Final Thoughts on Online Education

I created a PREZI presentation, reflecting on the digital storytelling course I have taken online for the past couple of months. Check it out...feedback is much appreciated as always ;-)

Going Through Emotions with Digital Story Telling

yet another DS project. This is an audio digital story which I have created using Garage Band on my Mac. I previously always ignored Garage Band as I did not really know what to do with it, but now I completely fell in love with it. It is a great tool for creating simple songs or projects like the one below.
I don't really want to give away a lot of the story I had in mind when putting the sounds together, rather I want the listeners to reply to this post and let me know what pops into your head when listening to this short track. Just a small hint: its all about emotions.

Going Through Emotions - Digital Story by Lixi-Falk

Digital Poetry

"Blackout Poetry" is this method of digital story-telling called. I love the idea, not only because it looks cool but also because it is a lot of fun to find sentences in a text that is talking about something completely different. For this project, I took a page from the first chapter of "Alice in Wonderland" (scanned by Google Books). The challenge with this really is to come up with a sentence and to find the sentence. But nevertheless it is a lot of fun to play around with the word you have. If you find something cool, simply blackout the other words with a drawing program such as Windows Paint.

Digital Footprints of Apples

As I personally love design and changng things I decided to check out how one of my favorite websites has changed over the years. Or lets say....one of my favorites. I have to admit that I am a bit of an APPLE...MAC...whatever you wanna call it geek, so I frequently check the site to check whether there are any new products, software, designs etc. I love Apple because I love design in general and I think it is amazing to see how not only the internet but technology evolves over time. So here is the digital story of Apple in screenshots:

1997

1998

2000

2001

2004

2004

2007

2009

2010

As you probably have noticed, I did not post shots from each an every year, only the ones with major changes. By the way, all these screenshot were taken from the Way Back Machine (www.waybackmachine.org/)

Shooting Daily

so far I have been struggeling with these daily shoots. I often did not like the assignments. Oh well...better late than never I thought. Yestersay's assignment was to shoot someting from ground level. so here it is:

I took this photo around noon at a fruit stand in Berlin, where a friend of mine was working all day.

Live Your Goals

so I created my first real story-telling project....yea it's about soccer...don't blame me...I'm German.
I found the assignment for this on the ds106 website. I loved the idea of using as little as 7 Google search results in order to tell a short story. It was actually a quick project that I have created in only about 10 minutes, which made the whole thing even better since you get really fast results. Anyways, see for yourself and give me feedback ;-]

P.S. if you want to create one of these stories yourself simply go to http://www.youtube.com/user/SearchStories ...the instructions are right there.

"The Girls of Facebook" or "Digital Storytelling Part 1?"

so, since I have complained about the poor Facebook illustrations in one of my previous posts I quickly put together some new designs, which hopefully come closer to the silhouette of a girl and are less Vadar-esque. I am so old-school that I designed these images with Microsoft's Paintbrush (...on a MAC). It's actually fairly easy since basically all you have to do is get a copy of the original and then change the look of the silhouette with white shapes. Well have a look and let me know what you think...

Women, Soccer, and North Korea

  on Google Maps, North Korea is nothing but a blank spot

So right now I am watching the Women's Soccer World Cup, which is held in Germany this year. It's Sweden vs. North Korea. It's the 87th minute and Sweden is in the lead with 1:0. Just a regular match? Well what is really interesting about this match is that for the North Korean team it is by far more than just a game. Sport Journalists report that the players are hardly ever seen outside of the soccer field or their hotel and even though they live in the same hotel as their opponent Sweden, the swedish players have not seen the North Korean players at all prior to the match. Apparently they are not allowed to talk to the press, or anyone else outside the team. In an interview with the press the North Korean trainer Kim Kwang-min only answered one question: "What do the members of the team do in their free time?" To this he then replied: "Well, they are allowed to leave the hotel for a little while and walk around for a bit, but not too far."

By the way, the match is now over and Sweden won. This is the second match North Korea lost (the first one was against the United States) so they are now out of the competition and have to fly back home early. As usual, there are no interviews or press statements, but reports about possible punishments for the players back home have been made public after previous World Cups.

I must say I feel really sorry and strange about this whole thing. Why does North Korea even compete in these kinds of sport events when they still hold their people captive even in foreign countries. And how must the players feel when seeing the world, especially countries like Germany for the first time?

lack of illustrating skills, much?

Over the past couple of years Facebook has probably become one of the most visited websites on the web. I for instance use it excessively throughout the day and so do most of my friends. While there are bugs and minor annoyances every now and then the designers of Facebook have done a pretty good job so far. Yet there is one peculiar thing that has bugged me for a long while now. What is it about the female silhouette avatar (you know,...the one that shows instead of your photo when you have not yet uploaded a profile pic). Either the guys working at Facebook have never seen a woman before or they lack some serious illustrating skills.
Honestly, when looking at the above image I cannot help but be reminded of this dude:

 Seriously, Facebook...you might want to consider changing this silhouette into a more desirable image...

slightly

new design. still experimenting. background yes or no? sleek or flashy? love it or hate it? ideas welcome.

Curb Shame

Source: Flicker - Roberto Israel


Urban Dictionary (www.urbandictionary.com) defines this as: 

"Embarrassment at waiting on the curb obediently as other pedestrians ignore the "don't walk" signal in the absence of traffic."

Yup! This is what I frequently experience ever since I have returned from Japan a few months ago. Before living in Tokyo I always ignored the signs when crossing the street. Now that I am back I tend to debate for a while whether or not to obey the stop lights. Has Japan made me "soft"? Well I am not sure what it is but I am glad that there is an official term describing what I am feeling ;-]

Urban Jungle

Source: Lixi Falk


 Here in Berlin I live right in the center of the city, with cafés, shopping districs, art galleries, and nightclubs near by, yet only footsteps away from my appartment door lies a vast green plane of land. This area is approximately 360 hectares (or 36,000,000 square metres) wide, can be accessed from three different boroughs and is one of the largest inner-city green spaces in the world. What I am talking about is the historic Tempelhof Airport. Tempelhof played a huge role in World War II when the Nazis used this are for displays of propaganda, as well as during the Cold War when Tempelhof was used by the allies in order to bring food into East Germany, which was then occupied by the Soviet Union. Temelhof also served as a "Luftbrücke" (lit. air bridge) that made it possible for a large number of people to flee from East Berlin by plane. Tempelhof therefore is also a symbol of freedom for many Germans. After the war Tempelhof still served as a minor airport in Berlin mainly for diplomatic reasons, yet plans to close it down have started in 1996. In 2008 these plans were taken into effect and Tempelhof as an airport closed down completely.

Source: www.tempelhoferfreiheit.de


A high number of investors immediately tried to buy this land in order to realize large construction projects, however the city government decided that Tempelhof will be given to the people of Berlin. Under this idea a kind of council was started in which the citizens of Berlin are able to submit idea for what can be done on this area online. Everything concerning the park is also posted and updated online at http://www.tempelhoferfreiheit.de/

Source: D. Laubner

This historic area now serves the purpose of a city park with plenty of space for sports such as Biking, Skating, Hiking, Jogging, Tennis, Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Miniature Golf and even Cross-Country Skiing in Winter. People can rent Sagways and cruise through the park or try Wind-Surfing on boards with wheels. Throughout the year several events take place, for example music festivals, art exhibitions and sport competitions. Designated grill areas also make it possible to enjoy the whole day out in the sun to relax.
The area is so great that even if the number of visitors is high you still feel like you are in you own backyard.
Tempelhof is still evolving and new ideas are being put into place frequently. It is great to see this project grow and I think it is a great idea that people are able to shape their city.

istory, Tempelhof

Facebook as a Military Weapon?

My fellow puppeteers of sp711 probably already know what I am talking about. Operation Ernest Voice was brought to my attention by Professor Otto last week. It is essentially a military operation, run by CENTCOM, which creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. First information about OEV were leaked in 2010, which confirmed that this "sock puppet" software was originally used to manipulate online conversations to counter the presence of pro Al-Quaida opinions in Iraq. If you want more detailed information about OEV I really recommend to read the article "Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media" in the Guardian.

So what does this mean for our everyday internet experience? Does privacy on the internet even exist? From my personal experience in the way I deal with my online presence, my personal photos, opinions etc. I know that social networks such as Facebook create a feeling of privacy, when really, at least those working at Facebook probably have full control of all the user accounts. Especially being only connected with people I know in real life gives me comfort when posting online. However, if a military operation can spread propaganda in foreign countries, doesn't this mean such operations could also be going on at home? It might not be solely for military reasons but for political manipulations. What for example if operations like these would be used in order to spread false information about certain political parties? Furthermore such operations could be used simply for marketing campaigns in order to promote a product. Our personal information (age, gender, location, preferences, dislikes, interests etc.) is already "safely" stored on our accounts, ready for companies to extract and create suitable advertising campaigns around this information. But how bad is all of this really? Should there be complete privacy online? is it even possible? What do you think?

HEAVENSTAMP ft Block Party - [Hype]

カッコカワイイ!

Bonjour, Guten Tag, おはよう！！

This is my very first blog, which I will soon be filling with lots of interesting stuff, so keep checking for new entries ;-)

*LIXI