Course 3

Remix your childhood favorites

~ cpupovac ~ 1 Comment

We have been talking about Remixes and Mashups in our Coetails classes off and on for some time now.  It’s been great discussion for me because as an art teacher I can bring these concepts into almost any of my classes with very little effort. Two of my finals units  now have incorporated some sort of remix or mashup into the students final product.  I’ve found the students to be incredibly motivated and creative at the same time.  As I move forward to create an animation class next year I am positive that these themes will continue to creep into my curriculum.

What I love about the buzz around mashups and remixes in todays culture is that this is nothing new to the art world.  I can talk about these things with my students as a very easy segway into the history of appropriation in the arts. According to MoMA appropriation is the intentional borrowing, copying, and alteration of preexisting images and objects. It’s been a part of western art for centuries but its a style that has rapidly increased with the rise of consumerism. Jonathan Lethem’s article in Harper’s Magazine “The Ecstasy of Influence” nicely describes how appropriation has been a part of the arts for a long time in many different ways. If you think remixing is anything new then check this article out.  I personally find that using the word remix is just what helps me to relate to my students.  From there we are able to dig a little bit deeper.

Using the word Remix also brings me to the idea of having a good hook for your students. I was recently introduced to a concept referred to as Fan Art. Again, to me this is another form of appropriation or if I was trying to pull in my students I would say Fan Art is another form of remixing.  If you are unsure about what Fan Art is watch this OffBook short from PBS.

The thing I love about fan art is that so many people start out drawing fan art when they are little.  When kids or even adults don’t know what to draw they will draw a character that they know from some sort of work of fiction. If you want to get a little creative you could draw them doing something new or out of character. I would say that about 70% of the independent drawings that my students do in their sketchbooks are fan art from their favorite shows. Fan art is yet another genre that falls under appropriation that I can easily use to stir up some creativity with my students.  I’m not sure where all this is going just yet but I’ve got high hopes for all the places appropriation in it’s many forms will take my classes in the future.

ReVamp

~ cpupovac ~ Leave a comment

I recently took a little survey with my design class to see what type of project they would be interested in pursuing as we wrap up the semester.  At our school all of the students have blogs that are used regularly so I thought one of the options should be to revamp their blogs and give them some more visual appeal.  I was surprised to find that the idea of adding a personal touch to their blogs was very enticing to whole class.  Several students claimed to have never done a single thing to their blogs because nobody ever showed them how.  The level of enthusiasm for this project got me excited to develop this unit but I was even more excited because it so nicely brought us back to all of the design elements that we have been discussing throughout the semester.

To kick of the unit we watched the OffBook video on “the Art of Wed Design”.  Side note, if you are not familiar with OffBook I highly recommend it. It is a great collection of shorts put together by PBS on Art in the Digital world.

This video gives a little history about web design and at the same time helps to generate some discussion about basic elements to consider when designing a web site. Some of these elements were typography, usability, layout, content, and color.  With these things in mind students took a look at their own blogs and asked themselves two questions.

  1. What bugs me about my blog?
  2. If I could do anything what would I like to change about my blog?

After our mini brainstorming sessions we will be dug a little deeper.  The second phase to our research process was to look at the article Understanding Visual Hierarchy in Web Design by Brandon Jones. Students opened the article in an app that allowed them to annotate it in order to highlighting what they felt were the key components to each section.  Afterward we took turns sharing what we highlighted for extra clarity. With this new information in mind students were then asked to return to their lists of things that bugged them and things they wanted to change to make any further clarifications or add-ons.

With a complete list in hand of ways to move forward we will set out to do make three major changes.  Students will:

  1. Pick a new theme
    1. As students began looking deeper into wordpress themes they will have their lists of what they would like to change as well as their knowledge of the elements of good web design to help guide them.
  2. Reorganize your content
    1. Students will make sure the content fits into the new theme in a user friendly and aesthetically pleasing way. Some of these changes will include but are not limited to the following:
      1. adding categories to posts.
      2. Making a Home page more like an about me page.
      3. Parenting posts and ordering pages.
      4. Adding or subtracting widgets.
      5. Adjusting the layout of columns, scrollbars and posts.
  3. Design a new header
    1. We will use our adobe suite skills to create a new personalized header. We have been using many of the adobe suite products throughout the semester and students have done a great job developing their skills with digital imagery. They are allowed to use their own images, create a mashup, remix of an image using creative commons.

QR_design_spagettiAt the moment my students are about half way through revamping their blogs.  Fun things are happening and I’m excited to see the end results.  As kids finish up they will be posting a reflection to explain the reasoning behind all of their changes.  I know thier have been a lot of little bumps in the road where students find they are not always able to do everything they want but this has been a good lesson as well.

In the end I’m most excited because this final project that accomplishes several things. First, it teaches the students several new concepts about web design. Second, it reviews many of the key components and tools that we have been building on all semester. Finally and most importantly  this unit allows for the student to put some individuality and personal flare into a product that they will be continuing to use in the future.

Start with the story

~ cpupovac ~ 1 Comment

As an art teacher it is not the visual part that gets lost.  My actual title is “Visual Arts Teacher” so if I’m lacking in visuals  when it comes to storytelling then I’m not doing my job.  The part that I feel is left out of  the Visual Arts Classroom way too often these days is the story. Art teachers often have their students create exciting images that completely lack narration. To often, especially in the elementary art scene, you see the students making 25 versions of the same idea. There is no personal story coming from the artist/students. At AES I have been working very hard in several of my classes to make sure the artist is telling the story they want to tell.  I’m simply showing them how to use tools that will help them to do so. Isn’t this how real artist make art in the first place?  I often wonder why idea this so often lost in the art room?

In most of my art classes I want to make sure that students are connected to what they are making and that connections usually come from a personal narration.  This is where I am constantly trying to enhance what is happening in my room.  This is also where I see myself turning to writing teachers. We create our context for our images by coming up with a story. I actually do this by giving students prompts to reflect on experiences and write about them.  By continuing to reflecting on those brief writings of experiences and memories student are able to form their own expressionistic visuals. In this case and in most other works of art the artist is starting with the story, not the image. As a result students are more invested and the product is more visually enchanting.

I’m in the process of creating a new class titled Art in Animation.  When the subject of course 3 turned to Digital Storytelling my mind obviously went toward the creation of this class. Yet again, the visual is not the challenging part for me, it’s the story.  I have found from past experiences that when starting an animation project storyboarding is of extreme importance. I’m sure it is the same for any form of Digital Storytelling. Storyboarding is not all that different from the beginning stages of creating a Zen Presentation.  The story needs to come first. Afterall, Movies don’t start with pictures they start with screenplays, and before that they often start with a book. I was actually in the middle of putting this post together when I discovered Garr Reynold’s blog post just this week on storyboarding.  I urge you to check it out.  In it he shares many video clips that show how storyboarding works.  The following clip video that Garr shared in his post is the very one that first introduced storyboarding to me when I was a bit younger. I can recall watching this mini documentary when I was in high school and was convinced that storyboarding illustration would be the perfect job for me.

Can Flashy Prezi be Zen?

~ cpupovac ~ 1 Comment

I use Prezi very frequently in my classroom. While reading about presentation Zen I noticed all of the examples being displayed were powerpoint or something similar. This got me wondering; Can Prezi be Zen? I decided to do a little fishing around to see what some others critiques might have to say about the Zen qualities or lack there of when it comes to Prezi.

I started with the creator of Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds.  From what I found Reynolds had two main positive things to say about Prezi:

One is that “ Prezi is a good tool when used with discretion and restraint.”

and that

“Prezi works well in non-linear presentation situations”

The first quote by Reynolds could easily be applied to any presentation platform, or any tool in general for that matter.  The second however is the one that I find to be more relevant.   In a way Prezi’s can be set up like an animated infographic. Prezi will zoom into one section of the whole and then zoom out again to show the viewer how everything is connected, helping the viewer to never lose sight of the big picture. Like Garr said, it works well with non-linear situations.

Not everyone though seems to think that Prezi has the potential that Reynolds does. Scott Burkun has a post dedicated to his hatred of Prezi. Stating that:

“The people most drawn to use Prezi are those who are more enchanted by the pretense of style, rather than substance.”

Burkun’s statement may be true for many Prezi users but who’s to say those users are in any way knowledgeable with the concepts behind Presentation Zen.  From what I read the biggest critisism of Prezi is that the transitions are to flashy, distracting the viewer from the content. These transitions definitely go against the Presentations Zen model. They are what I believe Reynolds was referring to when he said that Prezi is a good when used with discretion and restraint.  So are there Zen Prezi’s? Chris Anderson has a wonderful Prezi that he uses in his TedTalk on how web video powers global innovation and I would say it’s getting the job done.

https://embed.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html

In this presentation you can see many of the advantages to Prezi as well as the distracting transitions. My conclusion is that when creating a Zen presentation there can be a place for Prezi but you should think carefully about the content and whether or not a non-linear presentation platform enhances your content.

On the other hand I don’t use Prezi just for presentations and talks.  I’m sure that a lot of presentations that teachers make are not so much presentations as they are reference points for students. I actually use Prezi as a sort of weekly planner that helps to organize the information my students need for each class. I have one Prezi for every week that encompasses all of my classes. Different areas of the Prezi are dedicated to providing the students with images, video or links they might need but mostly it is a way to communicate what the class period will consist of along with some key points.  If it was only visuals it wouldn’t be very helpful to students. In this way Prezi is not being used for presentations but it is a reference for my students. Since I have started using Prezi here are what I have found to be it’s advantages, Zen or not.

  1. You can create a presentation that is are non-linear, displaying the big picture and how concept overlap and are interconnected.

  2. Prezi is web based so it can be accessed from different devices and has a user friendly app.

  3. It can be kept in the public domain so it can also be accessed by your students.

  4. Embedding video, images and links is extremely easy and allows you to keep more information in one place.

  5. It can be shared with others to make presentations a collaborative effort.

I would like to leave you with a course relevant  Prezi example that may not be exactly Zen but it nicely displays that advantage of Prezi without the Presenter. This is something prezi can do well when needed.

https://prezi.com/embed/bm9alx1pbtmc/?bgcolor=ffffff&lock_to_path=0&autoplay=0&autohide_ctrls=0&features=undefined&disabled_features=undefined

Breaking Down the Walls

~ cpupovac ~ 2 Comments
Picture courtesy of Visual Thinking Strategies
Picture courtesy of Visual Thinking Strategies

I’m enjoying the topic of course 3 because I feel visual literacy is often overlooked and yet increasingly essential.  I would argue however that visual literacy is being taught more than most realize and it’s happening in the art room. Visual literacy and sometimes media literacy are core subjects in the art room. George Lucas stated in his  Edutopia article that “We need to take art and music out of “the arts class” and put it into the English class.” This statement points to what I believe is a largely overlooked problem in schools today. I believe each subject tends to be too compartmentalized when in reality, outside school walls the world is not run by lone subject matters but more often a collaboration of subject matters.  Visual literacy doesn’t need to come out of the art room and go into english class. Teachers need to demonstrate how subject areas overlap more naturally. Many teachers do this to a small extent but kids still don’t make the connections. When you tell a student to make a visual for a science class do they stop to apply the elements and principles of art the learned in drawing? Mostly likely the answer is no. I often think that if our school systems were set up with less compartmentalization between subjects then our students would be more equipped to see how everything is intertwined and overlapping. If only we could break down some of the walls between our subject areas.  Then, just maybe students would be more likely to apply visual media and literacy skills they have been nurturing in the art room to observations in literature, science and technology.

As an art teacher I thought I would attempt to start this process by sharing some simple tools that I use to enhance visual literacy. Hopefully a few of you will find this useful in a classroom outside the art room.

  1. VTS, otherwise known as Visual thinking Strategies is a great way to get kids verbally talking about imagery, breaking down there thoughts and expressing them out load.  One thing I love about VTS is that there are no wrong answers, just curiosities and self expression which helps kids to build there confidence. The following is a video of VTS being facilitated with a group of adults. 
  2.  “Picture This: How Pictures Work” by Molly Bang is a wonderful book that shows how simple shapes in different arrangements create expression.
  3. The Elements of Art and Principles of Design are considered to be the common set of vocabulary for talking about and describing visual components of a work of art.  This vocabulary is used in art classes from kindergarden through 12th grade and could easily be used in other classrooms when looking at, creating visuals, or developing descriptive writing

I hope some of my non art teacher colleges might find some of this useful. If you have materials that you think would make a good resource in the art room I would certainly like to hear about it.