HOW excited am I about this?! The Big Draw is a big, month-long event encouraging everyone to get out there and draw. This is the sixth year and the aim is simple - to get everyone drawing. Personally, I need to learn more about John Ruskin, who inspired this event and believed drawing is the basis of visual thought. Sadly, drawing is a discipline that most folks are told they can't do, so they stop. But the importance of drawing is clear, "Drawing can develop skills of perception, communication and invention transferable to any subject and helpful in a variety of educational settings." Make sure to click through links on their site, because there are many, many great events and quotes. It'll make you want to get away from computer and pick up a drawing instrument! (Anyone know if there are any sister event...
For the last six years, Christina Merkley has been experimenting with using visuals or graphics with my coaching clients, combining hypnotherapy, traditional phone-based coaching and face-to-face graphic sessions.
Thanks to Visual Being, I've learned of a whole community of people who are wrestling with the physical gear and psychological prowess involved in making presentations engaging and relevant.
Thanks to a recent post by Lee Potts, I learned of sage advice from "back in the day" before the Tech Bubble went bust. It's from Doc Serls and it's great.
Facilitating the needs of those living with disabilities through Universal Design Principles and Person-Centered Planning.
Videocue 2 has swank features including the ability to have an on-screen teleprompter, green screen, podcasting, videoblogging that syncs up with most of the popular services, Quicktime support, multiple camera support, and on and on.
Each airline, from Korean Air to Kentucky Air, is required to illuminate what the hapless chattle-- er, passengers--should do in the unlikely event of a sudden loss in cabin pressure or, even more exciting, an evacuation of the fuselage after a crash landing at sea. So, how does one instruct without inciting panic?
The family of CAD programs seemed a bit too maniacal on the details; but a new version of SketchUp seems to be the closest thing to "hands on" construction--it is the best synthesis between drawing, computer-added design, Silly Puddy® and playing with wooden blocks!
Montage-A-Google is a simple web-based app that uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords (search terms) entered by the user. Not only an interesting way of browsing the net, it can also be used to create desktop pictures or even posters.
Art. Lebedev Studio has created the Optimus keyboard. Such a brilliant idea; each key is a display, so the images on each key can change according to the program you're in or the language you're typing.
Philip Stewart saw things differently. In 1951, Stewart saw Edgar Longman's spiraling depiction of the periodic table at the Science Exhibition at the Festival of Britain. The elliptical take on the elements resonanted more than the "boring version on the wall of the school lab, which had the grace of a pile of bricks" More than fifty years later, he's refined that that periodic table into the "Chemical Galaxy." Slate offers a slideshow outlining the evolution of the periodic table and how we've understood the building blocks of our universe, ending in Stewart's new Chemical Galaxy. There, told to author Jon Lackman, the Oxford ecologist explains, "The old table arose and survived because we live in a world of boxes...We're used to them. But I think the human brain is actually more comfortable with curves. The old, square forms were very convenient for old-style...