Eirene Janus and Pia Klaar demonstrated noteworthy patience when they interviewed me for RezLibris, because what I remember is yammering on and on at the slightest prompt. Here, I will share several related links and a few notes made while listening to that podcast. I surely appreciate their interest, and I was glad to learn that RezLibris encourages such a dialog about design.

Much of what made the cut in the podcast referred to the recent Studio Wikitecture project, which I wrote about here and here. Here is a Studio Wikitecture entry describing the challenge.

How can virtual architecture be designed to best serve the needs of teaching and learning in a virtual environment
Keystone Bouchard

Studio Wikitecture presented a unique challenge: There were no client requirements or specifications. The 4.0 project brought together a group of developers who might inform the design process, each one having their own notions about what a virtual classroom should be, based on their experience building in this new medium. And, here is a blog post announcing the final results.

At one point, Eirene asked “Do you think the classroom will be used?” My response (“I am not going to make a prediction” – “I have no notion as to their intentions”) may sound as though I did not care. I was speaking from the perspective that the the project itself was the product, and that it was already a success in my mind (regardless of whether the classroom was used, or not).

Studio Wikitecture is about process. The opportunity to collaborate with developers attracted me. Whether UofA faculty use the classroom or not, I learned plenty; collaboration required communication that was challenging, and scripting techniques and interactive approaches emerged that were new to me.

The “current project” mentioned toward the end of the interview is the iDP Voyager, which has since been released via this RezEd forum.

Thank you, Eirene and Pia, for showing an interest.

Hexagonal Skybox

Along with making videos and viewing the basic GIMP tutorials, I have recently been building regularly. After two years of working on scripts, primarily, it is good to stretch the platform competencies. But here, I must digress:

Today’s building project (image) reminded me of some poor criticism of Wikipedia that I recently read. I am not a fanatic jumping to the defense of a favorite site, though I am a recovering Wikipediaholic. I often find criticism of the pedia to be well considered. And, as with any social entity, criticism should be tolerated if not indulged. Some criciticism (a recent example) can inform the discussion within the Wikipedia community about the content. No, I am referring to the weak sort of “Wikipedia is lame” comments; as though by simply questioning accuracy or authority you can cast doubt on its utitlity. (Are there some folks who hit the back button at first site of the Wikepedia logo – figuratively thumbing their nose at the site?)

For those who are skeptical about any particular Wikipedia entry:

If you doubt it, keep looking.
If it is wrong, change it.

I typically look for Wikipedia hits in my Google results…which happened again today.

So, how does one make a fairly regular hexagon? Open up your trig notes and start from one side.

Wikipedia works for me.