My experience with Photoshop...and my journey with Illustrator

I have a little experience in photoshop.  This image is one of my favorite and most successful pieces and I used photoshop to create it, without using any filters, just modes. It was a collaboration project that my digital media class at Clemson did with UNC Charoltte.  Everybody had to post three pictures creating an image library that anybody from either class could use.  We worked on the project for a week and then we switched images with somebody from the other school for a week, then switched back to make the final edits.  This wasn't my first experiences with Photoshop because I use the program a lot when creating imagery for silkscreen prints and ceramic decals, but this was my first successful digital image  as a final product.

Other examples of Photoshop work:

(This image was done my friend Michelle Warren)     

         

During my class at Clemson we also learned Illustrator, but because I don't use it on a day to day basis like I do with Photoshop, I always feel a little lost when using the program.  Even now, I'm having a problem saving my Illustrator file as a .jpg so I can post some examples on here.  I understand the differences between Photoshop and Illustrator and I'm excited to learn more about Illustrator.  The graphic style that it creates is something that I like and I've only dabbled in.

For this image series I want to work with some photos that I've taken of some of my students from the summer and some street photography that I did at a festival.  I really like the energy and the emotion that I get from kids.  I've started on an image in Photoshop and I've layered in  some patterns.

This is not finished and still in progress.  I've extended the original photograph by using the brush tool and the clone stamp.  I added two different pattern layers and masked them out and lowered the opacity.  The pattern images were taken from some silkscreen prints that I did last semester.  With my second image I want to make some "cartoon" figures in Illustrator, like I have done above, of that will capture these happy faces and for the third image I want to combine work from both Photoshop and Illustrator.

Blogging in the Classroom

Last Friday at the Maryland Art Education Association fall conference I went to a session called "Technology in the Art Room."  I was excited because I wanted to ask other art teachers if they use a blog and if so how effective was it and what age groups did it work for.  Unfortunately this workshop didn't have a lot of group discussion.  The two leaders presented on using a digital camera to create a digital portfolio for the students and at the end of the year write and reflect about there work and the use of graphic organizers.  I thought at some point they have mentioned how using a class blog would be a great avenue for this, but it never came up in the lesson.  


With five minutes left we finally had question and answer time and I was the first one with my hand up.  I was pretty excited because I was going to be asking a question that could lead to a great discussion and I could get a lot of information out of.  I asked my question: "Do any art teachers have a class blog or have students blog about their artwork?  Is this effective?  What are the advantages and disadvantages?  What age groups would work best for this?"  The some then had an awkward moment of silence.  In a room full of 15 art teachers, nobody had any experience with blogging.  Then somebody spoke up and said that she has a friend who teaches high school and uses flickr for a similar purpose.  She makes it part of their homework assignment to post up their work and comment on each others art.  Then, another person spoke up and said that she would be reluctant to use a blog with her students because of how nasty the comments could get and that if she did it, she would only do it for high school but it would be too much to monitor it.  Just as the group started opening up and a potentially good discussion was about to happen it was time to move on to the next session.  I was a bit let down.  


When searching online for good class blogs I found a little bit of the same disappointment.  I found a lot of blogs that teachers used to share lesson plans and good resources, but I didn't really find anything where the students were taking part in the blog.  The search led me to some really cool sites, they just weren't what I was wanting to find.  Some teachers are taking advantage using this blogging technology but not to it's full capacity.  I know the ideal classroom blog is out there, but I couldn't find the one that was ideal to me.  When I say "ideal classroom blog" I mean a student centered blog thats not all about the teacher, or all about the assignments, but another tool to help the students not only understand the material and art medium, but themselves.  


Here are some of the sites that I did find as useful blogs and tools for educators to use:


Mrs. Fuglestad's Art Class Blog at Dryden Elementary
Incredible Art Blogs and Podcasts
The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet
The Teaching Palette
DIGI[cation] ePortfolio
Art Education 2.0
Collaborative mind mapping

Weblogs...

This article is in response to an article published in On the Horizon by Jill Walker from the University of Bergen  in Norway called Weblogs: Learning in Public.

In this new technology-based era, I believe it is important to teach digital media in schools.  Not just your typical computer science or keyboarding class, but really getting into what out there on the web for us to learn from and how we can learn from each other.  Walker's class at the University of Bergen is a great start for teaching digital media in the classroom.  Her weblog class uncovered hidden talents for the students, taught how easily we can be linked to others, and showed practice of a great mental exercise that students can do with to get their ideas in order and really understand more about ourselves. 

It's important to teach this because there still is a lot of learning about the Internet that needs to happen.  Writing online is different because it’s more than just words to consider. Understanding how to use a blog, linking other sites and using HTML is something that has often been self-taught and therefore students that aren't really interested in it may not grasp all the concepts behind blogging or keeping an electronic portfolio and may not have a positive reaction to it.   

As a freshman at Clemson University we were told that we had to keep an ePortfolio documenting our work through out all our classes at Clemson, showing that we have completed the General Education requirements and that we understand the values and concepts being taught at the school.  Unfortunately, there weren't any guide lines or any instruction on how to do so except for one tutorial form BlackBoard that just left us confused.  For two years we (the entire class of 3,000+ students) got emails from the University reminding us that we had a to do this ePortfolio or we could not graduate, but the professors weren't relaying this message and we were left in the clouds and wondering what do we need to include, how do we organize it, and how do we even do this!  Finally the spring semester of my junior year, the Clemson admitted that there was a lack of communication between the professors, students and the University and that we were not required to complete the ePortfolio before graduation.  However, the freshman for the upcoming year were going to be required to make one but there were going to have a BlackBoard 101 session at orientation and a class that they could take for 1 credit teaching BlackBoard, ePortfolio, html and other topics about forming a website and learning about the internet.  This real life experience shows the gap between technology in the real world application and the lack of knowledge to use it effectively.

Other point that I thought was of importance to teach was that blogging is not a game.  Anyone can read the information you put out there, just like you can read about anything from anyone. It's importance to know and understand this before you take part either writing a blog or leaving a comment.  Also, I feel that bloggers have a hard time taking criticism. They tend to get overly upset by good criticism by writing back arrogantly or delete the post completely.  On the other hand, some comments can be tedious and irrelevant to the blog and can cause a completely different conversation at the bottom of an important blog.  However annoying commenter’s can be for blog authors, its all in response to the original blog so I believe that whether its a good or bad comment it's all about the conversation and sharing or ideas over the web. 

Technology is continually changing and that is why it is sometimes difficult to teach this subject in schools because next year it might be out of date, but never the less it is important and should be taught.  The weblog community is a great avenue for teachers to get their students writing and sharing their knowledge with others and I believe it is our job as educators to teach how to use this information technology to our advantage as we move toward the future.

Digital Media and Learning

This article is in response to a paper funded by the MacArthur Foundation called "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century.  The paper discussed our new digital generation and the current participatory culture that has come out of it, along with the new skills needed in this environment. Although I agree with the intent of the paper and agree with most everything it says, I disagree with a few points it makes.  This is from my own bias on the importance gaming, but I felt there were too many references and examples of gaming, or at least not enough of other forms of digital media that in my mind would have done a better job of making the argument for the paper.  The argument as I understood it, or the most important issue that stood out to me -- 
            
 "Schools as institutions have been slow to react to the emergence of this new participatory clulture; the greatest opportunity for change is currently found in after-school programs and informal learning communities.(Jenkins p.4)"


I'm not so sure why this statement is so shocking to me because I was in high school only four years ago, but I find it very unsettling that most students learn valuable skills and retain more information outside the classrooms.  I don't feel like this is the teachers fault, because I know many work hard to include digital media in lessons whenever they can, but it comes down to the school system that limits what teachers should teach, how they should teach it, and the resources to do so.  Jenkins list three concerns about students interacting on their own that include unequal opportunities, misperception, and ethical concerns.  I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg for reasons why there is need for a more formal education in digital media in the classroom.


There are skills listed that come in play with digital media literacy.  Of these eleven, I feel that the two most important in my experience are judgement and collective intelligence. Digital media should be taught in the classroom because with the availability of the internet, students need to be able to set apart virtual reality and real world concepts along with reliability and credibility and understanding the intent of the information being given.  Also, I feel that there has always been taboo around techie-computer literate people and that they keep to themselves, game all day long, and have little interactions with others.  Collective intelligence along with networking is a great to link people, ideas, and information together.  The digital media world is no longer as individualized at it use to be and it think that is the whole point for the participatory culture.