Playing Around With DALL-E to Create Images of Future Learning Spaces

 November 16, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  508 words

Inspired by Benj Edwards’ post on Ars Technica this morning, I wanted to try out the latest version of DALL-E that’s integrated into ChatGPT 4 Turbo™, to see what it could create to visualize potential future learning spaces. I started off with a basic “Create an image of a video game depicting students exploring classrooms and informal learning spaces. Cinematic, 8K, studio lighting.” 🤖 - AI-Generated Content via DALL-E Interesting. Chalkboards, but sure. Read More

Images used in this post:

an image of a video game depicting students exploring classrooms an image of a video game depicting students exploring classrooms, as rendered by an Amiga 1000 an image of a video game depicting students exploring classrooms in the year 2123, as rendered by an Amiga 1000 an image of an active learning classroom in the year 2123 an image of what the University of Calgary might look like in the year 2123 an image of what the Taylor Institute might look like in the year 2123 an image of what the a large lecture theatre might look like in the year 2123 an image of what D’Arcy Norman might look like in the year 2123 another image of what D’Arcy Norman might look like in the year 2123
general 
chatgpt  dall-e  generative ai 

Rethinking About Generative AI

 November 13, 2023  |  23 minutes  |  4760 words

This post was originally going to be part of a series exploring the topic, but if I take that approach I’ll probably never actually make time to write each post in the series, so here’s an omnibus “I need to think about this stuff and writing a blog post is the best way to formalize my thinking.” We’ve all been trying to figure out generative AI since ChatGPT was launched almost 1 year ago. Read More

Images used in this post:

chat-gpt-created image combining 2001 and The Shining jersey version 4
general 
chatgpt  generative ai  artificial intelligence 

A Graduate Architecture Critical Practice Studio on Learning Spaces

 September 15, 2023  |  7 minutes  |  1403 words

Back in March, an article was published in our UCalgary News describing a collaboration between one of our librarians and an instructor in SAPL (UCalgary’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape). The project involved students designing possible future library spaces, and they came up with some really interesting ideas. I immediately thought “hey - that’d be cool to try with a focus on learning spaces!” I reached out to folks in SAPL to see if they were interested, and got connected with Matthew Parker. Read More

Images used in this post:

Figure 8.8 from my dissertation. A framework for integrating HCI and SoTL concepts to describe course designs. In this case, replace HCI with 'video games' and 'SOTL' with 'understanding teaching and learning' (Norman, 2023). Some of my own initial modelling work in video game engines - top left was a mockup of interacting with 360˚ video in Unity, the others are mockups of learning spaces built in Unreal Engine 5.
work 
taylor institute  learning spaces  architecture  SAPL  work integrated learning  teaching 

On Online Teaching as a Text-based Adventure Game

 August 26, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  889 words

My dissertation explored the connections between the design and analysis of video games and our design and understanding of teaching & learning. Much of that work was shaped by a conversation I had with one of my supervisors: Figure 1.2: One of the conversations that shaped the direction of this dissertation. AI-generated character portrayal provided by Stable Diffusion. I’d written a bit to explore the comparison between video games and online teaching, to see what it might look like if it was experienced as a Zork-like text-based adventure game. Read More

Images used in this post:

A comic, portraying a conversation between myself and a supervisor, about the nature of online learning becoming like a video game - and wondering if the video game was any good…
general 
dissertation  online teaching  video games  zork 

Building a Mastodon Chatbot With ChatGPT

 August 1, 2023  |  5 minutes  |  921 words

I had a random thought, triggered perhaps by the tinnitus that is constantly eeeeeeee-ing in the background of everything. What if there was a Mastodon bot that just replied to every toot that mentioned it, with a string of eeeeeee’s of the same length as the message? The second semi-random thought was that I had no idea how to even start to build such a thing. The third obvious-in-2023 thought was that I’d bet ChatGPT could help with this somehow. Read More

Images used in this post:

screenshot of a prompt fed to ChatGPT: Build a Mastodon bot that replies to every message by converting the message into “eeeeee” of corresponding message length" screenshot of 2 toots, one asking @tinnitus “hey, tinnitus but. is this thing on?” and the other responding “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” screenshot of the Mastodon profile for Tinnutus Bot
general 
ChatGPT  Mastodon  software  development 

Presenting to the Association of University Architects

 July 4, 2023  |  13 minutes  |  2564 words

I’d intended to quickly write this post to reflect on the session, but it’s stayed in my drafts pile for a couple of weeks now so I’m going to share what I can remember. I’ll likely be misremembering some of the details of the session, but this should hit the highlights at least. Recently, I had the absolute pleasure to be invited to co-present at the 67th Annual Association of University Architects Conference, conveniently hosted this year in Calgary, and even more conveniently having one day’s sessions housed within the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. Read More

Images used in this post:

https://darcynorman.net/photos/2023/2023-06-20-presenting-at-AUA2023.jpg poster image for video Taken during the 2022 University of Calgary Conference on Postsecondary Learning and Teaching, hosted by the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. https://darcynorman.net/photos/2023/2023-02-16-new-artworking.jpg https://darcynorman.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/img_2564-960x720.jpg poster image for video https://darcynorman.net/images/2023/2023-06-20-AUA-presentation-whiteboard.webp
work 
learning spaces  conference  presentation  taylor institute  design  architects 

Easing Back Into This Thing We Used to Call the World Wide Web

 June 15, 2023  |  7 minutes  |  1293 words

I’ve been seeing a lot of energy online about bringing the old web back, or bringing the humanity back to the web, or just trying to make some art, dammit. So, here’s my part. This blog is my corner of the World Wide Web. Of the non-corporate, non-monetized, non-advertised, non-user-tracked, human-scale online experience. I haven’t been blogging, partially because I’ve been holding back due to Not Having Anything Profound to Share™. Read More
general 
blogging 

Displaying Hierarchical Lists of Files With Obsidian and Dataview

 May 3, 2023  |  3 minutes  |  521 words

In Obsidian, I use a folder of notes called “Collections”. Inside Collections are various folders that act as buckets of info, in a quasi-Zettelkasten notes-as-personal-wikipedia kind of thing. My Collections currently include (in alphabetical order): Articles Committees Ideas Institutions Organizations People Profiles Topics Vendors Some of these have subfolders to organize notes into smaller buckets. For example, Topics is organized by folders for: General Tech Higher Education Information Technologies Learning Spaces Learning Technologies Misc Pedagogy Processes TI Projects UCalgary The folders change and I add to them and reorganize as needed. Read More

Images used in this post:

https://darcynorman.net/images/2023/2023-05-03-obsidian-graph-view.webp https://darcynorman.net/images/2023/ObsidianCanvasScreenshot.webp https://darcynorman.net/images/2023/obsidian-canvas-institutions-and-topics-screenshot.webp
general 
obsidian  howto 

How I use Obsidian to Manage My Note-taking Workflow

 April 4, 2023  |  6 minutes  |  1069 words

Rambling blog post alert: there isn’t a simple, straightforward way to tell the story of how I use Obsidian. This is going to be a bit of a winding post as I start to describe my setup and workflow. And there will be gaps because a) I don’t have time to write an omnibus description of this and b) you don’t want to read that anyway. I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, but kept getting stuck by the scale of what was needed. Read More

Images used in this post:

my Obsidian folder structure Obsidian “map” canvas, with blocks for all of the types of information I need to keep handy obsidian graph view, showing nodes and connections to notes in my vault
general 
obsidian  notes 

On Video Games for Teaching and Learning

 March 10, 2023  |  8 minutes  |  1606 words

Grant Potter asked a question on Mastodon, about how video games are being used for teaching and learning. I’ve done some work on this for my dissertation, and wanted to repurpose bits from a few chapters in response to Grant’s question. I’ll be writing more about my dissertation work, but am still in “pause and recover” mode after finishing it… In the dissertation, I explored how the disciplines of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) intersect, using the specific ways in which we design, study, and evaluate video games as the point of integration. Read More

Images used in this post:

Science Theatres 140, as created by students at the University of Calgary Notre Dame cathedral, recreated in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Unity
general 
video games  teaching  learning  dissertation