Escape Emeralda 2

Disclosure: This description was prompted and edited by Bill Ritchie, in Microsoft’s current Copilot, an AI text generator for the second volume of Bill H. Ritchie's two-part autobiography. We traverse the years from 1991 to 2023. Ritchie, a trailblazer in the art world continues his life story. In the first book he told how he embarked on a remarkable odyssey that defied convention and reshaped the art, craft, and design of fine art printmaking. At the tender age of 24, Ritchie secured a groundbreaking position—the youngest ever—in the vibrant city of Seattle. His appointment as a teaching artist in fine art printmaking at the University of Washington marked the beginning of a transformative chapter. But this was no ordinary academic journey; Ritchie's innovative spirit would soon set him apart, a maverick in academe. The traditional classroom was too confining for Ritchie. Driven by a hunger for exploration, he wove technology into his art courses in the 1980s. Bill Ritchie's experiments disrupted the staid printmaking department and shocked the UW School of Art. Forced to leave the stifling ivory towers, by the 1990s the emergence of electronic arts opened with the Internet and would extend the boundaries of printmaking. Ritchie's vision blurred the lines between historic creativity and cutting-edge technology, birthing a new era dating back to the Paleolithic era when printmaking was invented. Ritchie pushed the envelope. Printmaking was no longer confined to ink and paper; it now danced with video, performance, computer graphics, and games. His colleagues, patrons, and former students watched in awe, wondering at the audacity of his moves. Telling all, Ritchie weaves rich, detailed tales. In his printed books he placed thousands of pictures to enliven the narrative, capturing moments shared with those who left their marks on his journey. QR codes link videos and backstories, bridging epochs—from prehistoric cave paintings to the digital age. The echoes of ancient handprints resonate, showing that explication transcends time if replicated creatively. In a world illuminated and echoed by electronic media, Ritchie poses a poignant question: "Is there hope?" As climate change and global stressors threaten the future, his words resonate. Whether through brushstrokes or those fleeting, elusive pixels and here in eBook form and auxiliary Read Aloud option, Ritchie's legacy endures—a beacon for students of all ages, urging them to embrace creativity, defy boundaries, and find hope in the interplay of art, technology, and the human imagination.

My life, from my birthday to the last decade of 1900s, is a spectrum of events both good and bad as I follow T. S. Elliot’s lines, “We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring, Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place for the first time.” Growing up on my father’s farm, there was plenty of exploration, but I never went back to the farm. Far from it! My explorations took me where no teacher in my main field, which is printmaking, had gone because I was hired at 24 by a major research university where its campus services gave me a head start exploring electronic arts and computers, I could blend with teaching printmaking. Ironically, while these brought opportunities, there were hidden limitations. In the 1980s I gambled our home to take us on a vast sabbatical research project for the university. We returned to find the school corrupt, and so it ended my career. Fortunately, I married well. My high school sweetheart, Lynda, stayed with me even on my wayward ventures. In addition she brought two fine daughters to our lives. And had it not been for her ability to restore our property, my exploring would have ended forever. Because, when the art school closed its door, others opened. Everything I learned in nineteen years at the UW prepared me to continue privately. By 1990, I was on cloud nine and the Internet was within my grasp. These are the words from one of two volumes I illustrated with a thousand pictures. What autobiography of a teaching artist’s life would be complete without pictures? Not only my art, but my students’, and from collaborations with diverse artists, crafts people, designers, and writers. Plus QR codes! It is for anyone who loves a good read about teaching art as I was known for in Seattle, but also about an old professor’s family, friends, art patrons, and former students who made it possible. It continues in Volume 2. Volume 1 takes this farmboy to the approach of the information superhighway.

This open access book examines the interrelations and correlations of the postdigital condition and its relationship to education, with a particular focus on participation. Contributions reflect on how educational institutions are affected by the recent transformations of media technologies and practices, and how at the same time institutions such as schools and universities are supposed to enable people to participate in media practices in an informed and reflective way. How, and under what conditions, can teachers and students participate in contemporary media constellations? The book will be of interest to academics and researchers involved in teacher education, digital pedagogy, educational technology, instructional design, education philosophy and media education.

The Fire Demon is part one of a four-part epic that takes you far across the countries of Chantire and Krill on a mission for which you have trained your whole life. But the mission is far more mysterious and intriguing than you realize. Evil is everywhere, and a strange atmosphere prevails throughout the lands, a sense of being present at the borders of life and death, good and evil. The choices you make from the start will determine every outcome, as your mission hinges on every action. You must seek and kill the Fire Demon to save your world. Whichever of the six characters you assume, the safety of the world is on your shoulders. Be strong in mind and body, and you shall succeed. But fail, and Death Awaits You! For centuries the Fire Demon has been inflicting its terror on your home town of Brinson Hage, in a world far away, but similar to Earth’s medieval period. No one has successfully stood up to the Fire Demon, and anyone who has entered his lair has not returned to tell the tale. You have come home after many years to enter the Fire Demon’s dungeon and rid the world of its evil forever! Your adventure will take you deep into Chantire Mountain along a maze of passages and corridors in search of the Fire Demon.

The U.S. merchant marine played a critical, though often overlooked, role in World War II. This reference work provides a brief narrative of each of the recorded attacks on American-flagged merchant ships, as well as an accounting of the men and the ships, which were a part of this worldwide conflict. In addition to the wealth of data on the ships, their crews and cargoes, it depicts the exciting and often violent story of the hundreds of enemy attacks on convoys and lone merchant vessels. Evident within the narrative is the gallantry and sacrifice of naval gun crews and the merchant crewmen.