ARE316 FINAL

1. The most significant show and tell in my opinion was Hali's Coding Academy show and tell.  I have no experience whatsoever in coding and it was not really offered at my high school.  I feel as though this is something vital that we need to learn in this day and age and it helped me understand the idea of "digital literacy" better.  The sites Hali provided seemed fun and easy to use and I plan to explore them and try to learn from them over the summer.  I have seen so many of my former teachers assigned courses that they have no idea how to teach, so I hope that in becoming more fluent in digital literacy, I might be able to better prepare myself for anything to come.  I believe that it could be fun to try to do a coding project in the classroom and after exploring these sites more, I hope I will have a better understanding of the limitations of coding and the possibilities of what we can do with it.  I believe knowing how to code is necessary for children today and it is better for them to learn it earlier rather than later.  I wish that I was taught a little about it in my required computer science classes in middle school instead of merely learning how to type faster.

2. Two readings that I think were important to this course were Gill 2009 and Kellner & Share 2005.  In Gill's essay he wrote:  "Games Generation workers rarely even think of reading a manual.  They'll just play with the software, hitting every key if necessary, until they figure it out."  This quote really made me evaluate what I wanted my teaching style to be like.  I realized that my lessons were too instructional based and did not contain enough free thinking and exploration for students to discover solutions on their own.  It also made me look at my own life and my stubborn refusal to look at instructions or manuals when I try to fix things or put them back together.  I also have to say that I loved this reading's positive look at how video games effect children's digital literacy.  Everything in the news always seems to discuss how violent video games are and how violent our children are becoming as a result of this exposure.  For Gill to actually say that scholars believe video games skills and abilities can transfer to other computer skills, I couldn't be happier.  This brings me back to this idea of skill acquired knowledge that I want my future classrooms to based around instead of lectures and demos.  This reading inspired me to make my 3D prosthetic project based on a design I saw in Assassin's Creed.  I modeled my design off of the hidden blade worn by Ezio Auditore in AC2 because I liked the sturdy design and I thought that it had the potential to be a very sleek and elegant design.  I also thought that the arm attachment offered more control than a finger attachment and the user would be able to put more pressure on it that one tiny little finger.

The second reading, Kellner & Share 2005, was equally important in its message to us as future educators.  In the reading it said, "Further, a student-centered, bottom-up approach is necessary for a standpoint analysis to come from the student's own culture, knowledge, and experiences."  I have seen this concept in effect in this course since day one.  All of the projects were centered around us coming up with our own solutions and working off of our past experiences.  Most projects were left very open ended for this particular reason as well.  This course was not about a professor lecturing us for hours on end.  Instead it focused on the students and how we can improve as artists, students, and future educators.  I have always worked off of my own knowledge, culture and experiences in this course - as evident in all of my projects and designs.  As said previously, I designed my prosthetic based on my favorite video game and I also designed my 3D lesson plan (the 3D CO2 race cars) based on a lesson I was taught in my middle school woodshop class.  My videos featured my roommates and their phone/technology addictions, my love for oil pastels (which I use in the majority of my artwork), and an awesome Irish Dance video since that is the culture I most strongly connect to and identify with.  For my last project, I helped come up with the kiosk design - which was based off of my Girl Scout Silver Award project (2 posts down if you haven't read about it already) and my experiences as flier designer and PR person for my dance/art/music team, FOCUS.  My final lesson plan, as said in other posts as well, was created because of all of the problems I see in my own community and my desire to fix them.  I think that by using this student-based approach, it helped us become more engaged in the class and its curriculum and I cannot wait to create more projects, videos, and lesson plans like the ones I made in this class.  This reading stressed students' need to desconstruct media and learn how to create their own and I hope I have become better able to do so as a result of this course.

3.  I absolutely loved every project we did in this class, so it's impossible for me to pick a favorite.  I loved working collaboratively in a group and think of ways to improve campus life for the community.  I also enjoyed learning about and using 3D printers and I think they are the coolest things ever.  I hope to take a digital design and fabrication course in the future here just so I can learn more.  However, if I had to choose the most influential project, it would have to be the video cluster.  That project introduced me to the laid-back atmosphere in this class, which was the complete opposite of the graphic design course I took last semester.  That class had such specific instructions that when I first walked in this class, I felt lost.  I went from having no options and no say in the projects we did to having free reign in everything we did in this class.  The first project cluster helped me get used to this kind of class format again and helped me make decisions for myself instead of blindly following the instructor's suggestions and decisions.  The videos also made me realize how much talent the people on Youtube really have since it took so many tries for me to make the least awkward video possible.  I never knew it would be so hard to talk to a camera until I made my instructional 10 minute video.  Looking back, there are so many things I would have done differently in that and my documentary.  I would have made them more eye-catching and attention grabbing if I could.  I would also change the formats around so they told a story more clearly.  I follow a few teachers who make instructional art videos on youtube for their students and everyone else, and I watched AP Calculus and Chemistry videos religiously when preparing for my exams.  I found them to be a great help in bridging the gap between classroom learning and my time at home.  These videos are essential in today's society as a way to take learning outside of the classroom and make it a continuous project.  This skill is definitely one I should work on for the future as it could help me in my career and just my overall sense of confidence.  For being such a horrible instructional video, I never imagined it would get so many comments and views on youtube.   While my Irish dance video only has 82 views to date, my oil pastel tutorial has 1,069 views and 21 likes.  I even received one comment giving me advice on other brands of oil pastels to try.  I think this is a great way for artists to connect to one another and give each other support and advice, so I hope to use my channel more for these types of tutorials (and maybe a few dance videos) in the future.