os201023  What I Wrote Today: And this day in the past  

Putting my theory to the test

My theory is that I can put in eight characters in the search window of my computer and the engine will display what I wrote on this day going back as many years as those years in which I did write on that day.

For example, to write this essay I used eight characters and numbers (and two question marks to represent wildcards for the two digits that meant the year. This string of eight is os??1023.

Literally this means, on the island of Open Studios and Hospitality, on years indicated by the wildcard question marks, on October 23, what did I write about? In addition to this one which I am writing at present, three articles are indicated, two that are doubled for 2008 and one for 2004, and their titles.

In 2008 one of the two titles is, “Plotline for Amina: Where does she go from here?” referring to Amina Seattle, the avatar of Janet Fisher which she used in Second Life. This virtual world was in our search for a metaphor fitting the plan for Emeralda, a platform for my distance learning plan for printmaking. Amina was the protagonist in the story of a woman who is given a year to live in Emeralda to develop her printmaking. She uncovers a plot to end Earth’s human and other life sustainability. The subject line of the essay says:

“Writing for a video game is not like writing a story or a screen play. Reading has told this author that fact, yet it is not clear just how to do it. It’s straightforward to write for video cut scenes, but a game is interactive, which challenges a newbie.”

The second one for 2008 is titled, “Professor McGee's Message for Amina: An example of transfer,” referring, to James Paul Gee, author of, “What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy “ - a book about learning games. Its subject description says:

“From reading What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy, the artist/teacher may determine how his game resembles one of the entertainment games already on the market—a game called System Shock II. Transfer is key, the book’s author says.”

Four years earlier, in 2004, the title, "Losing my Grip: Between a hard place and a soft place,” has the subject description:

“The author has spent many years considering the software that has grown up around him and his devotion to education—too many years perhaps. Now he’s got a hand on a piece of hardware, and an opportunity to make art instruments. It poses a dilemma for him.”

Skimming this article was valuable. It is one of the examples that enlightens me, like a parable that teaches how an old man learns from a youngster, and he old man and the youngster are both me. One, the younger, sixteen years ago, lucidly explains the logic of a learning game for printmaking which can be adapted to online games.

The other, an old man, grasping at straws to learn how this can be achieved. This date in October of 2004 when I was preparing for my first demonstration of the Legacy model of the Halfwood Press – which would turn into a business. It is the “art instrument” referred to in the subject description. The Halfwood Press remains part of the theories touched upon in this essay and matured into the Teacher-in-a-box.