LECTURE [Week 1]

MEDIA IS RELEARNING

Today our lecturer, Brian Morris, asked about different types of learning. So far my learning hasn’t been going so well. I wrote down the address of the lecture room on a post-it-note and posted it to the fridge and left it there. Because that’s what you do when you want to remember things.  Anyway, I had to wait in queue at the IT desk, trying to sort out why I’ve got no connection on my MacBook. Strangely, it worked when I arrived in the lecture auditorium…eleven floors up which I had walked.

So below are some of the main points of the lecture:

1. LEARNING AND THE STUDIO MODEL

Learning through making. This is where learning is more student focused rather than teacher focused. As Pablo Picasso said, ‘I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.’ I often feel that I learn better by making mistakes, experimenting with new form.  Like this blog for instance!

Pablo_picasso_1_(cuadrado)

II. LEARNING AND (THE) DISCIPLINE

Michelle Focault. Power and organisations. I’ve read ‘Birth of the Prison’ so it was great to hear that schools,Focault observed, were similar to other forms of repressive organisations.

‘A home is not a fortress’ by Meaghan Morris ‘Ecstasy and Economics (1992). Home can be anywhere, it can be, like media, amporhous. It is what you make it.

 III. LEARNING INSIDE AND OUTSIDE OF THE CLASS

Taking extra-curricular classes. I’ve done this with writing screenwriting classes, comedy writing with Tim Ferguson, acting and even Chinese cooking.

IV LEARNING BY…

ANALOGY/ PRACTICE/ REPETITION/ MIMICRY/ FAILURE/ METAPHOR

‘Or per Herzog, who describes himself as a product of his cumulative humiliations and defeats, ‘filmaking causes pain.’

PAUL CRONIN, WERNER HERZOG: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

V. THE GIFT

ITERATION/ PRESENTATION/ FEEDBACK

About repeating the fundatmentals, receiving criticism.

VI. LEARNING & HIERARCHIES

READING AND TALKING

Extract from N. Katherine Hayles, ‘Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generation Divide in Cognitive Modes’ (2007).

Deep thinking versus hyper attention. For further reading go to:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/apr/08/susan-greenfield-rise-facebook-zombies

Here’s something to think about and one of the many causes of hyper attention. Apple, one of the most profitable companies in the world, has been caught out being supplied by workers in slave-like conditions. Go to the link below:

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2015/03/02/4187424.htm

TASK – DEAR FUTURE SELF

To be completed by end of the degree.

  1. Blogging
  2. Video game writing
  3. Broadcast skills
  4. Film making
  5. Work Placement
  6. Editing
  7. Social media skills
  8. Scriptwriting
  9. Technology usage
  10. Make collaborations/contacts
  11. Writing stories.
  12. Presenting

REFLECTION

I am good at learning new things and do well when I teach myself something through trial and error. I’ve done since the day I was born of course, but even when I know there’s a theory or instructions on how to do something I prefer to work it out for myself (and that’s why it takes me fours hours to put an IKEA flatpack together!). Doing the task has given pause for me to think out the direction of my career and where I’d like to specialise.

PRACTICAL [Week 1]

Yes, we’ve begun Pract 1, and we spent a lot of time just trying to set up, sort out tech issues and holding the hand of digital immigrants like myself.

Strange to be sitting here, the oldest in the class (I’m in my forties) and I am struggling to communicate with people here that are half my age. I’m sure this will change with time.

On another note, out the front of RMIT saw a man with waist high chinos, a jumper with a mustard stain  on it, big grey moustache and large framed glasses giving out free copies of the Bible – pocket size. I wanted to say, ‘Moses started with tablets and now you’re going low tech.’ But I feared he would slip  one into my  atheist’s pocket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8hy8NxZvFY