I'm taking this weekend as an opportunity to digitally photograph my portfolio. I have all my works on slide film, which is absolutely necessary for my field and for publishing images. However, I mistakenly elected not to pay the extra ten bucks a roll to have my slides burned on a disk when I had them developed. Hear me slap my forehead. It's okay. It will take a while, and a bit of work, but this is providing me an opportunity to revisit old ideas, and familiar works of mine. The new technology I've acquired recently will help me to re-examine and revision old works, and present them in a new way. After all, I spent the time and money in order to make the works: they deserve to look great.
One of the classes I'm enrolled in now prepares future teachers for the changes that will come as new technology develops and is integrated into teaching and daily life. It is helping me learn how to build a website for my classroom. I can post lesson plans, student grades (anonymously), project rubric, and even links to websites for my students to explore in accordance with the current lesson. One of the features allows me to digitally catalogue my own portfolio, and then burn it to DVD. I'm looking forward to learning and using all these new skills. I hope to incorporate them in with this blog, and build wonderful interactive art lessons with them.
Something I've been astonished at ever since the first day of this particular class is the importance of technology and information processing in the future. We teachers are preparing our students for jobs that don't even exist yet. Yet we need to prepare them to be able to learn those skills - whatever they will be. So, we're focusing on learning technology in a holistic manner. We're recognizing how systems work, and not getting hung up on brand-names. It helps to keep from being too overwhelmed most of the time. We're learning better ways to use the tools that are already available to us.
In my own art, I have used technology. Most of the artists in my generation are learning to rely upon the new tools available to us. Some artists are doing incredible things with it. But there are still some artists who are not taking advantage of the tools. Some of my own teachers in studio arts are sharply divided on this issue: one recently asked the department assistant to send an e-mail out for him. Another professor has a virtual-reality program in which she creates three-dimensional art environments. What a stark contrast!
That leads us to our lesson/activity for the week: search online for art and artists who use technology in their works. A great place to start is the medium of sculpture. Try looking up installation art, video art, and keep looking. Save sme of your favorite links and images, and send them to me. While you're searching, think about the methods that artists use to create when using technologies. Think about the possibilities that they may not have though of yet. How could you use their methods? What would you create? Try answering this question (which seems to stump many of my prof's): is it still art if you don't create something tangible? This is highly appropriate since we're currently using technology to enable this blog. I already know you can do it since you've found this small little corner of the web. I am here to help if you need it, though. Start you search. Send me an e-mail. Let's see what we can find!
Note: ALL information and links provided from this blog and subsequent issues are for educational purposes only. Please do not use copyrighted imagery without the consent of the image owner.
All lesson plans authored by Mrs. B are the expressed intellectual property of Stephanie T. Butler unless otherwise noted. Use of Mrs. B's lesson plans without Stephanie T. Butler's permission or failure of citation is considered intellectual theft and constitutes academic fraud.
Plaigarism is theft: what lessons will you teach our students?
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