Technology in the Classroom

The local news in Idaho has been filled with a lot of talk about the education reforms recently passed by the State Legislature and signed by the Governor. One of the controversial issues is to divert money from teacher pay to increasing technology in the classroom. If increasing the amount of technology provides more student benefit than increasing the number or teachers or quality of teachers, then it is a good idea. So the question is, does technology in the classroom benefit students, and if so by how much, and is that greater than the benefit of more teachers who are happy? Here is one product of the Idaho school system’s personal experience on the subject.

Background

To give you a little background, I love technology and my entire working career has relied on it. I create websites and program custom web apps for clients in the financial, health care, retail, and many other sectors. I also use a computer to create logos, brochures, packaging, sales sheets, business cards, handouts, inserts, posters, and much, much more graphic design work. I also provide illustrations for book covers, children’s storybooks, and young adult novels all of which require a significant amount of digital art. So I am no stranger to technology and certainly understand its place. I’ve also had to use a diverse array of knowledge I gained in school including writing skills, math skills, accounting skills, analytic skills, debate skills, speech skills, random odd facts, and much, much more. Knowledge I’ve gained on a variety of subjects has been invaluable to me. So here are three case studies of technology in the classroom and what it did for me and my fellow classmates.

Case Study 1: High School Math

In High School I took all of the advanced math classes. In Advanced Algebra and Trig as well as Pre-Calculus, we occasionally used the T1-81 (a high tech graphing calculator) with several richer students had the then latest and greatest T1-85. In Calculus we used the HP 28 (another high tech graphing calculator). During the times we did NOT use the calculators, we learned how to do math by hand and better understand the principles. When we pulled out the calculators, students struggled with getting them to work, then once they figured it out all they had to do was punch in numbers and think about the processes taking place or the concepts being used. Or they programmed their calculator to play Mary Had A Little Lamb. In both cases, little math was learned. I honestly got a lot more out of the weeks in class we solved equations by hand then I did punching in numbers and copying the answer.

Case Study 2: College English

In college I took a computer-based English class. We sat at computers during class time and all work had to be done on the computer. During the 3-credit hour course I was required to type one paper and take two tests. And on the days the computers were malfunctioning (a common occurrence) class was cancelled. Anyone who has taken a college-level class will tell you one paper for the entire three credits is unheard of.

Since college I have become a professional writing both writing copy for websites and graphic design projects, marketing materials, newsletter articles, my regular column on Examiner.com, one young adult novel with another on the way, several short stories, and a few comic books. I have yet to use anything I learned in that computer-based class. I’m not even sure if I did learn anything.

Case Study 3: College History

I also took an Internet based Art History class. We were given a schedule of what we were to research, then let loose to scour the Internet for information and present it to the class. I had a friend in another Art History class being taught traditionally. I was always amazed how much they covered that we didn’t even touch. Later I took two other Art History classes taught traditionally, and I learned much more from those. Technology again got in the way of education.

Other Examples

These are just three of many, many examples I have. I could also include computers causing graphic designers to be worse designers, illustrators not drawing as well, business classes where more time was spent on finding funny pictures and cool transitions for a presentation than on researching and finding content for the presentation, and much more, but I think you’re getting the picture.

What am I saying?

Now, I’m not saying technology doesn’t have its place in a classroom. Word processors are the best way to type papers, and students should learn to use them and use them well. PowerPoint presentations, videos, and scientific calculators are also very helpful.

What I’m saying is whenever a teacher or institution tried to rely on technology or put great emphasis on technology, education has suffered. I have personally learned more from a teacher who was passionate about a subject and allowed to share that passion with me without worrying about whether the information would be on a standardized test or how to get some gadget to work.

My experience has told me that giving students laptops, iPads, new computers, and other cool gadgets isn’t going to improve education, but instead be a distraction from it. Unfortunately, it’ll be several years in the future before the data exists to prove this, and by then the damage will be done and the students will not be as capable as they could and should be.

How Technology has changed the Illustrated Story: Case Study 1 - Pulps vs. Comics

Matt D. Williams, the author of Jak Phoenix, invited me to write a guest post on his site. I look at the early twentieth century and examine how advances in printing destroyed one genre but created a new one. It also changed the way certain types of stories were told.

Read the entire post at http://jakphoenix.com/2011/04/13/how-has-technology-affected-the-illustrated-story-a-guest-post-by-jeff-thomason/.

As you can see, it is only one case study. The topic interests me so much that I plan to make it a whole series of posts. Don't hold your breath, because I have a lot of other things I'm working on first.

This image is a drawing of Wandering Koala^TM, and I think I'll use it for the title pages of all future stories. It's fitting, because I consider Wandering Koala to be a 21st century pulp hero who also appears in comics.

A few thoughts on Digital Comics

I use to be a big time comic fan, then I stopped reading them for a while, then I started reading them again but not with the same enthusiasm.

Recently Comixology released a few numbers about the growth of digital comics. They are growing, but more slowly than other media that went digital like music, movies, and books. It’s too soon and the data too scarce to make any definitive statements about them, but here are a few of my thoughts.

Why do people buy Digital Comics when they can get them on paper?
1) Price – Comics cost $2.99-3.99 per 22-page issue. When I started buying comics in 1989, most comics cost $1.00 while Superman comics cost 75 cents. That means they’ve increased in price by a factor between 3-5. Paperback books haven’t even doubled in price during the same period. Paper comics are pricing themselves into oblivion. The current diehard fans that are willing to spend too much and buy multiple copies for variant covers are the main thing keeping the current system going; very few new fans are entering the market threatening its survival. Digital Comics are currently sold for between 99 cents and $1.99. I feel this is the main reason digital comics are growing--the print market is so far above market price that it is forcing competition to emerge, a phenomenon that has been observed in the past and been misinterpreted by courts as a lack of monopoly instead of the result of a monopoly.

2) Coolness Factor – With the launch of the iPhone, Android phones, the Kindle and other eReaders, and the iPad, downloading digital is the current “new and cool”. People download apps they’ll never use, books they’ll never read, and music they’ll never listen to a second time. Why? Because it’s cool, and this has led many people who don’t read comics to start downloading digital comics. This is one reason certain titles have seen growth in digital sales without any loss in sales for the paper version.

3) Availability – Every year more and more comics shops close their doors. Fewer and fewer newsstands carry comics. And while the Direct Market was set up to over order comics so they’d have back issues to sell, the current goal is complete sellthrough so the shop isn’t stuck with unsold issues. Digital issues in theory should always be available in whatever quantity they’re demanded. This is probably the least compelling reason.

So are digital comics the future? Maybe. I personally like paper comics better, but I won’t be able to afford to buy them for much longer at current prices. And many times I’ll wait for the trade paperback and buy it at a discount at Amazon, which doesn’t help the Direct Market system or local comic shops.

Of course, there are challenges:

1) Collectablity – A digital file is unlikely to increase in value.

2) Readability – While one can read a comic book on a giant computer screen, it’s not a pleasant experience. People like to download and consume content on their iPhones and Kindles and iPads and other gadgets, but their screens are too small to read current comics. Some have tried to cut up the comic into individual panels, but that usually results in odd configurations and cropped artwork. Others have tried to zoom from panel to panel, but then you lose the “page as a whole” design the artist intended and again miss out on some of the artwork.

3) Technology – Anyone who has tried to download and read a digital comic knows it takes a lot of time and processing power. It’s kind of a buzz kill waiting and waiting and waiting only to have the comic crash.

4) Price - Digital comics are currently sold for between 99 cents and $1.99. I’m not sure these are the right prices, being a creator and seller of digital comics myself. At 99 cents you don’t make enough profit to sustain or grow the business unless every issue is a blockbuster which it won’t be. As a consumer I’m resistant to spend $1.99 on something that isn’t physical and that is hard to read.
Is there anyway to overcome these challenges. Of course!

1) Focus on complete collections over the one “hot” issue. Make having every issue seem as great as that limited first issue going for $40 on eBay. I don’t know how well it will work though. But if people actually read the comics instead of storing them in Mylar, it may.

2) In the 80s it was common for action figures to come packaged with a mini-comic. They were usually aroung 5” x 6.5” and would be easy to read even on a smart phone screen. In Brazil they sell comics in digest sizes with three issues per book. This makes the cost per issue much lower than it is in America, and they have to translate the dialogue anyway so adjusting it for the smaller space has to be done anyway. (In case you haven’t guessed, I’m proposing creating new comics as mini-comics; that way you still get the total effect of the page while maintaining readability. Plus you have fewer panels per page, so there are more pages and it appears to be a better value. Of course, this isn’t helpful for older comics. There is no good solution for those.

3) The technology problem will solve itself as Internet speeds become faster and devices become more powerful. Of course, better coding would speed up the process.

4) $1.50 seems like a good price to me. That’s what I sell a lot of comics at, and they sell as well as the ones I price at 99 cents, but I’m actually making enough money to make it worth my while. Of course, the packaging multiple issues together would allow for lower per issue prices and may be the way to go, especially for long stories that can’t be wrapped up in 22 pages.

I don’t see digital comics ever completely replacing print comics just as digital music hasn’t replaced hard media and eBooks haven’t replaced print books. There are things print can do digital can’t, and if the industry takes advantage of that, then print can have a healthy future.

But I have my doubts they will.

A few thoughts on books and writing

So a friend and fellow author has a blog where where she does a lot of reflecting on the writing process, publishing, and other related topics. Her latest post made many points and raised many questions that I've often pondered. Here are a few of my responses to what she wrote.

1) So called "literature" is in not superior to so called "escapist fantasy" books. I'm not a big fan of "literary" writing myself; it turned me off of reading in high school, and I didn't start reading again for several years until I was introduced to Foundation by Asimov. There is nothing wrong with popular books. There is nothing wrong with escapist literature. They can be just as well structured and written as the greatest work of "literature".

2) If a story wants to switch genre midstream, I say let it; the whole concept of genre can be very limiting and hurt a story. I think back to the classic 80s cartoons I loved as a kid, and they crossed all kinds of genre lines, and I loved them for it. He-Man was an action/adventure show, but it also has science fiction elements (robots, gadgets, alternate dimensions), fantasy elements (magic, dragons), romantic elements (Teela & He-Man), dramatic elements (Teela discovering her real mother) and more. A writer shouldn't force a story into a certain genre; they should let the story be what it wants to be, and if it's hard to categorize, then it's hard to categorize.

3) There is a false notion that you should show not tell. The wonder of using words and being a good storyteller means you can show when it best conveys the meaning, and you can tell when it best conveys the meaning (the term is story tell-er, not story show-er). A writer should use the best tool available.

4) If you seem to be writing screenplays, then publish your stories as screenplays. That's the magic and wonder of eBooks--you don't have traditional restrictions. Or get really crazy and turn them into podcasts or audiobooks and sell them as such. eBooks are a cool new format, and there's nothing wrong with experimenting with new forms that don't have a chance of making it in paper.

The picture at the right is another cover someone hired me to create for their book. It was done with a brush-tipped marker and colored with chalk in Corel Painter X.

Digital Comics vs. Print Comics

Recently I've read articles about the growth of digital comics and people wondering if they will replace print comics. While there has been growth, it has been very slow, much slower than music, movies, or even books. I've even written articles on it myself on Examiner.com. While I am a huge fan of eBooks and think they will replace the majority of books with print shrinking to more of a specialty gift market, I'm not sure the same will happen with digital comics for several reasons.

I think people like printed comics better than digital comics. I know I do. They look better printed on paper and are easier to read. Comics were meant to be large with the words and details of the art nearly impossible to see on a small screen or a computer screen. Print also has resell value and is more collectable. But there are a couple of serious problems with print.

1) They are getting too expensive to buy ($2.99 to $3.99 for 22 pages?). Digital Comics have the potential to be priced where people can afford them (99 cents).

2) Print comics just aren't that cool. In a world of special effect movies, video games, and cool new gadgets like the iPad, eBook Readers, and smart phones, the four-color goodness of comics just aren't competing. They look pretty tame in comparison.

3) Comics take up a lot of physical space, whereas digital comics don't. For a lot of people, space is a premium.

Honestly, I think cost along with low quality stories and art will kill print comics unless they do something different with the format to provide more value. Here are a few of my suggestions:

1) Double the length of comics. Twenty-two pages is honestly the wrong length for a good story. It's too long for a quick yarn, and way to short for a story with any real development.

2) Increase the size to magazine size. Big artwork is cool (check out the DC Absolute Editions or the Spawn Deluxe Collections), and comics need a new infusion of cool with all the competition they're facing from movies, video games, and gadgets. Also, the small artwork on smart phones, eReaders, and computer screens wouldn't have a chance to compete. I personally love this size and have a lot of comics in it.

3) Put them out bi-monthly. Having a new story every month I think takes too much of a toll on writers and artists. They put out subpar work as a result, and a lot of readers stop reading as a result.

4) Charge $4.95. This way you are getting your 22 pages of story for $2.50 which is the maximum amount anyone really wants to pay for a comic.

Most likely the comic industry won't take any of these suggestions or do anything differently. They'll just continue to milk their current fans without attracting many new fans and slowly go the way of the nickelodeon. Of course, that will open the door for new people to enter the market, so maybe it's not such a bad thing.

More Jak Phoenix Character Sketches

So Matt asked me to sketch a few more characters. I was going to wait until I finished reading the novel, but after meeting Cartrite I had these images of characters in my head and wanted to get them on paper.

First is Cartrite. He's orchestrating the takeover of the entire galaxy by setting up a government that is destined to fail and then stepping in and saving the day. It's a rather brilliant yet insidious plot. What's scary is it could so easily happen in real life.

I based his costume on Stalin's uniform and the face is a composite of two white haired actors. I bought a new skinny brush that I used for the first time on this face to create more delicate lines for faces and hands while going for thick lines for the clothes and chair. It provides a nicer line weight contrast than I usually have.

The next character is Rusty. He's the proprietor of a space station where weary travelers can stop and repair their ships and themselves. In the story he gives Jak first class treatment, but Jak suspects there's something not entirely altruistic in his motives, and of course he's right; Rusty wants something--something big.

I based his look on a couple of different characters. I thought a medieval type garb would fit the innkeeper nature of the character. I pictured him as being short and round, but I wasn't sure about the hair. This version shows it well kept, but I did consider making him much older with out of control hair. I'm not sure which is better.

If you haven't had a chance to read Jak Phoenix and you enjoy old fashioned space operas, do yourself a favor and pick it up. The story is great! The characters are more memorable than the typical space opera character. The adventure is interesting and varied. The only criticism I have is the writing: it's not as efficient as it could be, some parts a little overwritten, and a few awkward phraseologies pop up here and there, but not enough to get in the way of enjoying the story.

Cover Art

Have you ever been told not to judge a book by its cover? And have you put that to the test and realized it was absolute nonsense? Of course you should judge a book by its cover. That's why it has one!

Which brings me to the topic at hand. This was my first attempt at a cover for an inspirational book. It was rejected. Why? The client loved the colors and the figures, but it did not represent the content of the book. So I ended up doing something completely different that the client absolutely loved, and will probably attract the type of customer who will buy and enjoy her book.

This was done with my dollar brush, sumi ink, then scanned into my iMac and digitally colored in Corel Painter X. The background is a composite of three photos and the rock their standing on is from the Australian Outback. I really like putting cartoon figures with a realistic coloring against a photographic background that's been digitally tweaked to look painted.

The Writing Process

I love DVDs. While I love the main feature (the movie), my favorite part is the behind-the-scenes feature. I love learning how and why a movie was made. The same goes for books. I love learning about the process that went on from conception to publication and all the steps and changes that happened along. So in that spirit, I thought I’d share my own writing process for those who are curious about where my stories come from.

Step 1: The Idea

I don’t sit down and say to myself, “Self, you must come up with an idea for a story.” Instead I go about my day working on websites and other work. During the normal course of a day, something will spark, and I write that spark down. I have over a dozen pages of story ideas. I look over these ideas from time to time and explore them in my mind. I’ll write down additional ideas, images, actions, themes, characters, possible titles, etc. that I think of with these, devoting a page to each major idea.

Step 2: The Basic Story

Once I've filled a page with enough raw material, I'll identify the most interesting threads and organize the other ideas around it. I'll create a loose plot so I have some notion of where the story may begin, where it may travel, and where it may end.

Step 3: Plot and Dialogue

Once a story emerges, I’ll write a very tight plot and dialogue. The format is similar to a movie script with the major actions spelled out, a lot of the dialogue written, and the major emotions or thoughts identified. This plot usually ends up getting restarted, rewritten, and resorted several times before it is finished. I think of it as the skeleton of the story. It tells me basically how long the work will be (so I know if it is a short story, a novel, a comic book, etc.) I also know who the characters are, what they will do, what their motivation is, what changes they will go thru, what the major conflicts are, and have a very tight story.

Step 4: First Draft

After all this work I’ll begin a handwritten first draft. This stage goes pretty quickly since the story is basically written, the conflicts worked out, and the characters well defined. I still make a lot of changes at this stage, but knowing the overall story in pretty good detail helps me keep everything consistent with revelations and discoveries happening at the right moments.

Step 5: Second Draft

Once the first draft is written, I begin the second draft which is when I type the story into the computer. Again I make a lot of changes as I go being both writer and editor. I mainly refine the story itself expanding undeveloped scenes and cut boring or unnecessary scenes.

Step 6: Refinement

Revision and refinement is mostly to work on the wording and clarify any writing, but I have been known to add a couple of chapters as this stage if the message wasn’t complete. I’ll usually make three passes correcting mistakes and working on wording. I have no interest in impressing readers with my extensive vocabulary or complex sentence structure. I try to make the writing as clear and efficient as possible without getting dry. I want the writing to be so smooth it just disappears leaving the reader with unfettered access to the story.

Step 7: Publish!

Finally I illustrate and publish. And wallah — a new story is born!

Character Sketches: More from the Jak Phoenix Universe

So Matt, the creater of Jak Phoenix, liked the drawings I did so much, he wanted more. And I was glad to draw more. I've been interested in this kind of space opera style scifi for a while and have wanted to do something in this style, but I never had a good reason for it. Until now.

The characters were again drawn with a brush dipped in Sumi ink on Strathmore Drawing Paper (the yellow cover), then scanned into my iMac on a Canoscan printer, and digitally colored in Corel Painter X. I really liked the end result. This may be the process I use for all my art for a while.

Let me know what you think.

Character Sketch: Space Opera

It's been a while since I've put up a character sketch, so I thought I'd put one up. This one was commissioned by Matt Williams, the author of Jak Phoenix, a fun space opera available from Smashwords.com and other fine retailers. Matt has even released a short story that is currently free so you can check out his universe.

I tried something a little different for this one. I used my usual brush and Sumi ink, but instead of drawing it in my sketchbook, I used Strathmore 70lb Drawing Paper which gave me a cleaner line than the sketch paper. I like a textured line, but the one I've been getting was a little too rough. This one was much cleaner while still having some character. I had a few sheets left over from drawing One Thing Right by Colin Shanafelt, a children's storybook which should be released in the next couple of months. I colored these sketches (and One Thing Right) with Corel Painter X on my iMac. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I'm not sure if Matt is though.

We'll see.