Painting Colaboration Project Idea

As we all know collaboration and working together with others are important parts of today's world. Who other than myself to teach this to high school students getting ready to head out into the vastly open world? While researching for synthesis painting ideas I adjusted my search to include collaborative paintings and the Google image search gave me results that I did not expect; several people painting on the same canvas. If you are an artist you may know that one of the unspoken golden rules is "don't touch other people's artwork." Why not take that fear and hostile way of thinking away and establish harmony into one piece of art? This gives me the lesson plan idea. I would have students take an every day object or image and have them abstract it to where it is no longer recognizable as the image. I would keep it a secret that they will eventually take their piece and have to collaborate with other students to create one huge artwork incorporating everyone's abstracted objects. This would teach the students how to work together under potentially stressful situations and increase verbal communication skills. In addition, this will show students what they can do together as a group and how little effort they had to put forth to make their small piece of the puzzle fit into the greater scheme of things.


Another idea hatched with the same concept in mind would be to have a large image squared off into different parts (like a tic-tac-toe board) where each student had to complete their corresponding part of the large image. The goal wold be to have all of the students work together to make a replica of the large image where as all the lines match up. It would be obvious who would collaborate with others because their lines would line up with the their classmates portions of the large image.. Therefore, the grade would not necessarily be on the artwork itself but on how well they work with others.

In addition to learning communication skills in an art environment I could use the fact that many artworks through history have ben completed as a group effort not only by one artist. For example, several sculptures in the 15th century took several years to complete and sometimes  the commission would not be complete when a sculptor passes away. I personally always thought that all art was "one piece, one name, one artist" but that is not always the case. In Claus Sluter's "Tomb of Phillip the Bold" he passed away before he could complete his commission. Claus de Werve finished the sculpting of the tomb and "The Mourners." Here is a short VIDEO that is an in depth look at the piece. Anyway, not only is cooperation an important as a life skill it has been used in art for centuries, despite popular belief.

21st Centruy Skills the Challenge Ahead

Quote: "Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods — for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning — that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community."

Reaction: Growing up in this transitional period in society and in the school system I have personally learned that the more engaged the student is and the more minds that work together the more the information is retained. 

Quote: "Why don't teachers use the methods that they believe are most effective? Even advocates of student-centered methods acknowledge that these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers. When students collaborate, one expects a certain amount of hubbub in the room, which could devolve into chaos in less-than-expert hands. These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses."

Reaction: This is a terrible excuse for not implementing better ways of teaching. To be a teacher you have to care about the students you teach and want to help and have a kind heart. I've seen burnt out teachers that were in the profession for the wrong reasons and they have no motivation anymore and nobody gains anything from this. Point being, where there is a will there is a way. If we really care about our students we will find a way to give them the best learning experience possible, even if it means sacrificing our current comfort zones. 

Quote: "There is little point in investing heavily in curriculum and human capital without also investing in assessments to evaluate what is or is not being accomplished in the classroom. Fortunately, as Elena Silva (2008) noted in a recent report for Education Sector, the potential exists today to produce assessments that measure thinking skills and are also reliable and comparable between students and schools — elements integral to efforts to ensure accountability and equity. But efforts to assess these skills are still in their infancy; education faces enormous challenges in developing the ability to deliver these assessments at scale."

Reaction: I strongly believe that formal testing is flawed. We do not get an accurate summation of what is learned by testing what facts were memorized. Intellectual capacity can be measured far better than by taking a traditional test, all that accomplishes is that we know how to fill in a bubble. 

Reflection: Overall, most of us know that the education system needs some work and wrinkles ironed out here and there to make it more efficient. After all, we have grown into a new age of students and teachers heavily reliant on technology and communication, which is a good thing. We are due for a new education reform that considers with this change in society. We to not need to rely on a dated system that is not teaching students to learn. 

WebQuest about WebQuest

Your Role

___Efficiency Expert

___Affiliator

_X_Altitudinist

___Technophile

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Intolerance	Facts listed in intro, in the task we can choose our stance and evaluate based on who we are, Strongly based on facts, requires you to understand in great detail what is going on in order to complete the task at hand. Worst out of all, has the most cons and not organized as well as the others. Seems boring and students may be overwhelmed with an oral presentation and a paper.	Little to no creative aspects other than regurgitating other facts.  other than old-school research no technology involved.
Harlem Renaissance	Remains factual without being boring,involves reader to interact using podcasts and other means of technology to complete the task.	concentrates on teamwork strongly other than allowing the reader to expand their own higher level of thinking and overall feels like an easy assignment, too easy.
Rock & Roll	integration of movie maker and requires you to use your own creative mind to complete the task. Requires you to have a higher understanding between music and the events in history during the time, therefore, allowing the reader to obtain the "greater picture."	in the introduction there are no genuine facts, it contains more like an opinion rather than a sited fact.
Nixon/Kennedy Debates	Great utilization of facts during the time to allow you to understand completely the significance of the assignment. Focuses on technology of the time,TV and its role on the debates. Allows reader to choose their perspective on the events requiring a high level of creativity.	Although creativity is a huge aspect of this task most of the assignment is opinion, could use more research aspects.
World of Shakespeare	focuses on Shakespeare's artistic processes and requires you to have to use your own creative processes to place yourself into his era to have a higher understanding of the period. The plan is set up well to where you must to research.  Very successful, My Favorite! Multiple strengths and no weaknesses between the entire group.	none

Bernie Dodge, Department of Educational Technology, SDSU

WebQuests evaluated

The Efficiency Expert: You value time a great deal. You believe that too much time is wasted in today's classrooms on unfocused activity and learners not knowing what they should be doing at a given moment. To you, a good WebQuest is one that delivers the most learning bang for the buck. If it's a short, unambitious activity that teaches a small thing well, then you like it. If it's a longterm activity, it had better deliver a deep understanding of the topic it covers, in your view.

The Affiliator: To you, the best learning activities are those in which students learn to work together. WebQuests that force collaboration and create a need for discussion and consensus are the best in your view. If a WebQuest could be done by a student working alone, it leaves you cold.

The Altitudinist: Higher level thinking is everything to you. There's too much emphasis on factual recall in schools today. The only justification for bringing technology into schools is if it opens up the possibility that students will have to analyze information, synthesize multiple perspectives, and take a stance on the merits of something. You also value sites that allow for some creative expression on the part of the learner.

The Technophile: You love this internet thang. To you, the best WebQuest is one that makes the best use of the technology of the Web. If a WebQuest has attractive colors, animated gifs, and lots of links to interesting sites, you love it. If it makes minimal use of the Web, you'd rather use a worksheet.

21st Century Skills the Challenge Ahead

Media Literacy

Three reasons why we should teach media literacy are teaching students to read between the lines when dealing with online information is important to insuring that they know the difference between bias and credible information, by not integrating technology in the classroom it makes it harder on students to be expected to know how to approach certain assignments-research papers and as educators internet based searches can be compared to reading a book by turning the page instead of by selecting a hyperlink to another page, we should think of media literacy as being no different than literacy in general but the most important thing I learned is teaching media literacy or integrating newer technologies in the classroom is not part of the normal curriculum in schools, which for the sake of our students, it should be.

How I would implement media literacy in the classroom would be in form of having students critique magazine covers and then create their own magazine cover using the elements of art and principals of design. This would allow them to pinpoint what works and what does not work in composition and see why this framework is so important. As practice students could look at other art magazine covers to get an idea of what to aim towards and what to avoid. The assignment would be to create a work that is going to be on the cover of Art Monthly, a special feature into the life of the artist, aka them. Their work should be the size of a magazine and may be horizontal or vertical layout. This can translate as a physical cutting and pasting project or an online cropping of digital images.

This magazine cover has both good and bad elements. They used the logo and style of the artist's work to blend the styles and not take away from the piece presented. The text copies the color of the woman's face adding unity between the writing and the artwork. However, the fact that the woman is looking away from the text draws attention to the bottom left corner of the page and there is nothing to bring your eye back to the words, so the flow is off. Perhaps if the words and the image were flipped it may have led to you to want to read the text that seems like an afterthought. The point of a magazine is to sell it, nothing except the work makes you want to pick it up and read it.









Examples of Art Magazine Covers
Lesson Plan Example

Deconstructing Arnold

 

The message was created by the magazine to promote business and get people to buy their product. The message exists to promote fitness and get people to want to be just like Arnold. The target audience is people who work out, fitness buffs. Potentially white, fit, young individuals of upper class. Words suggesting this target audience would include "get lean," and "the man the movie and the workout." Even though the message is clear some individuals from different walks of life may interpret the information differently. SOme examples of possible other interpretations would be "it is not O.K. to not be buff" or "Eww, why would I want to look like Arnold, his muscles are too big and gross." Some hidden assumptions are that fitness is important, everyone wants to work out and be just like Arnold. 
Examples of the text:title Muscle and Fitness magazine, Get Lean, 20 in arms, recharge your routine. And subtext: Cool buff guy on the cover, sunglasses, huge muscles, masculine, scar on his face-tough guy.The cover says "the man, the movie and the workout." Stay out of the gym to burn more fat. The color of the text in white is emphasized to draw you to the cover. There is fire in the background, reds and oranges adding to the tough guy facade. Arm muscles are defined and have little to no imperfections.
Tools of persuasion: This cover makes you think that you need to buy it so that you can get ripped just like Arnold. You can become a tough guy, with ripped muscles, in "perfect" shape, who dodges explosions while wearing cool shades if you buy this magazine. This is obviously a promotion to buy the magazine based on the model. 

Teacher Of the Year

When I created my magazine cover I kept in mind the elements of media literacy and put a lot of thought into how someone would interpret my construction if they were to dissect it. I chose a close up picture of myself with contrast between the shirt I was wearing and my pale face to draw attention to it. I added an example of my art "Radio Active Owl" oil on canvas I recently painted. Across from the image is the text "From Artist to Educator Samara's Story." This brings your eye to the larger font across the image of my face to read the text, adding emphasis to my image. Secondly I added an image of two beavers, one with obvious artistic talent who has created a sculpture out of a tree and meanwhile his friend says "just stop it" implying that he is overenthusiastic about art which is never the case. The text below it states "everyone is an artist! explore the talent you didn't know you had" perhaps the second beaver has not tried to create, she does not know her talents. An example of a grabber line would be: "absence of technology is hurting our students." Any educator would want to help their students not hurt them, which fills them with the need to buy the magazine. Subtext of the grabber line allows you an opportunity to look into "7 ways you can help!" Yet another grabber line beneath the first is "you cant draw the box if you are inside it" and follows up with "insight on teaching techniques." Next, we have the title, which is not distracting by being too large or brightly colored, it blends in with the color scheme. Below the title is "special interview with teacher of the year." Also, the GR code, which is what I used in place of a bar code to seem more technologically inclined, is in the bottom left corner. The bar code would normally be distracting but because of the use of white in the color scheme there are more interesting things to view. Above the code is the issue month and year. Because it is so small it is easy to miss. 

Overall, I used several tactics of persuasion. Association in form of topics in which fellow educators would be interested in such as helping their students instead of hurting them by implementing technology in the classroom with "7 steps." In a way my expertise as being a credible source, since I did receive the teacher of the year award, as to my insight into teaching techniques. Dare I say, beautiful people was used as a persuasion technique. I used a picture of myself in which my make-up and hair was done and I am wearing a nice shirt and have a happy smile, drawing individuals to the cover. Obviously, my target audience would be fellow teachers, however, because I added information about art and my personal story and an interview other art buffs may find the magazine interesting.

Learning Styles:Multiple Intelligence

Any good educator is likely to write their lesson plans in a way that students can understand, or at least they think they do. As an educator they try their hardest to allow students to retain as much information as they can through understanding that everyone learns differently. So, they keep in mind different learning styles. However, through further research there is a new way of approaching this ever growing way of understanding how we process information; multiple intelligence. This means that the way educators' approach learning should evolve. Thus, learning styles may have evolved into multiple intelligence.

If we break it down there are only a few major learning styles: kinesthetically, auditorally and visually. In "Learning Styles Don't Exist" Professor Daniel Willingham explains repetition and diversity may be the reason for students retaining information not necessarily the different modalities, when he set up testing for auditory learners in form of words of objects being displayed and images of the same objects displayed for visual learners the results did not yield that the modality corresponded to more information being retained. People who are so called visual learners learned just as much by being presented with information that was meant for auditory learners and vise versa. However, the idea of learning styles is not such a bad idea. Anything that gets our teachers thinking about how students retain information and how to better their abilities in presenting what needs to be learned is a step in the right direction for our education system.  

Learning how students process and remember information is key to how educators teach.Thus comes in to play, the theory of multiple intelligence. In "Multiple Intelligences: What Does the Research Say?" it explains that there are 8 different ways of learning: "verbal-linguistic intelligence refers to an individual's ability to analyze information and produce work that involves oral and written language, such as speeches, books, and memos, logical-mathematical intelligence describes the ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and solve abstract problems, visual-spatial intelligence allows people to comprehend maps and other types of graphical information, musical intelligence enables individuals to produce and make meaning of different types of sound, naturalistic intelligence refers to the ability to identify and distinguish among different types of plants, animals, and weather formations found in the natural world, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails using one's own body to create products or solve problems, interpersonal intelligence reflects an ability to recognize and understand other people's moods, desires, motivations, and intentions. and intrapersonal intelligence refers to people's ability to recognize and assess those same characteristics within themselves." One may wonder how this can be implemented in the classroom. First, the type of learner according to these perimeters much be identified, which you can do by taking the multiple intelligence survey. I personally took this test and I am a musical, spacial and natural learner. The evaluation was sound as per my personal experiences with learning as well as my own self evaluation.

If we were to compare the two theory's to approaching learning, learning styles simplify that students learn best by information being presenting in one of three ways. Some students may have to see a picture or hear instruction to learn while others may have to physically do something to commit anything to memory. In contrast, multiple intelligence dives into the minds of students and identifies specific ways of comprehension rather than using a black and white system of "you must fit into one of these categories." Multiple intelligence focuses on brain processes and a more scientific approach, learning styles are more simplistic, which leads one to believe that one has evolved into the other through further understanding of how individuals comprehend and retain information. 

Clearly, through scientific discovery and understanding of the brain our ways of thinking and approaching every day activities has changed over the years. Learning styles are out of style and are too simple to be a structure in which teachers should base their lesson plans. Multiple intelligence is a more elaborated understanding of human comprehension and is more advanced. Therefor, learning styles have evolved into multiple intelligence. However, one thing is certain, no matter which way you look at it, these theory's are pointing educators into the right direction by getting them to think and plan with students comprehension and retention in mind. 

  

Wikipedia vs. Textbooks

A day in the life of a student would not be able to be told without a textbook being mentioned. In school we went to class, were instructed to read important events and little more to it. I wish that my predecessors would have been more open minded to using the technology of the age. Today, the internet is a tool some of us take for granted, Wikipedia being a site too often overlooked. To many of us Wikipedia is a taboo, we could not use it for our homework in school as a reputable site. What would you say if I told you that Wikipedia can be a useful tool in the classroom?

Originally, Wikipedia was created to be a cheap alternative to expensive and immediately out of date text encyclopedias. Now, a Wiki for nearly anything and it serves as a quick reference guide for anyone with an internet connection. A video made by CommonCraft explains in detail a brief history of Wikipedia and how it can be used effectively. I am not saying that you should believe everything you read on the internet, Wikipedia included, because you may just happen upon an article that is still being worked on. After all, we have all have heard that Wikipedia is run basically by the whole world and just any old Joe can edit it. Although this is true their source must be reliable and sited. Each article is reviewed and receives a letter grade that reflects how true the information is, how bias , and overall importance of its content pertaining to the subject. Just as easily as Wikipedia can be added to, it can be corrected even quicker by those that monitor its articles. We can see now how Wikipedia may have gotten a bad rap, but through research we now know how closely monitored it is and can now be considered a credible source of general information.

On the other hand we have traditional textbooks and we all know how linear learning can be if all we have to work with is text. Through research of articles including textbook publishing controversy and teaching without a text I learned how the process of making a textbook is rather political. To make a long story short, textbook companies are out there as a business venture. In turn they cater to the states with the largest population: Florida, California, and Texas specifically. Whatever these golden three states chooses for their curriculum to be covered in various texts the entire nation must endure learning, there is no special circumstance for specific need of other states. In my opinion this is just plain unfair. Secondly, textbooks are written by hundreds of people, not just one author and are also written so as not to show bias which leads to confusing and vague writing. Lastly, the cost of textbooks has increased dramatically and updated versions are hard to afford for some schools, especially in rural areas. However, textbooks are not all bad. Growing up I remember that school books were packed full of colorful illustrations that corresponded to what I was reading. Since, I have some trouble learning from block text this helped me tremendously. Additionally, textbooks are designed so anyone of any age can take away pertinent information. In turn, this still makes textbooks a valuable part of the education process.

In conclusion, Wikipedia can be a useful tool in the classroom. As educators we can still stand by our old friend the textbook and utilize them as we always have but also introduce new ways of learning through technology. For example; to engage our students we can have them read on a topic they have knowledge about and allow them to edit information on a subject they are interested in. In turn students can get information straight from the source and realize that reliable information does not just come from books but can come from normal educated people from around the world.

Our Brains on Video Games

What do you think when the words "video game" are uttered. Our class consensus was that they were violent, time consuming and promoted obesity and laziness. At the start of this particular assignment I thought the same thing, nothing good could come of them and they were basically a waste of time. However, within the past week I can honestly say that I will never look at video games the same again.

In class we watched an interesting Ted talk and I encourage you to watch it. In the video I learned violent children may become more violent because of violent video games. Video games train our minds and violence is one of the things that can be trained, if the student is already prone to violence. Do you know the difference between crystalline intelligence and fluid intelligence? Stable or falling IQ is crystalline intelligence and fluid intelligence is rising and rising fast IQ, I had no idea there more than one kind. Also, Natural aspects of video games: seeking novelty, challenging yourself, thinking creatively, doing things the hard way and networking, are directly linked to an increase of intelligence. Who knew just by being a gamer, in moderation, could potentially increase your intelligence. However, the most important thing I learned is that we may be able to reach our students through video game based teaching in the classroom.

Actually, in Chelsea, NY in the fall of 2009 there was a school built based on a video game curriculum, Quest to Learn. This school encourages children in grades 6-12 to learn in a game-like manner. Of course, the curriculum was based on state standards but was also designed as interdisciplinary, organized and had the culture of youth in mind. This school is obviously different already but to make things more interesting the students are taught in a 21st century way through digital learning, lots of hands on projects and to create a system based learning "not just a teacher standing in front of a blackboard, they interact and hardly ever do they just sit in front of books all day, nor just computer screens." An example of this would be to make learning more interesting by creating a story: Dr. Smallz shrunk down to a tiny size, small enough to fit inside of one of his patience bodies but when he did, so he lost all of his knowledge of the human body and dangers that may be lurking by (stomach acid for example). So, the students had to help him navigate through the patient and the students had to take samples and look under a microscope to test for diseases to see how to cure the patient. Sounds fun right, and how can you not see the potential for a better way of teaching anatomy and physiology not to mention diseases and how to cure them? You may wonder about how the students from this school did on tests and how video games, not to mention a video game curriculum can actually help our children and students. Well, we know its working because a DOA survey proved that students had 97 percent of engagement with work. The school won the city wide math Olympiad  their 7th and 8th graders against 9th and 10th graders Lastly, during standardized testing all but 1 student passed out of all 81 students attending the school.

In conclusion, video games are not what there cracked up to be, they may actually be a useful tool in the classroom that can make learning more fun for our digital age of students. Our students are so use to the technology in front of them, why not use it to our advantage and make learning fun?

Is Texting Making Us Bad Writers?

In this day in age just about everyone has a cell phone and therefor just about everyone texts. Of course, as college students the world between our social life and academic life are intertwined with one another. This begs the question “Is Texting Making Us Bad Writers?” My personal thought and immediate response would be, No.

As intelligent beings we know the difference between casual dialect and professional dialect. Naturally we are less likely to use professional dialect in our texts because we are speaking to friends who know us on a personal level and most of the time know what we are trying to say even if we abbreviate extensively, which is basically all text speech is. We abbreviate to the point that sometimes all we use are acronyms; ttyl brb. In.John McWhorter's TED Talk he explains how the term "LOL" has actually evolved from meaning "laugh out loud" to being a placeholder or an acknowledgement in text conversations. "LOL" is a pragmatic particle which, in definition, is how real people use words in real life, in a practical sense. In addition, we know that we are expected to behave and write in a professional manner in school, so we do.

Secondly, one may argue that texting is detrimental to spelling. I believe that all texting is, is being able to put forth an idea and communicate as quickly as possible, which takes a certain level of mental capacity to be able to know two versions of one word, the abbreviated version and the correctly spelled version. Most phones today provide us with automatic spell check and although we may attempt to abbreviate a long word chances are we will be presented with the actual long, correctly spelled version. In addition, we are using phonics more than we realize to figure out how the word may be spelled. In article Can Texting Help With Spelling? it mentioned "A British study published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning found a positive correlation between texting and literacy, concluding that texting was actually driving the development of phonological awareness and reading skill in children." We are not dumb, were mankind, we learn constantly whether or not we are aware of it. Each time we use spell check we are given an opportunity to learn how to correct our mistakes, repetition will eventually teach us how to spell things even on a subconscious level. Thus, texting may actually provide us with a pathway to be able to spell better.

In conclusion, we as human beings are more intelligent than we ourselves even thought. We are forced in this generation to learn two different forms of language text speech and formal English writing. In turn, we are expanding our horizons just by doing normal everyday activities. 

Just how we see the term "LOL" can actually have alternative meanings, so does the above image, gets you thinking. You can find MORE comics like these buy licking the link.