teachers ?

introductions
#1

hi all,

this is a thread specifically for teachers – if you are teaching, or interested in teaching with OF (or just code, in general) - can you please say hello here?

We are trying to assemble a kind of mini research group geared around teaching, for doing some brainstorming regarding common issues, patterns, ways of teaching, resources, etc.

We are also very interested to know what universities, courses, or workshops are being done, especially so that we can try to distribute that info. It’s super helpful…

thanks much!!
zach

#2

I’d be interested as well,

Europe area. I am having trouble justifying flying far so much at the moment.

Current ofResearch areas are:-

  • integrating USB IO (see http://muio.org)
  • a system of graphical containers following a Flash/stage metaphor.

Steve

#3

I’ve taught this semester a course at parsons called magic++, working the magicians Marco Tempest and Matt Holtzclaw:

http://a.parsons.edu/~magicplusplus

and next year will be teaching algorithmic animation, (loosely based on
http://thesystemis.com/makingThingsMove) both of which use OF quite heavily.

am currently interested in the following problems:

a) transitioning to c++ from other languages and how can we help people
b) books that teach c++ well, and that make sense for OF
c) documenting common patterns (like flag variables, linear sorting, etc) in a way that can help people start to see coding as a combination of common processes.
d) common errors and documenting them, so there are good resources online to point folks to

thanks!
zach

#4

Ciao Zach,

I will be teaching the code section at Parsons Bootcamp this July. They want to use Processing but I was thinking about OF too as there will be 4 classes of which 3 basic and one “advanced”. I will teach the “advanced” one and OF can be used there, what do you think about it?

#5

in the advanced section, what topics do you cover?

I’ll PM / email you about parsons specifically, but it’d be interesting to hear about what you cover over the 4 weeks.

take care!
zach

#6

Hi Zach,

I’d be very interested in adding ofw to my teaching arsenal. My primary tools of torture are as3, p5, some java (the requisite php/javascript/mysql) and I’ll be adding objective-c this fall, for a class on iphone dev–got bribed into this for a free phone ;-(.

I think it might also be good to get you out to beautiful Oxford, Ohio for an opw brain dump (very close to the hometown of CR).

Anyone write that 800+ pp book on opw yet?
Ira

#7

Hi there,
I’m based in Mexico City at the Centro Multimedia of the Centro Nacional de Las Artes. I’m teaching free workshops there about open source software to artists and designers. Currently I’m teaching basic graphics programming with P5 but I’d like to transition to OF for a couple of reasons.

One big reason is that currently at our institution we mainly use older machines in the classroom. Even with Linux as the OS they still run java based apps fairly slow. You can do fullscreen with OF, even on a machine with a P3 processor and I think that alone would make the experience much more satisfying for students.

Conventional wisdom seems to indicate that teaching C++ programming to students with absolutely no programming experience might present some problems, (especially when the teacher is new to it himself) but I have to say that I don’t find the actual C++ based OF code to be any more difficult to use or read than Java-ish code. I think the biggest barrier to entry for learning OF right now is figuring how to get your IDE set up and learning how to use it well. That is something I would like to start documenting in addition to some of the other common problems Zach mentions.

Jaime

#8

Hi! I’m Jaime Munárriz.
I teach at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), at the Facultad de Bellas Artes, Department of Design and Visual Arts.
I run a postgrade course on Interactive Environments, as an introduction to programming with P5, and a showroom of all the new tools (Pd, VVVV, Arduino…)
OpenFrameworks appears as the ‘advanced’ medium for really strong projects.
Students come with no programming knowledge, so they don’t get that far, but at least they know all this tools exist, and they can use them in the future when they need them.
I hope I can introduce more New Media courses in the new plans, we are working on new grades and postrgrades… I’ll let you know!

#9

Oh yeah! Now this is a thread for me! :slight_smile:

Intro: I’m in Aix-en-Provence, and I do a lot of workshops throughout France and occasionally elsewhere in Europe.

I’m usually working in art & design schools, and a few select universities. My subject is code-based art, with more and more of an emphasis on hybrid forms, which means that there is a lot of electronics (Arduino/Atmel by preference, sometimes PIC). Currently I use Processing at all levels, and have started this semester with OpenFrameworks as a continuation of Processing. We have three more weeks left in the semester. One student has to finish a floor-projection/tracking system in a few weeks, and we’re using OF + OpenCV for that. The other students are just experimenting with it.

In Aix, I run an “Atelier” which means that our daily job is actually building stuff. From this studio perspective, OpenFrameworks, like Processing, has to be ready enough to make artwork with it, and yet accessible enough for art students. We’re definitely there with Processing, and obviously have a long ways to go with OF, but I can help on that front and have some experience there. Also, Processing got most of it right, so the OF project can blatantly copy some of those ideas.

On May 26th, I’ll be conducting a workshop at the Biennale Puglia 2008 (http://www.bjcem.org/) where I’ll show all the tools I use, including OpenFrameworks.

Next year, I will be conducting a two week intensive training session in Aix with the 1st week dedicated to Processing (beginner > intermediate), and the 2nd week dedicated to OpenFrameworks (intermediate > advanced). I am using the current semester as preparation for that intense session which will be open to a lot of outside participants. I am also experimenting with the current batch of students concerning what sort of materials, examples, methods I can use to get them up to speed.

Finally, there is an important on-line component that I use for support, similar to what ITP http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/ and others do. Here are the links, for example, to the class on Processing http://www.ecole-art-aix.fr/rubrique34.html, and all the rest http://www.ecole-art-aix.fr/rubrique11.html. Those should give an idea of what I plan in the future. I will be making a similar on-line tutorial this summer, or at least in time for the two-week session I just mentioned.

#10

Hello here ! ,

I am from venezuela, teaching at the academy of media arts in cologne in the area of video, new media and scenography. I would like to offer here a seminar around the use of code in scenography. ( by now I am using P5, jitter and so, and would like to get an approach to OF )

please free to contact me.
luis at khm de

http://www.khm.de/mg/
http://www.khm.de/

#11

hi guys.

my name is ricardo palmieri, aka palm. i’m working actually with interactive installations and sensible spaces. we starting here in sao paulo a new medialab inside the museum of image and sound, and im teacher of puredata, P5 and hardware stuffs like arduino. im starting with OF, and i desire soon to produce some “toys” using this wonderful tool. thanks for zach and all the people who are contributing with the OF project.

cya

palm.estudiolivre.org

#12

Hello,

My name is Jack Stenner. I teach in the Digital Media Art program at the University of Florida. I’ve been meaning to look at OF more closely, and now that the semester has ended I finally have some time!

I teach a class called “Programming for Artists.”
http://digitalmedia.arts.ufl.edu/~jack/-…-rogramming

Before I got here it was primarily AS, but for the past 2 years we’ve been working with P5. The class is required for undergrads, though a number of grads have begun to take it as an elective. Some of the students have previous programming knowledge and others grasp it pretty quickly, so I’m thinking it would be nice to structure things so the advanced students can use OF. It might also be a better fit for other, more graphically intensive projects. Of course, it looks like something I can use in my own work as well. I’ve been looking at the Poco integration with great interest, especially the database part…cool!

Shout-out to mr. abstractmachine; we were neighbors in a little show in San Jose a couple of years ago :slight_smile:

Thanks to all who have been working on this. It really is exciting to see.

#13

Hi,

my name is Patrik and I’ve been teaching various workshops for BA+MA students in interaction design in Kolding, Denmark for a few years. I teach mostly Unity (game engine) these days, but started out with Processing in workshops dealing with digital/electronics sketching, prototyping interactivity, game design etc.

I’ve just recently started dabbling with OF and I haven’t taught it yet but in terms of the research group i think there’s a lot to be shared regardless of platform.

/P

#14

Hi

My name is Maria and I’m recently graduated from ITP, I’m also a professor in Universidad de los Andes’ School of Architecture and Design at Bogota, Colombia.
Before coming to ITP I used to teach an introductory course for undergrads, Introduction to Digital Media, that included an introduction to coding. In the fall 2009 I’ll be going back to los Andes to continue my academic work there and I would be interested in including OF in some of the classes.

m

#15

hi
i have been running a processing workshop as part of a course in interaction design at Ravensbourne college in London. In the next academic year I will be teaching on a new interaction design MA, introducing a variety of tools for building interactive systems. One aspect that I am very interested in personally and that I would also like to teach is computer vision. So naturally I will consider openframeworks for this course.

#16

So last week I started a new class and announced that we’d be using OpenFrameworks for all of the reasons I mentioned above. Ironically last Friday we received new computers at Centro Multimedia so P5 and other applications just fly now. “Ni modo”-as we say here.
We’re going ahead with OpenFrameworks anyway! I spent all Saturday installing Ubuntu, codeblocks and openFrameworks on the lab machines.
See this post on installing codeblocks 8.02 in ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron if you’re interested in that: http://forum.openframeworks.cc/t/installing-codeblocks-8.02-in-ubuntu-8.04-hardy-heron/727/0
Also I’m working on a script that will hopefully make it a little easier for my students and other linux codeblocks users to start a new project.

#17

Hi,

Me and edma have been running a series of OF workshops at the CCT in Porto, Portugal and we are interested in helping out OF’s teaching activities.

Currently we’re trying to setup a creative coding work/research group to see if we can build some momentum for OF around here, but time is really scarce.

I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers,
P.

#18

hey,

i used to teach C++ and Java to first-year computer science students, so i’d be interested in being involved. i have some ideas around strategies for teaching programming to beginners - the school i studied at had, as one of their research angles, teaching programming to non-programmers.

cheers
d

#19

Hi all.

I’ve taught a couple of workshops on Processing, one for visual artists (in our National Visual Arts Museum) and one for Art Professors… and I’d love to do something with oF.

I also teach HCI for undergrads at Uruguay’s public University…

I’ve been using oF in some personal art projects and I’ve found it amazing. I’d like give a big thank you to everyone for putting up this amazing community.

All the best,
Tom.

#20

Hi !

my name is Owi and I’m teaching a pure OpenFrameworks course at the University of Art and Design in Offenbach near Frankfurt/Germany. The main focus is on Tracking/OpenCV and video manipulation. I have 3 students.

greetings ascorbin