#joshch

Wow, this course was an amazing experience! I must thank all the teaching staff and participants for pouring all your experience into the projects given such a short period of time. Personally, I've gained a ton from the class (and from the pizza we had, pun intended). From scriptwriting, to video editing; it is incredible how much I've learnt about the planning, iteration and passion that is required for these k12 videos.

As I've previously mentioned, my mother is the Head of the Science department of a all-girls middle to high school (secondary school) in Singapore (Tanjong Katong Girls School). I've shared my experiences and my project with her and she was very impressed with the MIT K12 youtube channel. She is looking incorporate the videos in the students' learning experience.

In Singapore, since the 80's we've had a strong emphasis on STEM education as there was a manufacturing, engineering, and R&D industry boom at that time. Till today, many Singapore parents insist that their children take a triple-science (biology, chemistry and physics) high school education. Although that may seem like a different situation as compared to USA, my mother tells me that she always had an issue with inspiring students on the science subjects given the large coverage of syllabus material. From a larger perspective, the MIT K12 videos can give bursts of real-world application ideas on those scientific concepts that could encourage subject interest and still be short enough to be integrated in school lessons.

From a project perspective, I am quite happy with what I was able to achieve in the project. The first pitch I gave was about the usage of hashing in computer security. After the consultation with the middle-schoolers, it was quite clear that I might be heading in the wrong direction with my ideas. I chose the topic of hashing because I saw that this concept was the most fundamental building block of our modern cryptography protocols. However that was from the point-of-view that assumes that you'll be interested in the subject of computer security. I then explored a few different topics such as the Google searches and Computer Viruses. I think the Google search topic was mostly accessible as I had previously asked the middle-schoolers if they knew about Google and almost all of them had some idea that you use Google to search for websites. It was a decent starting point I knew that I could start from as a topic to write a script.

The writing of the script was clearly a collaborative effort. Putting it in a Google doc and allowing comments/edits helped me to see the fundamental flaws with the script and its contents. I took most of the advice and comments given to me, especially the comments related to language expressions. Although english is my native language, Singaporeans tend to use their own set of colloquial expressions known collectively as Singlish. I did have to make a hard decision to keep or drop the "finding gloves" portion of the script. I eventually decided to rewrite/shorten that portion and keep it since it was more accessible as a concept with physical props (gloves) instead of a conceptual jump that's straight to the search engines (which was more of an abstract idea). I think a way I could have improved the script would be to read it aloud to a few people who did not hear of the pitch beforehand and ask them how much they can explain back to me of what they gained from the script. In that way, I could emphasize or de-emphasize certain portions to improve clarity.

I tried to come up with as many hooks as I could in the video to maintain viewer interest. At the back of my mind, I was thinking of the first lesson where we would annotate at what time did I shut off a certain video (Bill Nye, Veritasium etc). I was always a bit anxious if I talked for too long without the element of interaction, that it could result in a ridiculously boring video. I guess this could have been improved further if I was able to get access to some interesting locations to put into the video such as access to film in a Google office, or access to a server farm, or access to Akamai (Akamai has a strong relationship with MIT since it's co-founder comes from MIT) etc. But due to time constraints, this was not really possible. Nonetheless, I was quite satisfied with the shots in front of the big Google sign despite shivering in the snow at that point.

In terms of "spark", I tried my best to maintain a smile in my delivery. A while back, I was a telemarketer on a part-time job (I am sorry if I may have disturb people a while back!). One of the most interesting concepts I learned is that people can see you on the phone through your voice. So maintaining a smiling facial expression would change the quality of the delivery. I also followed George's advice on making a ridiculous version of the narration before actual shooting, it definitely helped me to lose some of the butterflies in my stomach being in front of the camera. At the same time, I also tried to be myself or rather a slightly more enthusiastic version of myself (not too enthusiastic to become unnatural). It was quite a difficult balance, but I learned that it becomes more easy to become a host after a few shoots.

Lastly, in order to push my audience to grow, I kept the long chunk of the script which describes the inner workings of binary search. However, it was a combination of the words with the after-effect animations of the "classroom" and "students" that aided in the description of the process that would not have been possible with just my words. Perhaps I could have improved the video further by adding actual b-roll of running to and from classrooms to show how this process could be troublesome if done incorrectly.

Once again, thank you so much for having the students from Singapore around and it was such an enlightening experience. I am excited to try to make more videos on my own and do not hesitate to contact me when any of you visit Singapore. I can reached on Facebook or LinkedIn at 

https://www.facebook.com/the.Joshua.cheong

or

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuacheong

I wish you all the best for Spring 2015!

Best regards,

Creative Commons: CC BY-NC-SA, MIT

http://k12videos.mit.edu/terms-and-conditions

Hosted by: Joshua Cheong

Written by: Joshua Cheong

Additional scripting: Elizabeth Choe, Jaime Goldstein, Ceri Riley, George Zaidan, students of 20.219

Executive producer: Joshua Cheong

Director: David Yam

Editor: David Yam, Nathan, Elizabeth Choe, Ceri Riley

Production assistant: David Yam

Kevin MacLeod, "Mining by Moonlight" (http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200089)

Google's Explanation of Search (https://www.google.com.sg/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/)

The Johari Window is a fascinating concept that got me curious on how can I bring as much information from the Blind and Hidden sections as quickly as possible to the Open section?

Now why would that be important? And why should you care?

The Johari window provides us with a framework to understand how communication results in the distribution of collective information towards the Open section. Lets say there's a lot of information in a team in the Blind and Hidden areas, it would be such a waste if such valuable input into the project would not have been discussed since they were not shared across members.

But to understand the situation better, the Johari window is not enough. I realised that in order to bring information from the Hidden section to the Open section, I must give my feedback/contributions to others. To bring information from the Blind section to the Open section, I must collect feedback/contributions from others.

The Johari window only represents a snapshot of the communication relationships in the group. To answer my initial objective of being able to bring as much information from Blind and Hidden sections over to the Open section, I realised that is a question regarding the mechanisms the relationships instead of the state of those communication relationships.

I also realised that although there are physical limits to the speed of communication, the effectiveness of communication never depends on the ability to "vomit" information at the other party, but rather relying on the strength of the relationship to continue the perpetual desire to exchange information.

So if I were to communicate with a complete stranger, the key is to establish communication and gather enough interest to maintain information exchange. It's kinda the same way how during student orientation, instead of just introducing yourself with your name and class, you could add in an interesting fact that no one knows about. That single interesting fact now becomes an incentive for people to maintain the information exchange. There's no need to pour all your information out.

In addition, I remembered what Jane said about how highly influential people behave. I am starting to see how a personality of openness to ideas and conversation would help channel information to the Open section of the Johari window much faster.

But once again, I have to agree with Jane; There really isn't a "one size fits all" fastest way to bring information to the Open section. You probably need to bring all your communication tools with you and pick and choose the best ones depending on situation.

Haha the script has come a long way after a great ton of iterations! I can start to see how things would be coming together. Currently I am building the storyboard up and getting up and running with the video editing software. I am very excited about the filming process but daunted at the same time due to my inexperience.

The lesson was amazing. I didn't realise that there was so much in the thought process of simply choosing the music and the editing. Simply by going through this experience has taught me a lot of great lessons.

I really love those memorable quotes, "You must kill all your darlings!", "Editing... is not so much of putting a film together but rather of discovering a path", and "Shoot like you're going to keep everything! Edit like you're going to keep nothing!"

I also took both PJ's and Andrea's advice of simplifying the numbers.

Here's the new Script below:

Wow!! Handling conflicts is one of the hardest things!! When Jane asked, "What do you usually do when you have group conflict?", I became uncomfortable because I realised that I would usually remain silent. I suspect it may be better if I do not draw away from conflict but near to it. On average, it would be wiser for a group to flesh out their differing opinions and figure out plans for compromise, smoothing, or reconciliation. But once again, Jane made a solid point: the methods to resolve group conflict depends on the situation at hand, which is extremely unpredictable in completely variable group dynamics.

That's why I think the communication bingo would be super useful in this process. It would basically help people like me pick and choose the methods to resolve group conflict until I find one that works.

To draw back to Jane's earlier lesson, the idea of presenting vulnerability is also crucial to reduce animosity among group members and help start from a positive point of view for the storming process.

It is interesting to note that I learned the Form, Storm, Norm, Perform processes from my project management certification class I took just 3 weeks ago. I was studying for the Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) under Project Management Institute (PMI). I found the information structurally useful to think about working on projects. Haha but once again, I remember what Prof Bernd says about culture - "Culture eats Project Management for breakfast" - No amount of structure in management would work if the lens of culture we see in is blurred out.

Hi all, I have placed the script in a Google doc for comments (feel free to comment and provide feedback as much as you want!! :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16WoV6ygmprXA0dgz8_NEA5wlj3XZwCY8_JztuZU8Rwg/edit?usp=sharing

Why can’t I find my stuff?

Narrator:

It’s winter time and I’m getting dressed to go outside. But every time I start putting on layers after layers of clothes, I always can’t seem to find my gloves. (location in the dorm; scene of me putting on layers of clothes and discovering in horror that I lost my gloves) Are they in the kitchen? On my bed? On the couch? Oh dear, I seem to have a problem. Why can’t I find my stuff? Is it because I have a lot of stuff that makes it so hard to remember?

Well, Google stores about 45 billion index pages of information. If each page of information was a sheet of paper (host holds up a piece of paper) and if we stack them all together, we would create a tower of paper 610 times taller than Mount Everest! (camera men on the sides dump a mountain of papers on the host, causing him/her to comically fall over)

So how can a search engine like Google find your search results so quickly while I find it so difficult to find a pair of gloves? It’s like finding a needle in haystack; so how’s it done? (a camera closeup while the host hold up in his/her hand a needle and casually throws it in the stack of papers)

Well, it turns out that searching on the Internet is kinda like looking for a person in a hotel room. (*change scene: a sonorous “ding!” sound of a hotel lift, a pan shot of the interior of Hyatt Regency Cambridge hotel)

Here’s James and he is going to hide in his hotel room. But we want to find where is James.

The simplest way would be to run through every room nearest to you and keep finding. But that would take a long time.

Is there a better way I can find James? Hmmm.. (rub chin and raise one eyebrow)

Well, it turns out that there’s a better way known as Binary Search.

(*The keywords “Binary Search” flashes over the host’s hands)

Let’s say the people were arranged in alphabetical order in increasing numbers of the hotel rooms. We could run to the room in the middle and check if the name of the person in the room is James. And then if the person starts with a smaller alphabet than James, we head to the left. If not we head to the rooms to the right. We then head off to the middle room of the newly sectioned area. And we rinse and repeat. Eventually we will find James just like the first method. But we find James at a much much shorter time.

(The above scene would be done with simple animation drawing over my head with the host talking below on the camera)

How much shorter would that be? Well, that depends on number of people staying at the hotel. Let’s say it takes 10 seconds to knock on each hotel door and there’s 500 people, it would take about 80 minutes for the first method and 1.5 minutes for Binary Search. If there were a thousand people in the hotel, it would take 160 minutes for the first method and only 1.6 minutes for Binary Search. Now that’s a whole lot of difference.

(I suspect there might be a better way of illustrating this point that a slightly better algorithm make a huge difference when dealing with large problems)

Is finding James such a big deal? Well, yes! Finding James faster means getting your results on Google faster. Because finding James is like searching a keyword term on Google. And that means less waiting time for all of us.

So how does any of what we just learned help us to find things better at home? Noticed how the people in the hotel were arranged in rooms numbers based on alphabetical order? So the location of each person in a different hotel room depends on the alphabetical relationship of their names. So we don’t need to remember which person is in which room, we just need to remember the alphabetical relationship that all the people have with each other.

In the same way, simply by placing your home items in locations where they have a natural relationship to makes it easier for us to find them. The TV remote goes near the TV, the shoes go to the shoe rack, the coats go into the cupboard and the the winter gloves goes in the winter jacket.

(location is back in the dorm *Finds gloves in the jacket)

Aha! So that’s where my gloves are!

Wow! Today things started to get real. Having filming partners really got us warmed up better with each other.

The lessons were so important & applicable and I was busily jotting everything down.

I loved the metaphor that the camera is the voice of this visual language and we need to learn how to speak it. The main key point I got from the lesson was that with the visual language, there is much more you can play with and experiment with, but do it in purposeful ways; instead of the idea of a traditional acting stage (proscenium).

I loved it that I learned some technical terms for filming such as B-Roll, Pacing, Close shots, and Wide shots etc. Nathan and I were immediately using those terms to communicate the ideas quickly. Those terms were super helpful, I wouldn't have known otherwise how to describe a scene with B-roll.