Occasionally colloquial and most certainly lacking eloquence: the thoughts of a highly-strung English major. Musings on education, techhnology in the classroom, book reviews, and more.
Showing posts with label digital creativity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital creativity. Show all posts
What makes something beautiful to you? To me? To the guy sitting next to you on the subway, or at the grocery store, or in yoga class? Aesthetics is a big branch of philosophy, focusing on the nature of beauty, art and taste, and how these things affect our appreciation of life, our emotions and sense of well-being. So what might be the most beautiful thing in the world to someone might repulse somebody else. According to Pierre Bourdou, two components affect our interpretations of beauty: "aesthetics, which is the philosophical notion of beauty; and taste, a result of an education process and awareness of elite cultural values learned through exposure to mass culture." So from a young age, our surroundings shape both our perceptions AND our aesthetic/taste preferences.
Considering the "nature vs nurture" argument in terms of human personality and psychological development, human aesthetic development can be broken down to the biological, evolutionary level. Dr. Denis Dutton, a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, proposes that art appreciation (and therefore aesthetics) is less culturally learned, and stems more from evolutionary adaptations made during the Pleistocene Epoch.
I see things and can reflect on that thing's raw beauty, the way it looks to me at face value. But when I start thinking about this object/thing more deeply, I might be able to find connections to apply to my life and the people/important things in it. For example, whenever I see "The Bean" in Chicago, I can tell you how I perceive the overall aesthetic of the structure itself- it is a large, metallic silver blob that appears to be sagging yet arched over an invisible source underneath. That's what I see. But what I SEE, with my mind's eye, and why I love the Bean so much, is my face reflected in the shining mirrored surface of the sculpture, my friends Mandy and Tyler on either side, and I can hear us laughing. It takes me back to my spring break trip to Chicago last year, and I am flooded with nostalgia. I find the Bean beautiful because of my beautiful friends. I know that we all apply beauty to things for similar reasons, too.
Classroom Computer Applications. CCA. That class you take right after Ed Tech and Design, but before all your other tech classes, if you're smart. A course designed to help us learn about using project-based learning in conjunction with technology to engage and encourage students. Right? Well, I took several other technology classes for my minor BEFORE getting to take this course, and I have to say, I'm very excited for it. I'm more excited for it because I know that I can apply the skills I have gained from my other tech courses to this one, and expand on my knowledge. From what I've seen in the 4 classes we've had so far this semester, we're all in for one heck of a journey full of creative discovery.
My main expectation for CCA is this: I expect to learn about different approaches to designing project-based learning activities that I can apply directly to my English classrooms in the future. Specifically, I want to find some unique methods of integrating real-world types of activities into and English setting, so students can connect their own experiences and prior knowledge to the new things they are learning about. I expect my classmates to come with open minds and the willingness to get creative, and collaborative! I expect my professor (that's you Dr. Z) to provide us with the scaffolding (whoa, pedagogy word! but seriously) we need to see how the tools we're introduced to in class can indeed be applied to our classrooms.
Out of all my courses this semester, I think I really am most excited for this one. And it's because of the nature of the class, the hand-on, collaborative, creative work that we'll be doing, that separates it from my other courses. Hey, isn't that what we're learning about?!?!
Today I began the 3D Gamelab quests for our Emerging Instructional Technology course. I was a little late on starting (ok, a lot late) because I've been sick for almost all of Thanksgiving break! LAAAAAAAME! But luckily I'm feeling a lot better, and so today I started, and hopefully, I'll finish the quests by tonight (extra badges for me!!).
I've been a member of SecondLife since last year, but when we started our new gaming module in EIT, I created a new account, just so I could try and learn along with the rest of the class. Initially, I liked SecondLife because it is so similar to a video game that I had a lot of incite to use it. In all of my gaming, I enjoy games and simulations that allow a user to explore and discover, rather than to fight or to compete with other players. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy a little competition now and then, but I would rather be looking for new areas to discover on my map, or collecting every last blinking gem in Spyro the Dragon. Which I have done, in all 4 Playstation 1 & 2 Spyro games....
My favorite thing about SecondLife is that it provides a vast amount of places and people to discovery and interact with. When I first arrived at Welcome Island, I spent most of my time flying or running around, looking for things I could collect or interact with, and of course, things to pimp out my avatar :) Which eventually you find in SecondLife, because there are TONS of users who are eager to share items with you, be it clothes or landmark tags, which is just so nice! Searching for new places and marking them in my landmarks bar is one of my favorite things to do. I have already found the SecondLife Shakespeare Globe Theatre, and I creep around there from time to time, to see what's happening. You could spend literally days and days exploring in SecondLife, because there is SO much to see. Navigation is very important in this virtual environment, and users have to be organized if they want to keep from getting lost. That is something that I had to get used to, but I value my landmarks very highly now.
As far as using SecondLife in my educational future, I can see it being a great platform for my students to practice their creativity and discovery skills. These skills are extremely valuable in an English and Language Arts classroom, and I want my students to have every opportunity to foster their own creativity. I thought I could use SecondLife and the avatars to help students create their own fictional characters, and their experiences in SecondLife, wherever they might choose to go, might provide great inspiration for their writing. I would especially use this to help students generate topics for fiction workshops. I could also see using SecondLife for research, where students could use their avatars to explore and relive the many re-enactments through history (and literary history) that are out there in SL. What could be better than putting students right in a world with Shakespeare?! I have got to learn more about designing worlds in SL, so I could create my own spaces for students to interact and explore. Check out this video from Second Life Shakespeare Company, from King Lear, Act 3, Scene 7: Gloucester's Castle. PRETTY BOMB! Here's their homepage.
While researching for my final paper on gaming in education (in Professor Gao's course), I came across a series of articles talking about using SecondLife in different areas of education. Hsiao-Gheng Han's article "Second Life, a 3-D Animated Virtual World: An Alternative Platform for (Art) Education." suggests using Second Life to show students galleries of famous and historical art, techniques, and also allows them to see how they too may create and display their own art via SL. The Second Life in Education Wiki is an AMAZING resource, with all kinds of links to resources highlighting the uses of SL in classroom education, as well as ways for teachers and instructors to more greatly understand the medium so they can use it with their students. I have bookmarked the heck out of this wiki....
I must say, I have too much fun in Second Life, gaming for homework, than I should. But it's awesome. And thinking about the potential SL has for inciting motivation in my students to learn things that might otherwise bore them to near death, I get pretty excited. If you'll excuse me, I have some XP to be collecting...
“You won’t know you’re a good swimmer unless you get in the water.” Vicki Davis uses this analogy to describe students interacting with tools on the Net. As she mentions in her latest post Kids don’t just automatically “know” how to use the web and everything it offers because they are in the generation of digital natives. Sure, they have a great advantage because they live in a world where technology is in more households in America than it ever has been before. But “there is a whole world of experience out there that students will not get just on Facebook and in email,” Davis says. Some don’t even have these things at home, and are only about to use technology’s tools in school. Because of this, students need access to collaborative technology so that they can have the chance to interact with peers, with the public, to share their ideas through blogs, wikis, and websites so that they are ready to get out and interact with the world around
them! Sharing can be such a great way for students to learn, and become more confident about the knowledge they have gained.
Davis talks about schools extending the technology use for students beyond just being in the classroom. Some schools delete students’ progress and “wipe” the digital slates every year, barring the chances for students to keep their digital creations. Davis uses dropbox in her classes so that students can take anything they create, whether it is a blog, wiki, video, webpage, or some other form of digital media, with them. Davis wants her students to extend their learning beyond the classroom, and take their creations with them as they graduate from her class. What is the good of creating something a student can only use and share in school?
For students who are just starting to form identities, understand themselves and those around them, and find their places in the world, the opportunities to create without fear, and to understand the rules of creative technology in today’s world, is extremely important. I know that lots of students today use programs and websites online to create and express their ideas, opinions, and to experiment with different forms of media that they would not normally be exposed to. And that is just amazing. Helping students to understand that they can have a “place” on the Net, to be entirely their own, created and controlled by themselves alone, is a pretty powerful feeling. I’d like to do what Davis is doing, encouraging her students to create, yet understand privacy, editing, and performing at their very best. How can someone learn if they aren’t given the chance to do so in their own, original way? What kinds of tools could be introduced to students to really help them start making something “their own” and sharing it with others?
One great way for anyone to share creative content, while still maintaining authorship and credit, is with a sharing website such as Creative Commons. Here, creators (from individual creators to large companies) can submit their work and select different licenses to keep copyrights, but also allow certain uses of their creations, depending on what they choose. They can also donate work to be included in the public domain. There are a lot of different institutions that use Creative Commons, including Google, Flickr, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Public Library of Science, and Wikipedia. What do you think about students looking to Creative Commons licensed work in their projects in school? How could knowing about this type of licensing motivate students to pursue their digital creations into the future?
Really, I think students should be able to feel like they are always moving toward creative infinity....in the classroom and beyond!
