The Teacher Toolbox

I once heard an interview with the Kiwi songwriter Neil Finn where he talked about how a ‘mistake’ can lead to a whole new song. As I tinker with new software I often find, when something is not quiet going the way I plan, I end up exploring a whole new tangent and produce something completely unexpected. I’m not saying that these tangets are worthwhile, but they are often ideas that would never have been produced without the initial mistake.

Recently my son and I have been experimenting with a plugin for the Steam games Half Life 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2 called Garry’s Mod. The mod allows you to manipulate your objects and characters to create scenes independent of the gameplay. It is what the Machinima community use to make Half Life 2 movies like Civil Protection.

Initialy I found it really hard to pose this character in a chair and that sparked the idea for this single panel cartoon.

So where do we encourage our students to make mistakes and then to value them?