience contributions and would like to participate in a discussion like this. So if anyone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

Kind Regards,
Doug Sutherland

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