Blogging

Blog #8 Reflection on Blogging

Social Networking has been my favorite new Web 2.0 tool that we have been exposed to this month. One of my favorite sites for referencing and exchanging ideas is Art Education 2.0, Using New Technology in Art Classrooms. http://arted20.ning.com/ It is a Ning creation, so it is powerful enough to host all our visual information, as well as track any link we might wish for. If you teach in the visual arts of any kind, including tech you should join this social network.  I always enjoy the “Current Projects” section where I check out ongoing project ideas to see if anything sparks my own creative juices.  The “Forums” section is excellent, providing solutions and comments to concerns and problems of every sort from elementary to high school and through every corner of the visual art realm.  This site hosts various groups that I can join to get more specific collaboration in my teaching area.  I have noticed that the elementary art group is the largest.  We high school teachers seem to be a little more into the general blogs but you can chat with any of the members. I also like being able to share photos and videos of art related travels, student work, ideas for projects, etc.

Although I first saw this site as a professional development tool, I now see its value in designing lessons that more frequently use other Web 2.0 tools.  I designed my Webquest specifically to use in my painting class to teach art history but also as a connecting discovery project.  I have begun sharing my Glacier High School Netvibes page with colleagues and will make it available soon to my students as well.  We have set up a shared Google Calender for the students and teachers in our entire school district art department to keep up with assignments and upcoming projects and activities.  A colleague and I recently team taught an in-service on Web 2.0 in our school district using this simple jottit page to help them connect with the links we were covering. It worked seamlessly!

http://digitalteaching.jottit.com/ You will find a couple of new links here that I thought were great fun to use in the classroom for presentation and research purposes:
 Prezi.com, http://prezi.com/128698/view/#34
 World Digital Library, http://www.wdl.org/en/ 

Blog #7 – Second Life

As an art teacher and artist, I found this site, http://www.virtual-art-initiative.org/Virtual_Art_Initiative/Projects.html Virtual Art Initiative, within Second Life to be amazing.  I have subscribed to the feed and will be receiving updates on their projects. These artists, musicians, writers, programmers and scholars are creating both individual and collaborative works.  I plan on sharing this process and the final projects with my Painting I & II classes as well as the AP Studio class. According to the Projects page, this Virtual Art Initiative maintains four sims in Second Life including two artists colonies.  The artists’ portfolios and artist statements are highlighted on the Artists page.blog

The Mind map on Education 2.0 blog suggested on the Second Life assignment this week is extensive,http://www.flickr.com/photos/jokay/sets/72157612171568581/show/.  I think I could see myself finding more ways to use Second Life in my classroom now that I have more connections to more “tried and true” resources. I like the link to Art Galleries and Museums as an art history and contemporary art resource for my high school art students.  This page utilizes connections to other sites in and out of Second Life as well, including a “walk through tour” of the Sistine Chapel in Second Life for example. For my advanced students, there are examples of Artists in Residence programs and an amazing “Open-Source” Museum of Open-Source Art (OSMOSA), created by a group of students from Brown University.

Through my browsing of all the incredible sites linked from Second Life, I joined the OPENSOURCE Art’s Flickr group at http://opensource.boxwith.com/collaborate.html.

And another called The Open Art Network http://three.org/openart/. This site included a quote by John Cage (1969).

"Computers are bringing about a situation that's like the invention of harmony. Subroutines are like chords. No one would think of keeping a chord to himself. You'd give it to anyone who wanted it. You'd welcome alterations of it. Subroutines are altered by a single punch. We're getting music made by man himself, not just one man."              --John Cage, 1969.

Yes that is the correct date. I was blown away as I read it, and am inspired by his insight, vision, and imagination.  This site was the most exciting link that I have come across and will follow it closely as the “open source” debate continues.  I was encouraged to see so many diverse virtual environments for education in Second Life. But was really even more impressed by the resources that I could link to. The Network News section in this website is the most informative information that I have found on Open Source Art, including Problems, Solutions, Protocols, Open Art Licensing and actual Open Art projects.

Blog #6 – Communities of Practice

Networks make it happen – now distance is not an issue and the world is as small as we want it to be. Knowledge is a competitive advantage, a social advantage, and an educational advantage. Interaction is the key to this globalization of information and communication. Instead of working collaboratively within a physical space, we can now interact through almost any virtual or real, world-wide community that we choose.  This is the beauty of a community of practice.

These networks are only as valuable, however, as the connections we make. Now that these networks are more visible and useful and connected through social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis and other social forums, we can make connections with anyone for any reason. We can make connections with those people that have things in common with us, that we need to collaborate with, that our interests, research or paths collide with, or simply that we want to get to know better.  According to Etienne Wenger, who has written extensively on “Communities of Practice”, actually coining the modern term, “dynamic knowing” is the new database.  There are joint enterprises, mutual engagements, and shared repetoires of communal resources (Wenger, 1998) just waiting for us to collaborate within. He states that we need to engage people through participation and the process of creating, refining, communicating and using knowledge. This is exactly why Communities of Practice are important within the business world, but desperately so on the educational stage.
 http://books.google.com/books?id=heBZpgYUKdAC&lpg=PP1&ots=kcoa-l7z5g&dq=communities%20of%20practice&pg=PR8#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The following video shows why Art Education, as an example is just as important as any other curriculum area to this idea of community.  And why creative problem solving and collaboration is so easily taught through the fine arts as a bridge to understanding and connecting for people.

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=112187&title=The_Importance_of_Art_in_Education

References

Community of practice. (2009, June 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:27, June 21, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Community_of_practice&oldid=29776733

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=112187&title=The_Importance_of_Art_in_Education

 http://books.google.com/books?id=heBZpgYUKdAC&lpg=PP1&ots=kcoa-l7z5g&dq=communities%20of%20practice&pg=PR8#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Social Media - Blog #5 ETC

Social Media has gotten a bad rap from so many educational and parental directions even though it is quickly being embraced as the best way to communicate globally in the 21st Century. The fear of Social Media that drives some adults is not present in the minds of our children. Although many adults have fostered a negative attitude toward this new social interaction, they are simply uninformed about the usability and permanence of what is disseminated through social interaction. Students, however, as digital natives are comfortable with the “power” of collective intelligence. Social media supports their innate need for social interaction through technology and provides easy access to every aspect of their lives – Social - How am I going to stay in touch?, Educational - How am I going to research a topic?, and Informational - How am I going to find, discover, or buy something I need?  They entertain themselves, make connections socially and can maintain every imaginable connection whether it be local, international, or cerebral. Building connections through shared media helps to build relationships, create ideas, and inform.  The web 2.0 perspective highlighted in the video below helps to explain the importance of Social Media and how it has brought our world closer together, allowed us to feel more informed, make better choices, and create social media dialogues that could never be imagined before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoWKkl5nA08&feature=player_embedded

However, the democratization of information through social media has garnered some negative print and TV media coverage from some factions.  Big business and education are beginning to get onboard, but many of us are still in the dark ages of understanding Social Media and the positive power that is holds.  Those businesses previously concerned only with the concept of advertising a product or service through traditional media now must strongly consider the Web 2.0 social interface as a formidable advertising and communication tool.  The list of possibilities is enormous.  According to Wikipedia,Examples of social media software applications include:

Communication

• Blogs: Blogger, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, WordPress, Vox,ExpressionEngine, Xanga
• Micro-blogging / Presence applications: Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku,fmylife
• Social networking: Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut,Skyrock, Hi5, Ning, Elgg
• Social network aggregation: NutshellMail, FriendFeed
• Events: Upcoming, Eventful, Meetup.com

Collaboration

• Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint
• Social bookmarking (or social tagging)^[2]: Delicious, StumbleUpon,Google Reader, CiteULike
• Social news: Digg, Mixx, Reddit, NowPublic
• Opinion sites: epinions, Yelp

Multimedia

• Photo sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket, SmugMug
• Video sharing: YouTube, Vimeo, sevenload
• Livecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Stickam
• Audio and Music Sharing: imeem, The Hype Machine, Last.fm,ccMixter

Reviews and Opinions

• Product Reviews: epinions.com, MouthShut.com
• Q&A: Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers

Entertainment

• Media & Entertainment Platforms: Cisco Eos
• Virtual worlds: Second Life, The Sims Online,Forterra
• Game sharing: Miniclip, Kongregate

No longer can a business simply run an ad campaign that advertises on TV and print.  Businesses are now concerned about making connections through Tweets, following blogs, Internet forums, and even podcasts and wikis.  A global economy is now the norm, and everything is advertised and consumed worldwide from commodities, to services, to information. According to Collective Intelligence - The Vision [Video File], innovation is happening, whether we are ready or not.  Creating goods and services through these Web 2.0 practices is necessary and the preferred way to share these goods and services.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQe8dWTbE2U
References

psbobj (2007, May) Collective Intelligence - The Vision [Video File]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQe8dWTbE2U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoWKkl5nA08&feature=player_embedded

Social media. (2009, August 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:40, August 21, 2009, fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Social_media&oldid=309300277

Week 2 - Blog Posting #4 –21st Century Skills & Lifelong Learning

As a high school art teacher, I am truly concerned about the educational value in what my students are learning, if they can actually use what they have learned, if it is truly relevant to their lives, and if these are real skills that contribute to life-long learning. Travel, for instance has been an important part of learning about other cultures for myself and my students. We have traveled recently to Spain and will be traveling in the spring to Italy. In this photo, a native guide from the area speaks in accented English about a beautiful palace we are visiting. She was an excellent example to myself and my students of how a native can teach through an immigrant language.

As I enter a new school year, armed with exciting ways to enhance my teaching through Web 2.0 technology, I have to question how much of what I am teaching is meeting my students’ 21^st Century needs. Can these digital natives learn properly from a digital immigrant? According to Marc Prensky, in Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, maybe not. It’s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language. (Prensky 2001) We do face big hurdles in making connections with our students anyway. There are the usual generation gaps between many teachers and their students due to age differences, differences in interests and pre-existing knowledge, gaps in opportunities and lack of access to technology. Most of us, working towards updating our ability to teach skills that support these new literacies, recognize the seriousness of these hurdles and are working to close the gap in our teaching.

I was also impressed by a Learning and Innovation Skills list, highlighted on the 21^st Century Skills webpage, Teaching for Artistic Behavior, http://teachingforartisticbehavior.org/21st%25252520Century%25252520Skills.html. If you access this page you will find a an exceptionally complete list of skills related to visual art that I plan to use on a daily basis in my classes this year. These skills are grounded in Bloom’s Taxonomy and support our constant defense of the arts as a valuable part of a well-rounded education for all students at all levels. I am of course, particularly interested in how the technological aspects of the list can be applied to my painting, drawing, and art survey classes compared to how my classes have functioned in the past. The “art making” and the research within the digital world has been easy. I am now looking to apply more inquiry, communication, and collaboration to my students through a more thorough investigation of 21^st Century Skills. I think that this site, in general supports many of the reasons that I feel we need to educate ourselves about these new technologies, and how we will actually apply them to teaching this new literacy.

The video from Teacher Tube below has some good, basic reminders for reasons to encourage and teach collaboration within all our classrooms. These global connections are some of the most important reasons for teaching from a new point of view and for embracing what our students already know - that 21st Century skills are here to stay and that we need to get on board as teachers if we are going to properly educate our students.

>

3 steps for 21st Century Learning [video file] Posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yCB4i7GJuM

References

Prensky, M.(2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

3 steps for 21st century learning. Video posted to teachertube November 10, 2007

at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yCB4i7GJuM

Teaching for artistic behavior supports 21st century skills. Retrieved August 7, 2009

from http://teachingforartisticbehavior.org/21st%25252520Century%25252520Skills.html

Week #2 – Blog Post: Media Literacy

21^st Century media literacy just might be harkening back to the precious days of childhood, when play, discovery, creativity, pretending, and copying others was child’s play. We could ”tinker” and never get stressed out because we had choices and didn’t know any better. We woke up each day with enthusiasm for what we were going to build from the scraps in the deserted lot, rules we would invent for the neighborhood pick up game, or stuff we might find in our dad’s junk filled garage. Those times are celebrated today as “the good old days” but I think maybe we are experiencing a Renaissance of sorts in this new digital age, finally allowing ourselves the luxury to learn again through trial and error. Failure is okay?

We didn’t mind the diversity of the kids on the block back then, instead finding them interesting and valuable to the neighborhood environment. Our independence from our families was nurtured by the collective intelligence of the neighborhood kids and we used them as our network. Our judgment was based on what we learned from each other, judging the reliability or value of information based on the norms of the families we grew up around. Literacy was simply learning to read and write so we could understand.

There is probably a lot that we can learn from our own literacy experiences and the changes that have happened to media in our lifetimes, much of it experienced through what might now be considered old fashioned sources like cinema, best selling books, and music lyrics.

Take a 20^th Century movie like “Stand By Me”, trailer at IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3398631705/

Written by Stephen King (novel) and directed by Rob Reiner, this 1986 adventure drama where a writer recounts his coming of age story is typical of how we would experience media, but the story is also about literacy. Set in 1959 (before my time, lol), its content is understood through the screenplay, music and lyrics. The story is not meant to be interactive. The viewer empathizes with the author as he tells his story through his boyish self. Although I am sure I discussed the movie with those around me the first time I saw it, the experience was not an interactive, collaborative one like it might be now. I couldn’t “tweet” about it or make comments on my Facebook about memories that it brought back. I couldn’t instantly share old family photos online with my mom after seeing the movie, or text my son back about a story idea he had after seeing the movie. My experience was static and linear at best and not at all interactive or critical in scope.

Now, the media sources are vastly different and vastly superior. Media literacy serves some of the same, if not higher purposes through its interactive, collaborative qualities but adds an expanded conceptualization. So, why be afraid? Why not embrace? Why judge? Why not encourage? Why not demystify these wondrous new literacy tools as educators and enjoy the Renaissance of childhood discovery once again through a new, improved form of media literacy? Why not allow room for trail and error? Simulation here we come!

In reading an article published this summer online called “Technology as a Fence and a Bridge”, http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/resources/view/ces_res/615 educator Bryan Wehrli reports on teacher’s attitudes towards technology and his observations about media literacy and its new challenges. He acknowledges the points of view of both teachers and students as they struggle with the best educational path for the new digital tools. Wehrli tries to clarify the media literacy issue for us as a problem that can be understood and solved. In his observations I can hear his voice as it might be heard in the “Stand By Me” story of today. Those boys in the movie would totally “get” 21^st Century social networking. They would be instant messaging, texting and tweeting their way through the drama of their lives just like we do now if they had the opportunity. It would be the same story – just better and on MySpace.