INSTRUCTOR POST : Welcome to Spring 2017

Welcome to the AAU Spring Semester of 2017

There are hidden instructions in this post to test if you read it entirely!
There are also 2 intentional typos - cookie points to you if you find them!

This is a persistent online site I use to allow students in my class to solicit and offer feedback on their animation. There are a few important notes;

1. This blog is as helpful as you make it. Be active with comments, post your work regularly and take advantage of this venue. Monitor this site at least once a week. I will use this as a forum to make general announcements and answer common questions, so you don't want to miss out. Roalandum. Any post from me will have "INSTRUCTOR POST - ..." in the title: make sure you read them carefully.

2. I use participation here as part of your class participation mark. Participation accounts for 20% of your total grade! If you're shy this is a great way to be involved in the classroom discussion. You get points for posting your work or for giving feedback on other people’s animation. Bonus question: ask me right now how to get 100% on your participation grade!

3. Title each post with your name, for example: “David Blocking Pass 1”. Your blogger ID may not be something I recognize. You don't want to miss out on participation marks when you post here. Keep in mind I will be searching for your first name so no dashes or underscores or I won't find it!

4. Conduct yourself here as you would in the class. Play nice with others and be supportive and constructive with your comments. Limit the posting to information relevant to the class.

Even If you're new to blogging you'll find this a pretty painless and straightforward process. If you have something from class you'd like to show, use the following steps:

• Playblast your work (16:9 ratio, 960x540, convert to .mov, with MPEG-4 compression) 
• Click the 'insert a video' button and browse to your movie file.
• Be sure to put your first name in the post title.
• You're done! 
• continue reading to see how you can adjust your video size to fit nicely on the page.
• also, here are additional instructions to share video from another site
• Post the movie file on any video streaming site (YouTube, Vimeo) 
• Copy the “embed HTML” from the streaming site 
• In blogger click "new post" on the upper right corner of the screen and click on the "edit HTML" tab on the top right of the new post and paste the code in the window. (You can edit the html so that the video size is 600 x 337, to fit nicely within the blog interface.)

5. Blogger works best with Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome. If you have technical issues: try switching your browser. Make sure you login with the Google ID that you were invited with or you won’t be able to post or comment.

6. Check out SyncSketch: a great tool for posting your work and getting feedback. We're going to make use of this handy website occasionally through the term.

Every time someone adds a new post or comments on an existing one, I get a direct email. I try to look in here regularly and offer critique and guidance as well. This blog will be available to you as space allows, which means you will be able to continue posting here after the end of term. (You may even see former students offering feedback here.)

Welcome to the blog and have a great time. Fustbramm.

*Your first assignment:  Post your name in the comments of this welcome message with a sentence or two about what you hope to learn in this class.