DJ Methodology Toolkit for Educators

The DJ Methodology Toolkit for Educators

Zachary Kaiser

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. —attributed to Albert Einstein

As a process, DJing is inevitable and necessary for our times. —Jace Clayton (AKA DJ /rupture)

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Introduction Grounded both in academic research and design practice, the dj methodology facilitates a process of limitation, collection, selection, facilitated serendipity, mixing, improvisation, and reflection. The methodology is not built on “remix” and is not merely an analog for djing. Instead, the methodology fosters an environment where creative limitations facilitate serendipitous encounters with information: where learners are given the opportunity to explore connections between content and investigate the ways in which these connections are related. The dj methodology aims to enhance a learner’s ability to synthesize content from disparate areas or disciplines. While leveraging the power of computation to help catalyze the process, the dj methodology does not invest computation with the power to make meaning. Rather, the methodology helps generate new, human-readable meaning, as opposed to machine-readable meaning. In its potential to reveal previously obscured relationships, including those that drive asymmetrical power relationships in contemporary society, the dj methodology can become a platform for critical discourse. Today’s students engage with a world consumed by a perpetually increasing rate of technological advancement (Thomas and Seely Brown, 43), ever-increasing complexity (Goldberg, cited in Malina, 5, Davidson and Goldberg, 62 – 65) and inter-connectedness (Thomas and Seely Brown, 50 – 53). Educators from every discipline are grappling with how to connect curricula to such a rapidly changing external reality (Davidson and Goldberg, 54 – 55). With the rate at which technology seems to march ahead, it is difficult for even the most seasoned educators and administrators to predict what learning will be like in two or three years, much less five.

Technological advancement is not linear; it is, instead, logarithmic (Kurzweil). Processor power, bandwidth, and storage capacity double roughly every 18 months (Thomas and Seely Brown, 42).

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To many, the ways in which our world has begun to change are a clear indication that society must find ways to revolutionize, change, or even divest formal and traditional educational models (Collins). Innovation has become as much a buzzword in the world of education as in the world of business. As the nature of knowledge evolves into more networked and less hierarchical structures, many researchers question the industrial models of education to which we still adhere (Thomas and Seely Brown, Davidson and Goldberg, Collins, Ito, just to name a few). While schools, colleges, and universities focus on cutting costs and/or finding new revenue streams, there is also a seemingly benevolent push to make education more “open,” particularly higher education. mit’s Open Courseware is one of the most prominent examples of this trend. Many other universities have attempted to combine the need for new revenue streams with an apparent openness, taking the Massive Open Online Course (mooc) to a new level by partnering with a for-profit entity (Academic Partnerships) to offer free online courses for credit in an effort to attract more students to eventually pay to complete a degree program (Lewin). Innovation in the world of contemporary education includes everything from opening up university classes to online participants to proposing new tools for online learning. Some theories about the future of education imagine a world without traditional schools, reminiscent of Ivan Illich’s “deschooled” society. In such a society, learners interact with people working in the real world, and the few “professional educators” or “pedagogical counselors” (Illich, 99) who exist serve as guides, helping

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learners find the right professionals in order to watch, observe, or apprentice in their field of choice. This dovetails with our faith in, and excitement about, online learning. Khan Academy is by far the most famous example of the new wave of learning experiences that are competing with formal educational institutions. There is something attractive about the convenience of learning from home. There is something gratifying about the acquisition of a simple skill. In addition to the quick-fix and the gratifying user experiences of such services, their Illichian tint is clear: we should facilitate experiences for people to learn about what they are interested in so that they can do the sorts of jobs and activities that they would like to do. Formal schooling is merely a hindrance to this process that technology has made even easier. Researchers have also focused on the “disconnect between consuming new media and participating in new media” (Brennan, ii). This research often centers on participatory cultures (Ito, Jenkins, and others) and investigates the ways in which our social relationships, technology, and consumption and production of media evolve. While it is valuable to understand the nature of emerging new media learning experiences, the technologies that enable these experiences also shape and inform their content. As Twitter and Facebook updates become increasingly important to learners, as their work is more and more frequently punctuated by the irresistible temptation to check devices and social networks, the making of media becomes increasingly informed by the now. We exist in the now and only see the now as relevant and important. It becomes difficult to extract ourselves from this cycle of now-ness (“Presentism,” Rushkoff). Not only are our lives

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increasingly informed by the “now,” but we increasingly encounter difficulties focusing on tasks that require longer durations of engagement (Richtel, Carr). Learners who are over-saturated with media struggle to coherently express ideas that are syntheses rather than regurgitations of the ideas in their media. This experience translates to writing, where students have increasing difficulty writing papers. Much like status updates, the now-ness of quantifiable metrics (grades, leveling, badges, and standardized testing) and practical skills that make students employable (checklists of skills and software) become attractive ways to assess and think about learning. Our inability to look holistically beyond the now also caters to those “same types of thinking” that created many of the problems we have right now (flash crashes or the increasing income gap).

STEM is short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education, and has become a very popular lens through which to discuss the needs of the American school system.

The dj methodology of learning, and in particular this toolkit, seeks to help educators design learning experiences that counter the problematic nature of many current approaches to innovation in learning. Some of these approaches privilege the teaching of STEM skills over other learning experiences and holistic critical thinking skills. There is an overwhelming amount of research about new ways to help learners with skills based in computation, including the work of the most innovative researchers in the field of learning technologies (Papert, Resnick, Brennan). Other researchers have explored the potential for what some refer to as “new media,” in all aspects of learning. In this regard, new media researchers focus more on the nature of the learning experience itself (Ito, Jenkins).

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In a world where an increasing privilege and reliance is placed on computation, the very human skills that help djs create serendipitous experiences that surprise and delight audiences—the skills that demonstrate an understanding of content that could never be described through tagging and metadata—become ever more essential. Yet our culture has devalued these skills. They are soft, unquantifiable, and cannot be tested or graded. Computation is attractive: it makes things easier for us, helps us need to do less, helps us work faster, more “efficiently,” so it makes sense that we want to believe that computers can help us solve our world’s most difficult and pressing problems. Indeed, they can. But maybe not in the way we envision and maybe not to the degree that we would like. Moreover, by investing in computation the power to do something that we humans are actually better at (critical thinking that spans disciplines, for example), we are writing (or more accurately, coding) ourselves out of the future.

What does the “DJ Methodology” mean? What do DJs do? In making a beat or preparing and performing a dj set, djs go through a process of collection, sampling, mixing, improvisation and reflection. When making a beat (the track over which a rapper might rap), djs, particularly in the early days of digital sampling, sample brief snippets of audio from other places. They then mix samples together, either simultaneously or sequentially. This mixed composition, often consisting of many samples from disparate musical genres (if they are samples of “music” at all), becomes a beat. The dj will often “perform” parts of this composition “live,” triggering samples in real time, and

Sampling is “the basis for the popular practice of cut and paste” (Navas).

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record these bits of performance to create the best possible iteration of the beat. This process entails a reflection on the samples selected and the way in which they were arranged/performed. In the early days of hip-hop, djs used samplers (some still do) to create their beats, some of which have technological limitations that make these devices seem ancient. They may only be able to hold only 16 short samples at a time. When I made beats on my first sampler, for example, I would begin to work on one song with a certain set of samples, and then find inspiration for something new in a different sample. I would begin to work on a different song, building a new set of samples, but the limitations of my technology forced me to delete some samples from the original beat on which I was working. I would often find that some of the samples from each set sounded perfect when mixed. This is one example of the way in which the limitations of early sampling technology facilitated serendipitous musical experiences for me and for other djs and producers. The preparation and performance of a dj set (an extended mix of many songs played at a club or bar) can be seen as an extension of this process. Many djs pride themselves on their record collections, even to this day. When vinyl was the primary dj currency and djs couldn’t carry entire music libraries with them on their laptops, they had to make specific, intentional choices about what to bring to the club. As more and more people started to become djs and find out about the records that other people were spinning, a culture of “digging” emerged. Digging is the search for weird, rare, or obscure records that can be incorporated into beats or mixes. djs take pride in how much digging they do or how obscure some of their records are. When playing at a club, showing off digging skills means incorpo-

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rating unexpected records into your set and mixing them with music that people already know. It creates a sense of surprise and delight in the audience.

“The break comes to the end… and boom, he lets it go… and I was like, wait a minute, what? And it was the opening break from the Shirley Ellis song, ‘The Clapping Song,’ which, I think, the last time I heard that, I was nine.” —Steniski, of Double-D & Steniski, talking about hearing Afrika Bambaata and Jazzy Jay play a set in the late 1970s. From the documentary, Scratch. A dj set is a planned improvisation. djs cannot plan which songs they will play when ahead of time, because they cannot control all the variables on a given night (e.g., the “vibe” in the room, the number of people). Therefore, the preparatory phase entails selecting records to bring that will facilitate these serendipitous mixing experiences, both for the dj and for the crowd. These experiences surprise and delight, but they do so because they illuminate previously unseen connections and may even imply new meanings for the music being mixed. The dj methodology of learning is intended to help facilitate similar experiences with content.

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Methods Collection, Digging, Selection, and Facilitated Serendipity djs spend years digging for records and building their collections. On any given night, they must figure out which records to bring with them to play at a club or decide what songs to begin sampling in the studio in preparation to make a beat. Not unlike a dj’s record collection, learners (even though they may not always know it) can build up massive intellectual treasure troves. What can prompt the process of finding the “records” that might create serendipitous experiences of connection for a learner? To help learners find resources that might yield new and meaningful connections, prompts of various sorts can be valuable. Prompts can be suggested starting places or more overt sets of instructions. For example, to begin a research project, students may be asked to “dive down a Wikipedia black hole”—to go from one Wikipedia article to another one by following in-text hyperlinks, gathering sources along the way. Though a formal research project cannot be built on Wikipedia articles, the Wikipedia black hole prompt is a fun and informative place to start. Other prompts can be much more specific. Processes that generate suggestions (either directly or indirectly) for types of information to seek can yield interesting results. Computation is helpful here as well. A student can get a message that says, “Find a text about assimilation that relates in some way to science.” Maybe “assimilation” is the topic of the student’s inquiry, while “text” and “science” are variables that change randomly, revealing different types of information and different subjects (“video” instead of “text,” or “literature” instead of “science”). This process could also

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be more abstract, akin to Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies Cards. These cards serve as prompts that remind Eno of his most creative and productive ways of thinking and working. The deck is comprised of statements such as, “The tape is now the music,” and “Gardening, not architecture.” These statements prompt users to think differently about their work. Prompts often serve as creative limitations which become valuable in helping learners engage with material. Not unlike a fear of the blank page, learners become intellectually paralyzed when given too many options, or when they are presented with too much information, a common phenomena, which is symptomatic of our contemporary deluge of data. Prompts that provide a creative limitation can echo the technological limitations of the old digital samplers (a limitation in number) or they can be conceptual limitations (such as the system described above, which uses subject area and information type as limits). Limitations, when designed properly, can be valuable catalysts for creativity (Nachmanovich, 78 – 89). Sampling The process of digging, collecting, and selecting is tied very closely to the process of sampling. A dj making a beat might select a song to sample, but the part of the song he samples is equally, if not more, important than the selection of the song itself. Records can also be considered “samples” of a record collection. I often describe the sampling process as encompassing the process of collection and selection because things that can be broken into component parts can be sampled, and selection is an inherent part of that process. Here, I have separated the two to try to be more specific about the steps involved in helping learners utilize

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the methodology. After a learner has selected content to sample, she must identify what parts of it to sample. Sometimes the most valuable samples are the shortest or most simple. Sometimes it is a longer sample that, although sounding less important or relevant to the song, can form the undercurrent on which the rest of the song is built. Similarly with research, critical thinking, and problem solving, learners can choose to sample the same piece of research in different ways. It is valuable to illuminate these variations for the learner, but the iterative nature of the learning process can serve as a guide for learners to identify what exactly to sample. Mixing When making a beat or performing a set, djs mix samples in different ways. Samples can be mixed or connected sequentially (where one sample is played, and then another follows), or simultaneously (where two samples are played at the same time on top of one another). The mixing of content can be understood in a similar way. Content can be mixed simultaneously through transparency and layering. Sequential mixing can happen when two objects are only able to be experienced in sequence or when they are presented together but experienced in sequence. For example, sequential mixing may occur when a learner reads one passage of text, and then reads another passage immediately afterward. The differences between sequential and simultaneous mixing can be subtle and may shift depending on the context. This distinction is less important than the act of mixing itself. The mixing of content can be imagined or concrete. Two images displayed next to one another may or may not be considered “mixed.” If a learner sees a connection between the two images, these images are mixed. Similarly, two written texts do not have to be merged into one document

11 Two images mixed using transparency.

The same two images presented in sequence with one another.

for a learner to identify connections between the two and effectively mix them. Improvisation An element of improvisation is embedded within the performance of a dj-set and the semi-performative beat-making process. Improvisation is an important part of mixing and the experience of facilitated serendipity. Even making “mistakes” during improvisation can often lead to exciting results, including the identification of previously unseen connections. Learners can engage in improvisation with their research in a variety of ways and any inquiry can be improvisational. A science experiment is improvisational when it is designed to be open-ended enough to allow learners the freedom to leverage mistakes and create something new from them.

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Synthesis The mixing process is tied to the process of synthesis but

See Chapters 5, 7, 9, and 10 of my thesis document, Towards a DJ Methodology of Learning.

they are not the same. Merely mixing two sources is not synthesis. Mixing, in and of itself, does not help a learner find new meaning. Synthesis is the act of making meaning from the mix. This can happen during the mixing process or afterward. The act of mixing serves as a catalyst for the process of synthesis. By identifying connections between samples and considering how those connections are related, learners begin to identify underlying patterns and higher-level relationships that can help generate meaning. In drawing connections between connections, learners experience a level of abstraction that also allows them to see patterns outside the topic of study itself. Synthesis transcends the mix. Reflection Throughout the process learners should reflect on the work in which they are engaged. Reflection is a crucial part of a creative, iterative learning process (Resnick) and is another catalyst for the synthesis of content. Though there are many different types of reflection (Rosenbaum, 13 – 19), the types related to time are particularly relevant here: reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action (Schön cited in Rosenbaum, 18). Reflection-in-action is what Schön describes as a “reflective conversation with the situation.” For sophisticated practitioners of various disciplines, “[t]he situation talks back, the practitioner listens, and as he appreciates what he hears, he reframes the situation once again” (Schön). This process is continuous and there is no sense of temporal duration for a particular phase. When preparing to transition between two songs by blending them together, for example, djs will constantly

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evaluate the relationship between the tempos, cadences, pitches and instrumentations of each song being mixed, and subtly adjust the speed of each record accordingly or take an alternate approach for the transition between tracks. Just because reflection-in-action is more common among practitioners who have sophisticated knowledge of their disciplines does not mean that learners at any level cannot begin to experience reflection-in-action as well. While gathering data during a science experiment, a learner may reflect on why particular reactions are happening. While writing about migrant labor, a learner may reflect on the nature of the maintenance of power structures that allow for the conditions about which she is writing. Reflection-on-action, meanwhile, takes place after the conclusion of the experience. A dj may finish playing for an evening and then at home evaluate his work that night. A student may work to evaluate relationships between pieces of data, write down notes and ideas, and then later return to those ideas to reflect on them. Both types of reflection are important to fostering creative inquiry. Learners may be prompted through reflection questions that appear during the course of a learning experience, and may be given time after the conclusion of the experience to return to the project/research and evaluate the work from a new perspective. Iteration The dj methodology emphasizes the iterative nature of the learning process. A dj making a beat will test and experiment with many different samples. When using a sampler, he can delete samples and replace them with new ones or select other records. He can pick various sections of a song

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to sample, and connect and mix the samples differently. Research, inquiry, and learning should be iterative as well. Learners can begin a project, sample and mix information, reflect on this experience, try to synthesize their findings, and then test and evaluate their ideas, refining their work as they go. Cultivating an iterative mindset is valuable for learners today, where information changes so quickly that being nimble is helpful in navigating constantly shifting conditions. A note on the process: These steps do not always happen in sequence. We reflect and iterate often within a single “iteration” of a given project. These steps serve an overall guide to the methodology and a way to help educators know how to intervene when a student is stuck.

Sample lesson: the DJ methodology applied to a graphic design class Manipulative Media / Thesis and Remix Introduction to Digital Process Emmanuel College Department of Art In the fall of 2012, I developed an assignment called “Manipulative Media,” which is intended to help students learn Photoshop while strengthening their ability to communicate meaning visually. I gave the students three quotes from which each student selected one to research. The students were assigned to research their quote, and come to class with at least ten pieces of research, represented by notecards or Post-its, along with urls or printed sources. Students worked to draw connections between these pieces of research, asking not only which pieces were connected, but how they were connected. By the end of the first week of this project, students were required to develop a “thesis

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statement” based on their analysis. For the remainder of the project, the students worked to visually communicate this thesis through the manipulation of imagery in Photoshop, eventually constructing a triptych of images that served as a visual thesis. The ten pieces of research were effectively samples of the selected quote. Students then mixed these pieces of research in different ways, attempting to identify the relationships between samples, and the ways in which those relationships were connected. One student, for example, selected the quote from Socrates: The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves… You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing —Socrates, “Phaedrus”

The student came to class with a diverse body of research, ranging from Wordsworth to Saussure, from typography to Lord of the Flies. Based on her analysis of the connections between her samples of research, she arrived at a thesis: All children are learners, and today what is privileged by children is a digitized form of reality, such as digital photos or even cartoons. Just as the alphabet uses ligatures as signifiers—a replacement through the use of symbols—memory and truth are affected by the replacement, or rather displacement, of physical reality.

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Research done by one student who selected the Socrates quote.

The connections that this student drew between her research.

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Her final triptych, created using a variety of tools in Photoshop (rotate page).

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She then worked in Photoshop to manifest this thesis through the digital manipulation of imagery, creating a cohesive triptych. She began the construction of her triptych by splitting the ideas on which her thesis was based into three vignettes that when seen next to one another, would best communicate her ideas. After searching for images on stock photography sites and in Creative Commons-licensed content, she began to work with them in Photoshop, making different iterations of her compositions. These were the first images she has ever constructed in Photoshop. The appendix to this toolkit includes the assignment sheet for the Manipulative Media project.

Methods and their application in the Manipulative Media Project: Collection, Digging, Selection and Facilitated Serendipity The pre-selection of quotes provided a creative limitation for learners, as did the request that students bring in 10 pieces of research. I suggested that the research be as varied as possible, and recommended they begin with the “Wikipedia black hole” approach, to come up with more than 10 items and then decide which were the most diverse and interesting to them. Advocating that students bring in ideas about things that they were excited about was valuable as well. It helped make the project feel more relevant to them and allowed me to leverage their interests and liberal arts education within a design education context. I hoped that the combination of these creative limitations could create the conditions for serendipitous encounters with information. The specifics of this initial step were based on the learning goals of the

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project itself and were particular to the medium and discipline in which these students were working. While the basic principle remains the same, if this were this an assignment designed for literature or history students, the limitations I would impose and the prompts I would give would change. Sampling When the students brought their research to class, I asked them what they thought was most interesting about each piece of research. Some students thought entire articles or videos were compelling, while others liked particular quotes or snippets of ideas. This conceptual collection and sampling in which the students engaged informed a similar collection and sampling as they began to work on the visual component of the project. Mixing and Improvisation During the second of four class periods dedicated to the project, students were asked to draw connections between their ten pieces of research and describe these connections in as much detail as possible. They were then asked to explore the connections between those connections—the similarities in the ways in which pieces of information were connected. I gave them about an hour to do this, and because of this limited timeframe, the mixing process of connecting information became improvisational: students were unsure of what to do but needed to do something. Later on, students would also mix samples of visual information that they hoped would best communicate their ideas. They did this through learning how to manipulate imagery in Photoshop, developing a core technical competency through the lens of critical thinking.

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Synthesis The assignment prompted students to synthesize information by asking them to draw connections between connections, to consider how relationships are similar. It was no longer just about two pieces of information that they found, or even the connection between those pieces of information. The students’ thesis statements and imagery reflected a synthesis as opposed to a copy-paste approach.

Musical mashups combine the vocal and backing tracks of different songs, often creating a cognitive or sonic dissonance. Mashups can be a combination of two or more songs, or sampled sections of songs (Marshall).

The act of synthesis can also be found in the experience of creating the visual triptychs themselves. Students worked to create compositions that did not appear merely as arbitrary visual mashups. They endeavored to create compositions the truly reflected their writing. Reflection Students were given a week to write their thesis statements and begin doing the visual research to find imagery to create the triptych that communicated their thesis statements. This time allowed the students to reflect on the process of mixing and connection they had experienced during class. By asking the students to communicate their thesis statements visually, they had to reflect on their thesis statements and try to unpack them, identifying concrete visual imagery that would represent the high-level, abstract concepts in which they were interested. This process of visual research was different than the way students moved through the initial research phase of the project. By reflecting on their thesis statements, students identified three aspects of it that they thought could be represented through manipulated imagery in Photoshop. They made lists of things they might want their images to contain, and began to search for photographs with which they could work.

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Iteration The project is inherently iterative because it contains two components that are linked through making: the research/ thesis-generation and the visual composition. Students were given time to make multiple versions of each image in the triptych, reflecting on their work along the way through critique and personal feedback.

Just the Beginning The dj methodology of learning can be a valuable way to foster creative, critical thinking skills in students. These skills are not easy to quantify, nor do they cater to standardized testing. This is specifically why these difficult-to-quantify skills are important. There is something subtle and weird (Rushkoff in Anderson) about the faculties of the human mind that allow us to be creative and solve problems with a peculiar ingenuity all our own. As the overwhelming amount of data that we encounter everyday makes computation an attractive solution to nearly every problem, this peculiar ingenuity is in danger. The creative inquiry that educators can help learners explore through the dj methodology is one way to combat this danger and cultivate our uniquely human ingenuity.

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works cited Anderson, Aengus, Micah Saul, and Neil Prendergast. “The Conversation: Episode 34 – Douglas Rushkoff.” Audio blog post. The Conversation. N.p., 19 Nov. 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2012. . Collins, Allan M. “Rethinking education in the age of technology.” Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2008. Brennan, Karen. Building a Community of (New Media) Practice: Sharing Learning Stories from a Videoblogging Collective. Thesis. The University of British Columbia, 2007. Print. Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. Print. Davidson, Cathy N., and David Theo Goldberg. The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. mit Press, 2010. Illich, Ivan. Deschooling Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976. Print. Itō, Mizuko. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, ma: mit, 2010. Print. Jenkins, H. et al. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MacArthur Foundation. 2006. Kurzweil, Ray. “The Law of Accelerating Returns.” Kurzweil ai. N.p., 7 Mar. 2001. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

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Lewin, Tamar. “Public Universities to Offer Free Online Classes for Credit.” New York Times 23 Jan. 2013: A15. New York Times. New York Times, 23 Jan. 2013. Web. 25 Jan. 2013. . Marshall, Wayne. “Mashup Poetics as Pedagogical Practice.” Pop-culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube. Ed. Nicole Biamonte. Lanham, md: Scarecrow, 2011. 307 – 15. Print. Nachmanovitch, Stephen. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1990. Print. Navas, Eduardo. “Remix Defined.” Remix Theory. N.p., n.d. Web. . Resnick, Mitchel. “All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (By Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten.” Creativity & Cognition. N.p.: n.p., 2007. N. pag. Print. Richtel, Matt. “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction.” New York Times. N.p., 21 Nov. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. Rosenbaum, Eric. Jots: Cultivating Reflective Learning in Scratch. Thesis. mit, 2009. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. New York: Current, 2013. Print. Schön, Donal A. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Vol. 5126. Basic books, 1983. Scratch. Dir. Doug Pray. Palm Pictures, 2001. DVD.

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Appendix: The Manipulative Media Project Below appears a portion of the assignment sheet for the Manipulative Media Project. The design brief Develop a visual thesis by creating a triptych in Photoshop. The images you create will be visual manipulations, “impossible” photographs. These images will work together to communicate your thesis through the manipulation of imagery. The process You will select a quote about media/technology from which you will begin your thesis development. 1. Research the quote. Here we consider research in a broad sense. It could be any number of things. You could research things that the quote made you think of—an associative process of research. You could research where the quote came from and to what it is linked. Who are the theorists behind the quote? What do they say? What are other similar topics or areas of study? You could research specific things about the quote itself. What do the words inside this quote mean? How do they relate to each other? Could this quote have multiple meanings depending on how you see the words inside it? Your research should cover multiple types of information, visual (images or video) and verbal (texts or audio). Keep your research in one place, on a flash drive or on your Dropbox so that you can access any and all of it during class. 2. From your research you will select the 10 most important (to you) pieces of data. You will bring these pieces of data on notecards or small print-outs to class. Remember, your research can be verbal (written quotes, passages

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from books or papers, or recorded audio) as well as visual (paintings, photographs, drawings, prints), so your notecards may have to just be reminders to you of what the piece of data is. For example, if a video is part of your research, then maybe print a still from it and attach it to a notecard and write on the notecard what that video is called and generally what it is about. 3. During class, you will identify categories of data and explore the connections between pieces of data. Are the way two pieces of data connect similar to the way in which two other pieces of data connect? From the similarities between categories and connections, you will develop a kind of “thesis statement” that will serve as the concept for your Photoshop triptych. 4. Sketch and begin designing the images for your triptych. The image ideas that you come up with should, as a unit, a group of three, express your “thesis” in some way. No single image has to say everything. Maybe they communicate a feeling that is similar to your “thesis,” maybe you see each image as a particular “piece” of the thesis itself. The goal is to strive for a powerful communication through the manipulation of imagery. These impossible photos should include different types of visual manipulations that we will discuss in class, including: objects out of place, landscapes/environment, body alteration, multiplicity, scale, ghosts/time. 5. Refine your designs. 6. Submit three psd files images at print resolution (300 dpi)

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Quotes for selection: “The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves… You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing.” – Socrates, “Phaedrus” “We look at the present through a rear view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” – Marshall McLuhan “There is a wisdom in smallness, if only on account of the smallness and patchiness of human knowledge, which relies on experiment far more than on understanding. The greatest danger invariably arises from the ruthless application, on a vast scale, of partial knowledge such as we are currently witnessing in the application of nuclear energy, of the new chemistry in agriculture, of transportation technology, and countless other things.” (p. 37) – E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful

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