First Day of Classes

The strike is over and we're back to classes after a 5 week absence.

Insert your caption here.

There are no words..but likely many questions.

 

I don't want to spend too much of our limited time answering questions about the strike and the back to work situation, but I'm not going to ignore this issue either so the compromise is to take this online and answer questions as best as I can outside of class. Here's what we'll do:

Email me if you have questions about the strike and I will add them here along with my best attempt to answer you. If you have comments that don't require a response, you can email them to me as well.

A few of the likely questions:

Q: What now?

A: We pick up where we left off and work to finish in 13 weeks what we were going to do in 15 weeks. Today is week 7.

Q: Is assignment X still due on date Y?

A: Nope. All due dates will change to make it possible for you to complete them. Future assignments will be revised to account for the truncated term schedule.

Q: This change in term schedule has messed up my particular situation (job, internship, travel plans). what do I do?

A: The school is standing by and ready to offer any and all reasonable accommodations to help you get that sorted out. Talk to the admins, or the program coordinator to get help. Be sure to follow up on the hardship fund as well to help deal with any associated costs.

more to follow

-Dave

Well, this is no fun at all.

I'm eternally grateful to the students that expressed their solidarity and support during this fiasco.

Image from https://globalnews.ca/news/

    So here I've moved 2500 miles to start a new job and the CEC won't negotiate a new contract. This means the union is now on strike.

  ugh

    My heart goes out to the students caught up in this whole mess. Especially because..

A: Students have already paid their money to get an education but the school is not paying the teachers. (a significant cost savings for the college). So far it looks like the college isn't about to give the money back to the students. A profitable business model for the CEC: collect tuition, give nothing. Not a very fair model for everyone else.

and

B: The students have a limited voice in the whole affair, and yet they're the whole reason the colleges exist in the first place. It's certainly why I show up in the morning.

I wonder if the CEC has forgotten this?

    I wish I knew what the answer was here. Maybe if there was enough student outcry, the college negotiators would come back to the bargaining table with the union? If there was a lot of noise, maybe students would get their money back? I know if I paid for a service and didn't get what was promised I'd expect a refund.

    All I can do is wait, walk the picket line, try to inform the public about what's going on and put up with the hecklers. I don't blame the handful of folks shouting insults at me: I'm frustrated by this too. I really hope a resolution is around the corner and that I can get back to my students.

    What folks out there can do is go to http://www.collegefaculty.org/ and check the links that let you connect with the parties entangled in this negotiation. Let them know what you think. Please be sure to read up on the issues in this dispute: there are a couple of items of particular interest to students.

    As for me, I'm heading back to the line.

-Dave

Welcome to my Blog

Welcome to my personal animation blog. In addition to animating for film and games, I also teach animation to students ranging from high school to the university graduate degree level.

I use blogger with all of the classes I teach: it's a place where students can access information, connect with fellow students and ask questions outside of the classroom. I've added a few tutorials and educational lesson plans that I've created in the past to show some examples of my work in this space. You can peruse this material by clicking on the linked headings below:


These 'AE' links (Outline, Clown and AnimJam) are from my high school 'Art Experience' summer camp, these '3dFOA' links (Live Ball and Pendulum) are exercises from my Fundamentals of Animation class and this 'RCA' (under construction) is a tutorial in layered animation workflow from my Advanced Realistic Creature Animation class. This 'DEMO' page is material I assembled to do a teaching demo during my job interview at Fanshawe College on Aug 11th 2017.


Feel free to share and link to these pages but no derivative works please. Contact me anytime if you have questions about the content. I will answer as my quickly as my time and schedule allows.

At the lower right hand side of this page, you'll see shortcuts to my profile on LinkedIn, my video page on Vimeo and my CV. On my Vimeo page, you'll find some tutorial videos I created to teach some of the more technical aspects of 3d animation.

Thanks for coming to visit and have a great day!

  - Dave