[PD] Teaching Pd

[Kyle Klipowicz]

Thanks guys for your feedback! I'm trying to explore what my best
usages of Pd have been, and what I might have to offer to people
starting out. Your tips will go a long way!

~Kyle

On 6/24/07, Andy Farnell <padawan12 at obiwannabe.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:18:23 -0500
> "Kyle Klipowicz" <kyleklip at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > Hi List~
>
> > I'm curious about teaching Pd to interested people, and know that a
> > number of you have given workshops on the subject. I could really use
> > some collective wisdom on this.
>
> Teaching Pd is something I really enjoy.
> What I've seen so far are great differences in audience
> goals and the need to prepare and research exactly who you
> are talking to and why, because Pd has such wide applications.
> Look for your own niche skill that Pd allows you to express and
> use that as a guide.
>
> > What methods do you use to structure and communicate your course
> > material? How do you market it within the city that you are teaching?
> > What sorts of materials do you use?
>
>
> Often people bring their own laptops and headphones.
>
> The best format imho is lots of practical elements, short exercises
> that can be done individually or in small groups, keep dove-tailing
> talk time with hacking time.
>
> If machines are available but are administrated workstations
> it helps to take live CD environments so you aren't treading on
> anyones toes having groups of students install stuff. Or make
> sure whoever invited you or organised the talk has done
> the groundwork for any practical element.
>
> A copy of PureDyne is useful, with the patches used in a workshop
> handed out on thumbdrive, by web-site or burned into the distro. For
> the cost and time it takes to run off a dozen copies it's worth
> it for everyone to take home a workable Pd environment for the PC.
>
> I guess it depends on whether you're teaching audio, video or
> physical computing what needs and priorities you might have.
> For audio I always want a good stereo sound system and a pocket
> mixer is a useful gadget. For Gem/Visual presentations I suppose
> you'd spend more thought on the beamer resolution and framerate.
> For physical you need desk space where people can play with
> components and wires.
>
> Often it's requested that laptop users install
> Pd on their machines and get it running before coming to
> a session, that way everyone is ready to go *and* they can take
> their work home with them.
>
> What makes it fun imho, and possible to make focused
> presentations, is the flexibility of Pd as
> a teaching tool... it's almost designed for the job!
> Using Pd itself as the presentation tool, making folders
> of patches that are linked as "slides", and having it self
> document to pdf handouts and html resources are things I've
> put a bit of thought into.
>
> It's nice if you have a LAN available so you can go into
> the network parts of Pd. A good finale is to get everyone jamming
> with some OSC net-pd type patches linked together.
>
> For finding audiences, I think the same as Alexandres advice, technical
> and art colleges and universities doing interactive design, music
> technology and courses like that. I specialise in audio so I try
> to use Pd as a vehicle to teach it, rather than generally
> "all about puredata" which is quite beyond me. And also try to get groups
> of producers from standard industry roles interested too, Pd is obviously
> very enabling in radio, TV, film, animation, games and theatre.
>
> To teach Pd generally, finding colleagues is as
> important as finding audiences. I don't think anybody could tackle
> the entirety of Pd and it's applications alone without it being a
> very dull, highly structured and long exercise. I sometimes pair with
> someone who is teaching visuals or composition or something else that
> complements my stuff on audio synth. Work together to put on events.
> With groups of more than 15-20 having a buddy as an extra demonstrator/helper
> in practicals is essential or you can't give everyone enough 1 to 1 contact
> time. Best all round Pd presentation I have attended was organised by goto10 at
> space studios as a summer school with several specialised Pd users
> teaching individual areas in a structured programme so that the whole 2 week
> event became more than the sum of its parts.
>
>
>
>
> my waffling 2c... hope that helps
>
> Andy
>
> --
> Use the source
>
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