Stuart Urback

Education as Design and Development

Stu — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 06:19:22 +0000

I think we need to relook the way we talk about education. Most design companies will have two teams that work closely in sync to produce great products. They are called design and development. Designers are the dreamers who try to push the envelope. Developers try to make that dream a reality.

Designers and developers are great when they work in sync with one another. Developers help designers not make every new thing incredibly intricate, subtle, and self-referencing. Designers help push developers out of their comfort zone and into spaces that aren’t just purely utilitarian.

Having these defined roles is often incredibly helpful, because it helps both groups play off of one another when they are in sync…

Education seems like it should be this way. Those roles are almost naturally built into the system. Students should be the designers, the ones who ...

Barrier to Entry

Stu — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:11:59 +0000

Whenever teachers read student work, there’s a barrier to entry for the student. The student is expected to put in an appearance of work in order for the teacher to consider it worthwhile.

It must fit certain certain constraints and expectations of the assignment. But why does the same barrier not exist for teachers?

I think most teachers would argue that the barrier does exist to some extent. Teachers must work to capture the minds and imaginations of the students.

However, students aren’t taught to be discerning about their education. Being discerning would imply teaching students how to think about their education in a way that would lead to their own empowerment.

What would happen if students were given this power? Would they reject the system entirely?

Experimental

Stu — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:33:01 +0000

Dan Ariely came and talked today about behavioral psychology and what it can tell us about humans’ relationship with morality.

For what it’s worth I’m a big fan of his and I think the work he is doing is both incredibly deep but he really makes an effort to explain it in plain terms, something I think all academics should look at.

But the one thing that really stood out to me about his talk was how everything came back to an experiment. Any time there was a problem or an idea that he couldn’t quite figure out, he tried to find a way to create an experiment to map it out and understand it.

I think there’s really about 3 types of worldviews on this matter, and all humans take part in some form of all three at some time or another. ...

Practice to Win

Stu — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:16:41 +0000

Are you practicing to win?

We all talk about how much we work, how much we prepare, all of the trials we deal with, but all of those things are meaningless without context.

What does winning mean to you?

Are you going to know it when you get there?

If you don’t have an answer to these questions, why are you doing what you’re doing?

A lot more time is wasted on simply doing things to do things than is wasted on facebook, google, youtube, reddit, hulu, etc. If you’re on one of those websites it’s probably because there’s some disconnect between what you’re doing and what winning means to you.

Two finals points:

1. Winning is not success, happiness, or wealth by definition. It can be any number of things.

2. One win is never good enough. It’s the next win that really counts.

Magic

Stu — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:49:08 +0000

In the (not) immortal words of B.O.B. “I’ve got the magic in me…”

As kids we tie the notion of magic with people that can do things that are supernatural. Superheroes like Superman or Spiderman, or fantasy characters like Harry Potter or Gandalf.

As we grow older we tend to face the “reality” that magic does not exist, that only rather mundane things are possible within very definite constraints of time and money.

But I also think there are people for whom the magic never really disappears, it just transforms itself. If we are to truly believe that magic something transformative and supernatural, then perhaps Harry Potter and Spiderman are not the only ones with this capability.

Isn’t envisioning and acting on a set of ideas here-to-for thought impossible the same sort of idea? This is not just for technologists. Most truly awe inspiring ...

On Great Things

Stu — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:24:45 +0000

We are brought up to be convinced that there are certain great works in the world, that must be comprehended and understood before one can become great themselves. We are taught to lavish attention to these great ones as though they are the only way to do great things yourselves.

This is probably mostly true.

It tends to be based on the assumption that there are certain great things that everyone must appreciate. Steve Jobs is a great example, we are expected to appreciate him because he was awesome.

However, the reality is that there are simply too many things in the world that offer the potential for inspiration for everyone to simply agree on a set number of certifiable geniuses.

In reality, what is more important is that you develop your own metric for what is great, to understand why certain ideas or elements ...

Lightfish Comments

Stu — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:23:37 +0000

In this post I’m going to talk about LightFish by eclipse games. These aren’t meant to be reviews, but more just comments and analyses of how I reacted to the game and hypotheses on why that might be.

http://www.eclipse-games.net/LightFish.html

My first reaction is that the game just played too quickly. I felt like once I got the basic concept there wasn’t much more learning to be done. While this is fine in theory, I think that the game didn’t have a compelling enough experience on a purely aesthetic level to warrant the lack of learning depth.

What I mean by this is the fact that once I found a strategy that worked I never found the need to change it or alter it to face changing conditions. I might have to pay attention to different enemies more closely at different points, but overall ...

Worth Watching

Stu — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:27:45 +0000

Tertiary Motion: Chrysanthemum by Dan McAlister from Carleton CAMS on Vimeo.

Hiatus

Stu — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:46:55 +0000

I’d like to let all of my loyal readers that I will be not posting anything for the remainder of the year. I will come back for the new year with a new website and hopefully a slightly different/more efficient content management system that more efficiently helps visitors get around the site. Good things are on their way and I’m excited for the new year!

See you January First!

Happy Holidays!

Distortion Field

Stu — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:09:17 +0000

After Steve Jobs’ death, a lot has been made of his “distortion field” that would change his perspective of reality, as well effecting the people around him. Negative or positive, it was implied that Steve Jobs never saw the “real” reality because of this distortion field.

I think this argument is misplaced and simply incorrect. Everyone has a distortion field. Our views of “reality” are biased our personal experience, perspective, and cultures. Often we are completely unaware of how our own distortion fields affect us.

The difference between Steve Jobs and everyone else; Steve Jobs used the distortion field to his advantage. He used his distortion field to positively affect the change he wanted to see in the world. His ability to use his distortion field was, in my opinion, second to none. He extended his distortion field to include the people ...