A brand-new video, Emerging Traditions: Artists Working in New Media, gives a glimpse of the width and breadth of what I'd call interactive media. The video, coupled with the recent spate of new books being published on teaching interactive media, may indicate that the field is ready to move from infancy to toddler-hood (maturity is still a long way off).

Emerging Traditions was premiered at the Akron Art Museum on March 10, 2002, by its director, Seth Thompson. Seth is also the creator of wigged.net, a "digital magazine focused on bringing innovative short videos, animations, music and interactive works over the Internet."

The video profiles four artists/groups: Mark Amerika, Tennessee Rice Dixon, Toni Dove, and Troika Ranch. Use the link below to see a full review.

[ review of Emerging Traditions ]   [ website ]

Darwin & design education
More good news is the recent publication of the first two volumes of Design Education in Progress: Process and Methodology. The journal is dedicated to the "evolution of design education," but does more than Darwin would probably recommend.

The Center for Design Studies Press at Virginia Commonwealth University is trying to speed up evolution. Rather than randomly trying endless numbers of teaching approaches (which I sometimes feel that I'm doing) you can read what others have tried, see samples of their students' work, learn what works and doesn't, and maybe shave a few generations off the evolutionary path.

Volume One, Typography, describes classroom explorations covering basic to advanced typographic problems. There are hundreds of images of student work from sketches to finalized comprehensives, along with instructors' comments. Volume Two is Type & Image.

As of Jan. 2004 these books appear to be out of print. A used one was listed at Amazon.com for $20 from one seller, $199(!) from another.

Minneapolis, here we come!
I was thrilled to learn that my proposal was accepted as part of a workshop called Teaching Interaction Design at the CHI2002 conference. I'm looking forward to joining eight other educators from as far as Austria and Venezuela and as close as Pittsburgh. What convinced me to apply was the request for proposals that emphasized that the session was to be "fun and supportive." The world sure doesn't need yet another boring panel discussion, so I hope we can achieve the workshop's lofty goal.

One thing I'm sure of about teaching interactive design is that at this stage we have far more questions than answers. That pretty much sums up what I said in my position statement. If ignorance is bliss, we should have a great time!

High school web competition
Attention high school students in the Cleveland area: win fame, fortune, and cool prizes by entering your website in Click! the first annual High School Web Competition.

The competition, sponsored by Cuyahoga Community College Visual Communication Center of Excellence, is open to any high school student in the seven county Greater Cleveland area. Websites can be entered by individual students or as class projects. They do NOT have to be "live" on the Internet. Entries will be submitted on CD-ROM, and will be judged by a panel of web design professionals.

[ Click! competition website ]

For more information, watch our website or email me.

-Al Wasco, March 14, 2002

RECENT FEEDBACK:

I was at Kent State a couple of years ago, in your summer Director class. One of the wonderful benefits of that experience is access to your site! It's a true service to design educators. Thanks. I don't feel like I have to invent every wheel alone anymore.
  -Amy Arntson, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

This site is very informative and unique. As a multimedia/interactive design educator I am pleased to see that a site like this exists with this amount of information.
  -Flashmaster

I wish the updates about different programs were updated more often.
  -klennon1

Your recent article, "The tyranny of 1024 x 768" is excellent, it really is. As a follow-up to your analogy to video, consider this: HDTV supports a variety of resolutions, 480, 720, and 1080. Each of those resolutions can be interlaced (e.g. 480i) or progressive-scan (e.g. 720p). Think that the video industry will soon be dealing with many of the same problems we are? I believe so... especially when it comes to console games... Playstation 2 supports progressive scan at 480, I believe, but the X-box supports 480, 720, and 1080... some games will certainly play nice and support all modes... but some day soon, things will get messy.
And when that happens, we1ll be able to say: "Welcome to our world." :)
  -Brice Ruth