Oberlin College Basketball Scrimmage

Some of my old basketball friends from Oberlin have been bugging me to post this video for awhile. This is the intra-team scrimmage from the 1986-87 Season Midnight madness kickoff for the Oberlin College Basketball team. I still get a kick when I see how short our uniforms were back then.

Old memories

In searching through some old disks I came across this old Quicktime multimedia project that I did when I was back in graduate school. The piece was designed as a letter to my daughter. The purpose of the project was to document all of the feelings resulting from the event of her birth. I thought that it might be cool to record some of my emotions in order to give her some insight on her family history for when she was older. It was on of the first digital stories that I had created and, in many ways, was a precursor to my interest in ePortfolios.

I just knew it…… soon as I go high def….

The JVC Everio GZ-HD6

JVC announces their brand new High Definition camcorder, the Everio GZ-HD6. The GZ-HD6 is a 3CCD hard drive based camera priced at just over a $1,000. If you been reading some of my previous posts then you already know that I recently purchased a high def camcorder, the Canon HV20. At the time the HV20 was the best deal on the market. Much to my irritation, that my have just changed. Continue reading “I just knew it…… soon as I go high def….”

3rd Annual New Media Conference: Blender Guru confirmed

Nick PorcaroFinally some more good news after a week of anxiety. It is official, Nick Porcaro, one of the founders of the NYC Blender User Group, is confirmed to present at our 3rd Annual New Media conference. I had been working on getting Nick to present for awhile. This week he emailed me and graciously agreed to give an overview of the Blender application at our conference. Nick’s talk will be an introduction to computer graphics using Blender. He will address topics such as, mesh modeling, texturing, rendering, animation, and real time interaction.

Continue reading “3rd Annual New Media Conference: Blender Guru confirmed”

I need a stress reliever so…..

You gotta love torrents. I downloaded the latest episode of Doctor Who from the ‘net. The 4th season of the new Doctor Who series is currently airing on the BBC but it won’t be available in the US for awhile. However, I seriously needed a break after the LaGuardia ePortfolio conference, the kids, and my 25th high school reunion (I’ll talk about that later). Plus I just heard that my department is rumored to be undergoing a massive reorganization shortly. That type of change can always raise your stress levels. I’ll find out on Monday. Until then, I am gonna zone out for an hour or so and watch the good Doctor.

*Note to self….. I should really think about shooting a Doctor Who fan film after I finish “Dark Vengeance“*

ePortfolio Conference Planning

ePortfolio Conference Planning

I am starting to stress out just a little bit. You see over the next couple of days I have a series of presentations that I am giving at a major national conference LaGuardia is hosting. The conference, “Making Connections: ePortfolios, Integrative Learning and Assessment“, is on the topic of ePortfolios and how they can be utilized to assess student and institutional growth. Continue reading “ePortfolio Conference Planning”

Microsoft IT Tech Trends Seminar

Alfred Thompson, Academic Relations Manager for Microsoft

After my morning class the LaGuardia CIS department hosted an IT Tech Trends seminar yesterday that was sponsored by Microsoft. The seminar was open to high school juniors and seniors from the NYC area with the express purpose of getting them interested in IT careers in general, and IT studies at LaGuardia specifically. One of the schools that had confirmed backed out at the last minute because the coordinator had confused the dates and had booked parent-teacher conferences on the same day. The turn out, while not as big as we had originally expected, was still respectable. Continue reading “Microsoft IT Tech Trends Seminar”

New Toys!

The Canon HV20 and the S5 IS

I saved up and finally got some new equipment and software to replace some of my aging tools. I had been looking at upgrding to a HD camcorder for some time but waiting until the formats and prices settled down. So after nearly a year of vacillating back and forth, I took the plunge. I broke down and got the Canon HV20 that I reviewed in one of earlier posts, as well as the Canon S5 IS digital still camera.

I got the new camera in anticipation for the summer and some new shorts that I want shoot. I picked up both for under a grand from B&H Photo. Both are midrange cameras but take awesome pictures. I went with the HV20 over the newer HV30 because the black body and 30p mode doesn’t justify the extra 300 buck cost. I got the Powershot because I wanted a point and shoot camera with the ability to go manual as I get my photography chops back. Plus the Powershot takes awesome fullscreen (640×480 at 30fps) video for a still camera. The audio is excellent too. I purchased a big 8gb memory chip for under 40 bucks to store my footage. Since I mostly shoot content for the web, I won’t even need to carry my camcorder all the time since the S5 IS can do both movies and stills.

3rd Annual New Media Conference: Adobe is coming

Ali Hanyaloglu, Adobe Sr. Solutions Engineer discusses CS3

The planning for the 3rd Annual LaGuardia Community College New Media Technology conference is underway and Adobe has confirmed their attendance. The team from Adobe presented last year at our conference to a packed house and we are excited to have them back again. Adobe has agreed to present at both the morning and afternoon sessions. The morning session is going to focus on the creative and design applications in CS3 while the afternoon session is going to highlight the new CS3 video apps. Continue reading “3rd Annual New Media Conference: Adobe is coming”