Senior Captone: The Calm Before the Luncheon

This session of Senior Capstone was primarily devoted to preparing powerpoint presentations for the ITA Luncheon. The students took the first part of class to research their projects and then the second and third sections were for the students to make and rehearse their presentations.

While the students and their projects are far from completion, there are notable signs of progress in the groups. For instance, Thor and Thuy Dan's interview with the professor is currently being edited for cohesion. Eddie is busy at work with Flash and Julie and Ashanti are already starting to make cards.

Much of what will need to happen from here on out will be for the students to come up with rough drafts of their projects, receive feedback from experts in their respective content fields, and then hone their products to a finer quality. Lots of Senior Capstone is devoted to students having the time and means to make such changes a reality, and we do hope that the students take the time to make the most of these great opportunities.

11/20/10 Let's Get These Proposals Done

Today the class was structured with the idea that during education the students would have the introduction complete, by exploration the students would have the timeline complete, and by the end of evaluation the online resources would be complete. Throughout the session, Ann and Ryan meet with certain groups to check up on them. Towards the end, Ryan started to comment on proposals.

Adrianne, Jasmine, and Lakoye - ITA Through the Years With iMovie

Jasmine was very efficient at working today even as Adrianne and Lakoye were goofing off. Jasmine even wrote in her blog how irritated she was to be the only one working. Lakoye was working a lot in the beginning as the leader of her group writing the proposal, but Adrianne constantly distracted her throughout the class period with YouTube videos. The game plan for next week, get 3 mac laptops. Have Lakoye finish the proposal, then have Adrianne edit, and finally Jasmine as they spend the first 1.5 hours looking for online resources. Each one of them will be working on a different video separately.

Ashanti and Julie - Holiday Cards for the Children's Hospital

Ashanti informed me that Viki would no longer be coming to ITA? Not sure what this is all about, but Ann will let AJ know. Ashanti wanted to work with Julie, so the two paired up together. Ashanti really wanted to do something with the Children's Hospital. Thus, for her community service project, Ann suggested they designed holiday cards for them. At first the two just found pictures online from Google and pasted them into a one page sheet. Ann showed them templates in Microsoft Word and Publisher they could use to make various designs of cards. At the end they were opening up illustrator. Game Plan: They need to research more about Greeting Card designing in general, Microsoft Publisher and examples of greeting card saying, images, and different font types.

Bryce and Terrance - Videos with Faculty on Campus

Terrance was absent today in class. Bryce was 1/2 working on his project. He started to research about the professors he was to be interviewing. Bryce didn't really understand each professors research but he did begin to think of questions to add. They however still need to add a timeline and online resources to their proposal. Game Plan: Have the two research more independently about filming and how to use the canon camera, and then send one of the professors an e-mail to set up a time to film.

Eddie - Flash Animation of Cell Division

Eddie worked hard for most of the session. From the conversation Ann had with him earlier in the year, he was supposed to have the first part of his project complete with vectorizing the images. However, he was somehow confused with what he actually needed to do. Thus, he is writing the professor an e-mail to extend his deadline. He still needs to work on his timeline and online resources. Game Plan: More research time.

Kiran and Eileen - ITA Yearbook

Kiran was not here today but Eileen was. She is designing the new ITA yearbook. She spent the first part of class taking pictures of the seniors working. Because she is such a diligent worker all that needs to be done is more research to help her design her project. Game Plan: Research

Henry and Tenzin - Video of Cyrstallography

Henry and Tezin researched about the topic of their video. They did a good job of researching but I think the problem is the vaugness of the project. Ann will contact the professor to double check how he would like this video created and when they will be meeting. Also, they have a pre-done video that she will try and have the professor search for. Game Plan: Fix their proposal.

Ivan and Lejia - use of CamStudio to film Jmol

Ivan and Lejia researched about the CamStudio software. However, Ivan kept repeatedly saying that he did not know what was going on. Ann had explained to them that at first the will need to be sure they know how to use CamStudio. They still need to make a worksheet for the professor with screen shot how to do everything. Also, there is problem of team dynamics right now between the two. Game Plan: fix proposal, start working on worksheet for professor. Ann will need to re-explain project.

Jermey - Flash Video

Jermey has issues to fix on his proposal but not that much. He vectorized the image his professor gave him, but at the end of session he realized he needed to actually re-make the images. Game Plan: fix proposal and continue to work.

Maya and Noah - Experiment Videos

Noah worked very hard on their proposal and it is good to go. They will just have to wait till 2/5/21 to film. Game Plan next session: transcribe what is going on in the video now and make a story board

Thuy Dan and Thor - Tubar Video

Their proposal is good to go. Thor worked on editing the video by himself. Thuy Dan did not contribute and she had to leave class in the middle. Thuy Dan also gave Ann a lot of attitude issues. Game Plan: continue to edit video

Senior Capstone - THE SEQUEL!

Today marked the 2nd year of Senior Capstone as being part of ITA. Senior Capstone is a workshop more than a class, as students are expected to work independently using instructors as advisors and online resources for assistance rather than standard lecture-based instruction. Students who have worked on community service projects are able to understake independent queries using technology. Those students without community service projects have assignments to work in conjunction with organizations or departments in and around UW-Madison.

Some examples of projects from last year's capstone included websites devoted to community groups, videos advertising ITA, flyers for campus groups, and games using Adobe Flash. This year, we hope to have some great interactive projects including flash animations depicting issues in Biochemistry, video introductions to professors on campus, an ITA yearbook, and other exciting endeavors!

Making projects like these are difficult, and we hope that the ITA students make use of the many resources available to them to learn. These students have an exceptional opportunity to make a multimedia artifact, but with large-scale projects in the "real" world, students here will have to be self-motivated, relying on themselves to make the most of their projects. Relying on students to self-schedule themselves to make great projects may sound risky, but ITA students are more than up to the task, and we look forward to seeing their project ideas come to fruition.

*Our students finished up the BTW's today, and they're probably very good...but they're still a work in progress. In order to help psych up some of our students into thinking why Flash would be cool to keep up with in the future, here is an article on Gamasutra!* The dust has settled from the initial iPad launch madness, and there have been an infinite number of articles and blog posts on the iPad. Starting out somewhat skeptical here at M2 Research, we wanted to take a closer look at the iPad's potential as a gaming platform. Games of course represent a significant portion of the 150k+ apps on the App Store. Apple says there are 50,700 games and entertainment titles currently available. At the iPad launch there were close to 60 games announced with many more in the works. Some have already estimated that the iPad App Store will make over $1billion by 2012. Also announced just over a week ago at Apple's iPhone OS 4 press conference, was their Game Center, coming this fall. Game Center will provide iPhone, iTouch and iPad gamers a central point for networking with friends, posting achievements and leaderboards. Most comparable to Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, the Game Center will be a valuable mechanism for developers to help monetize their games. It was only a matter of time before Apple announced something like this, and ngmoco, who has their Plus+ social networking solution, were not surprised by the news. Here is the short list of companies and games at launch: Electronic Arts - Scrabble, Tetris, Need for Speed, Mirror's Edge, Command and Conquer: Red Alert Big Fish Games - Amazon: Hidden Expedition PopCap Games - Plants vs. Zombies HD Telltale Games - The Penal Zone and Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse PlayFirst - Diner Dash: Grilling Green The key in the short term will be creating native versions of games specifically for the iPad. With the larger screen and unique features, developers will start to experiment quickly. The result, we believe, will be new types of game play and experimental designs. A good example of this is Flight Control HDfrom Firemint. At launch it is the first 3D stereoscopic game for the iPad, and is priced at $5. Glasses are sold separately. Firemint's iPhone version of the game has been a huge hit, so it will be interesting to see how the 3D iPad game does. M2 Research had an opportunity to speak with a number of game companies supporting the iPad and asked them for their thoughts on initial iPad game development. Dana Nelson - Lead Designer, PlayFirst PlayFirst' s lead designer Dana Nelson explains the unique development process they had with the iPad. Founded in 2004, PlayFirst publishing their games across multiple game platforms. One of the company's most successful games, Diner Dash has been downloaded more than 550 million times. "PlayFirst developed Diner Dash: Grilling Green specifically for the iPad. Developing a game for the iPad was quite different from our typical development process. Our other games are designed to be played with one mouse or one finger. With Diner Dash: Grilling Green for the iPad, we developed a game that's made for lots of fingers-10 of yours, or some of yours plus some of your friend's." "During initial development, we didn't actually have an iPad to test the gestures or the Multi-Touch, so we used paper prototypes to figure out which cooking gestures would be fun to do while managing a hectic restaurant. We knew that the iPad is all about intuitive, custom-made user experiences, so we made sure players can easily customize the game to suit their needs; it's fully playable in both portrait and landscape orientations, the Touch Cooker 3000 is repositionable, and 2-player mode can be toggled on/off on the fly." Chris Ulm - CEO, Appy Entertainment Appy Entertainment's development strategy is focused on creating original IP. Prior to starting Appy, Chris co-founded several entertainment companies including High Moon Studios where he worked on AAA console projects, and Malibu Comics which was acquired by DC Comics. "While I can't speak for other game developers", says Chris Ulm, CEO of Appy Entertainment, "for us the lack of Flash is a non-issue. When we founded the company, we made a decision to stick to Apple's development tools and build our own game engine and pipeline to create the best experience on the platform. I don't think there will be any decline in overall developer support for Apple going forward because the platform still represents the best opportunity for developers in terms of install base, marketing reach, consumer experience, advertising monetization and development tools." "On the consumer side, the lack of Flash will be painful for web-browsing on the iPad in the short term, but long term will promote the very fast adoption of HTML 5. Ultimately, the lack of Flash did not hurt the rapid adoption of the iPhone by consumers, and I suspect the same will happen for the iPad." "At Appy Entertainment we are huge believers in the iPad as a gaming platform and have either submitted, or are in the process of developing special iPad-only versions of all of our games.The screen real estate and speed of the A4 processor are a given, but what we find really attractive about the iPad is our ability to innovate new mechanics and interactive experiences that build on the mass market pioneered by the iPhone. Our firm hope is that iPad will be a premium platform for more ambitious experiences and allow "micro-publishers" like Appy to commit to more development resources and longer product cycles." Michel Kripalani - CEO,Oceanhouse Media Before founding Oceanhouse Media in 2009, Michel Kripalani was the founder and CEO of the successful Presto Studios, after which he became the industry manager of games at Autodesk. "We view the iPad as a completely new, unique device. As such, we are spending a lot of time trying to determine what we can do with it that cannot be done with an iPhone. It presents a great new opportunity to re-think all that we believe about limitations in hardware." "Developers have never had such a large multi-touch surface to take advantage of. There will ultimately be a whole new group of games that require a large touchscreen that cannot be played using other input means (mouse and keyboard -or- controller, for example). The process of cracking these new UI features and re-inventing genres will be awesome. I can't wait to see what people come up with." "Lack of Flash support does not bother us. In fact, I'm happy to keep the deluge of Flash games out of the App Store. We feel that apps written directly in Objective-C will always be superior to any kind of port, so we support Apple in their decision." Margaret Wallace - CEO, Playmatics Margaret Wallace has founded several companies in her career, and has been CEO of Rebel Monkey and Skunk Studios, where she created online casual games. Prior to that was she was a producer at Shockwave.com. "Like the iPhone before it, the iPad will be a transformative force in gaming. Playing games on the iPad is akin to having your own portable gaming console." "Playing my first game on the iPad brought to life how the larger screen size, quality of the graphics and extra power made my iPhone games seem minuscule in comparison. Additionally, the platform promises to introduce new kinds of single-player and possibly even multiplayer gaming styles. While we're still waiting for those first few breakthrough hits for the iPad, the potential is great." "Consider the recent iPadDevCamp, held at the Paypal/eBay offices over the weekend, and the outpouring of developer interest and creativity around bringing killer apps to the iPad. Combine this exuberance with the know-how Apple has shown around monetizing content in its store and I think we'll see a lot of interesting developments on the content side of things." Wallace goes on to explain some of her initial apprehension, "My only concern with the iPad as a gaming platform is that the profitability margins might be low if we use the typical iPhone game as an example. Increasingly crowded decks and difficulty accessing content have made the prospect of building an extremely profitable business around iPhone apps pretty difficult for most content creators and publishers. I hope that we do not see a similar pattern unfold for the iPad, but that's definitely a concern." Marvel Comics The other noteworthy media partner at launch was Marvel. While not directly a game company, Marvel's presence has been slightly overlooked by many in the industry. Marvel is now owned by Disney, and be sure that Disney has big plans for pushing the Marvel brands across as many platforms as it can. The comic book industry was built on the ability to collect and trade issues. While the iPad lacks that function, it does provide a great vehicle for reengaging the comic book market to a new generation of readers...and gamers. There will be more than 500 titles available, most priced at $1.99 each and some available for free. Overall Thoughts With 300k units sold on the first day, 600k sold after 2 weeks, and that number inching toward the 1 million unit mark, M2 Research's own Billy Pidgeon says, "We are cautiously optimistic concerning the iPad. iSupply believes Apple will sell 7.5M this year. That's a lot, but it's doable. If Apple reaches 10M, that will be a significant penetration. The big question is the demographics of the owners/users and their usage patterns and metrics." Certainly something we at M2 Research will be specifically looking at. Guy Kawasaki, the social media guru, entrepreneur and one-time marketing executive at Apple in the 1980s, said in a New York Times article, "The first five million will be sold in a heartbeat. But let's see: you can't make a phone call with it, you can't take a picture with it, and you have to buy content that before now you were not willing to pay for. That seems tough to me." While Kawasaki's comments initially encapsulated my own personal position on the iPad, I am starting to have a change of heart. I've had a chance to speak with developers, other industry professionals, and consumers. If Apple works on certain issues like multi-tasking and camera support (which it is), it could be a real "game changer". However, my biggest concern is the lack of Flash support. It is certainly a slap in the face for many game companies, but most notably Adobe. As a result, Adobe has issued a statement that it will stop support of its Flash packager for the iPhone and will be putting all its support around Android. Adobe's own Flash product manager, Mike Chambers posted the following very relevant comments on his own blog: "To be clear, during the entire development cycle of Flash CS5, the feature complied with Apple's licensing terms. However, as developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at anytime, and for seemingly any reason. In just the past week Apple also changed its licensing terms to essentially prohibit ad networks other than its own on the iPhone, and it came to light that Apple had rejected an application from a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist on editorial grounds (which Apple later said was a "mistake"). The primary goal of Flash has always been to enable cross browser, platform and device development. The cool web game that you build can easily be targeted and deployed to multiple platforms and devices. However, this is the exact opposite of what Apple wants. They want to tie developers down to their platform, and restrict their options to make it difficult for developers to target other platforms." So, it looks like the world is divided. In the Apple camp, everyone seems truly excited about the device. As for everyone else, there are obvious levels of concern regarding the control Apple is wielding. There will be plenty more to cover as this all plays out!

First Work Day

This morning could have been chaotic but worked out fine. Ryan was out sick with food poisoning so Ann was the only instructor in the room. Ann didn’t have access to the Flash curriculum folder, so she was unsure if there was a Learn@UW quiz. So the students did not do a morning quiz but went straight into work time. Most of the students had not started on their BTW and had no recollection what they should be doing.

The first group that Ann worked with was Lakoye and Jasmine. They decided to make their BTW for their showcase. They downloaded a Barney counting song and the pictures they needed. The problem was whenever Ann left their group, t hey stopped working completely. Next time, hopefully the instructors can push the students finish their project. They have all the pictures and music and now they just need to animate.

Eileen was very quiet today and came to class 15 minutes late. She spent all period finding images and music and has not started her flash document. She did however e-mail a screen shot.

Lejia was unproductive in the beginning. He wanted to know the requirements of the BTW, but Ann’s laptop would not log on to the network drive. So, she just put up the old requirements on the Wiki. Basically, none of the students know what is required for their BTW, so we need to make sure they have access to those sheets.

Henry and Bryce worked the entire time on their Flash showcase project. They are the furthest of the class with a storyline and animations.

Noah is doing a stick figure animation dance. He has both of his movie clips, menu, and pre-loader complete. Ann e-mailed him the file of "How To Set Up Your Flash BTW" file from last year. Hopefully, Thor will be able to figure out how to piece things together.

Thor is making a penguin dancing animation. He is using the penguin.ai files for images. He has his song and background. He will need to use the bulk of time animating.

Jeremy had some code issues but he has a good start on his project.

Ivan had some minor code issues but is doing his Flash BTW for the showcase.

Before the permit test, the students wanted a review. So Ann gave the Flash Jeopardy review. The rest of the class period the students worked on their blogs on what they did and how they plan to use time wisely to finish their projects.

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The class started off with Chou giving us a tutorial to follow. It was a powerpoint file that went though three different projects. These are all flash related. We just worked the whole morning until we went to the ITA meeting. It was a full ITA meeting.

At the meeting, Excell and other ITA staff went over some rules that ITA is going to be stricter about, such as, no more going to the bathroom during class while it is not break time. All this is due to events that happened in the building in the previous months. The meeting lasted about 45min, and we went back to lab.

When we got back, Chou showed us the final product of what we have been working on. It was an example of the BTW that we are to make in Flash. He also mentioned that scripting is involved to make the Flash project interactive and make buttons work so you can navigate to other frames.

For the rest of the day we were given time to work on our BTW.

Permit Day

When 9 o'clock came rolling around, there were only four students present in Chris and Cristina's class. The ladies sat next to each other and chatted as the projector was getting hooked up, but when the projector, once again, did not work. The decision to omit it, because of time constraints, was hastily made and the tables were rearranged so that the four students could be in earshot of Cristina and their screens in Chris' view.

Because Chou was alone downstairs and the class was so small upstairs, it was decided that we would go downstairs to join Chou's class. That is, right after the students finished their Dreamweaver exercise (to illustrate the point that CSS to HTML is like ActionScript to Flash). However, once the exercise was finished and the migration to Chou's class was announced, the students were in shock. Just last week they were moved up here, and now they're moving back down! Cristina made the decision to stay in 3139 because A) The students requested the class be taught at a slightly slower pace B) Some students learn better in a smaller environment C) The students didn't feel like moving again - they liked their current place.

To reset up the classroom, the survey that AJ had written was distributed amongst the students via gmail. They took their sweet time and went over onto break.

The class continued onto their first demo and assignment, the Simpsons activity with ActionScript and moved right onto their Ladybug exercise. The students really enjoyed their Ladybug exercise and didn't really want to move onto their permit test review.

Once the review was said and done, the students headed out onto their break, came back and started their permit test.

One problem that occurred was... Julie wasn't in enrolled in Flash! All this time, a Julie Xiong was enrolled in ITA, but it was jxiong5... which was off by 1 number. Chris and Cristina searched through Learn@UW and added jxiong4 onto the roster.

The class ended on a good note and the students went to lunch.