ideas for my personal project

I have been pondering how to get my idea going – an assistant to help students use Final Cut Pro.  Today I realsised that rather  than try and answer all questions I should focus on the same old few that crop up time and again.  I immediately set about writing a list of the 10 most common FCP problems for beginners.

Once I have list refined then I can look at packaging it in a fun and in-your-face way!

I have also experimented with submitting this post via the Firefox extension listed below. Seems to work OK

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researching for my personal project

My proposal is to analyse the learning and remembering process when applied to software usage. Then to apply this knowledge to create an interactive help avatar supporting people using Final Cut Pro.

I have started today by scoping out the range of memory techniques. Classical memory devices – architecture of memory – include visualisation, memory combined with knowledge and space. I was already aware of ‘Ars Memoriae’ written by Giordano Bruno in the 1500’s. His interest in the nature of knowledge (epistemology) ultimately led to his death at the stake as a heretic. But his work showed that the ‘trick’ of memory by using what we would regard as association was a powerful tool which was unwillingly yielded to those outside the religious community – since it was one of bases of their power (through the control of information). It further added to Bruno’s fate since it raised issue of truth and objectivity that sealed his fate.

The mnemonist rhetorician assumed a role similar to the oral tradition poets, by assuming a position of being the chief interpreter of the nature of reality and the keeper of divine wisdom.

taken from ‘The Art of Memory’ http://cotati.sjsu.edu/spoetry/folder6/ng621.html

Further research in the field of memory led me to Simonides the poet famed for his memory and the classic use of it to remember the guests at an eventful banquet. From there I moved on to the noted English historian Dame Frances Yates who wrote the Art of Memory and the theatres of Memory by Giulio Camillo. Here, interestingly enough is a development of the technique of remembering items by mentally placing them in an imaginary place. Spatially tagging them, if you like. The key points here are a) that a known container is visualised, b) that items are visualised located in these spaces c) that the person employing the technique retrieves the items by visualising a route and location in the imaginary ‘theatre’.

There are important differences to be noted between methods of ‘loci’and so called ‘rote’ learning. Rote learning is more akin to two dimensional thinking in regard to the use and therefore the understanding of, the information. Whereas the loci method allows retention and retrieval in a more applied way. For example information retrieved by rote learning has a fixed order of retrieval. It is also based on the use of repetition rather than understanding the information. This relates to a rhizome or node based system for organising information. A third methodology is the use of mnemonics as a memorisation technique. Each technique brings different elements to bear on the proposition.

I plan to reseach further into learning styles, the use of avators and chatterbots and information encoding techniques (ie not just remembering). I hope to be able to structre the information and therefore present it in light of lessons learnt from these sources.