Collaboration

Welcome to your studio blog. 

I teach using the self-publishing technology known as blogging in my design studio. I began using a blog as a teaching tool in fall 2009 and I have continued with every subsequent studio. Blogs create a reflective learning environment, a history of project process and an electronic studio community allowing students and professors to extend teaching and learning beyond the moment and beyond the studio. The blog activity creates a informative structure (a catalog of sorts) within which I reflect on my assignments and outcomes. This is at a basic level a study of the relationship between the message originator and the message receiver. It is a reflection on the way I teach and how students learn.

Blog Posting Rules

Other professors along with your studio peers will be looking at your posts so you want to be sure that:

• Posts are free from silly SPELLING and GRAMMAR issues (please check)
• Posts contains STRONG STATEMENTS concerning your thoughts and direction (please revise)
• Posts are properly LABELED (label names will be discussed)
• Posts contain the BEST and latest version of your work (please revise)
• Posts may contain PROCESS work and key images as well (however, use the "process" label)
• The "guidance" and “assignments” labels belong to your's truly (me).

As mentioned above, you have be sure to LABEL your post so that it is possible to sort. This is very important to the way the blog functions. The "Labels" input field is found at the right of the editing area. Use a limited number of labels (but you may be creative). Before you do anything else label the post with your name. Name label format shall be "first name". Use title case to enter blog titles and labels. Next add a label using the subject from the assignment email. For example, “P1 X2 Sketch”. You will notice that when a label has been added, it shows up when you enter the first few letters.

At the end of a project I will create a "page" of links that will use labels to sort the blog. You will need to do some housekeeping with your labels to make sure they show up where they should. Label only the best or final version of your work as it falls under a heading. All others can be labeled "process". You can still use multiple labels, so a viewer can click on a label very specific to your work.

Images

Because we make large hi-res image files, it may be difficult to post to the blog with your final image, even after it is flattened. Here is a piece of freeware that I use to resize images quickly.

If you are using the Windows version,be sure to pan down to the bottom of the page and find the"XnView vX.XX.X Complete version". It comes with the "shell extensions" which allow you to right click on your flattened jpg or png file and convert it to a number of predefined sizes. Experiment with which one does the best job for your postings.