1. Thoughts from New Opportunities for Interest-Driven Arts Learning in the Digital Age, Kylie Peppler, Chapter 4:
This Chapter clarified for me some of the practical applications of using technology in the classroom and encouraging it with students. As my previous responses have touched on, I am wary on how much technology is affecting youth, with deep concerns about social media specifically and its affect on self-worth, comparison with others, and egocentric behavior. Part, if not all of this, stems from the fact that social media did not exist until my first year of college, and as result I had a social media and smart phone free late adolescence, and am very grateful for that experience based on how socially complicated high school was to navigate without those tools. Something in this chapter made me think differently, however, and that was the example provided of the late elementary students designing educational video games to teach fractions to younger students. Hearing about this not as a theoretical concept, but as a project that was successfully implemented in classes was truly inspiring. What a wonderful idea for a project, what a rich and interesting medium to explore and become familiar with, filled with problem-solving, reflection on one's own knowledge and built around the concept of helping others. Perhaps part of my hesitation for understanding how these tools could really be utilized was not being able to dream up projects that could encompass deep and meaningful learning that utilized technological mediums as platforms for the learning. This example, and the fact that 10-11 year olds were able to accomplish it, really made me re-think basic tutorials or ways of teaching technology to how it could be woven into a long and multi-leveled learning experience. Peppler also references the work of James Gee and Elizabeth Hayes as they discuss that remixing games can shift the focus of game culture from violence to creativity. Thinking about providing fourth to fifth graders the introduction and tools they would need to be able to continue to invent and remix video games as opposed to get glued in as a player, shooting other players for hours on end, definitely seems like a worthwhile cause.
2. My other "light bulb" moment came in reaction to both the Peppler Chapter, and from Chapter 6 from Invent to Learn, by Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager. While discussing how making, creating and performing matter, Peppler references the concept of "everyday creativity", defined as "the phenomena of individuals creating something novel unto themselves", and explains that making something individually as opposed to being a passive consumer can have a large effect on an individual. But of course! How can art classes encourage an interest in making beyond just the fine arts? How can they establish a life-long love for creating and innovating? How many classes can be just about having fun as well as experimentation to get students to love the process? These ideas were well supported by the Martinez/Stager Chapter that enthusiastically calls on teachers to ask their students to go out and make something, use a variety of tools, and encourage a range of responses. I feel like my view has been too narrow, focusing on the visual arts because it is a topic I love and one I wish I had had much more exposure to during my personal schooling, but the key is not to fit students into one artistic box where they all have the same studio skills, but inspire them to become creative learners for the rest of their lives, to be excited about making, to want to be innovative. This breakthrough in thinking is slightly new for me, so I haven't yet thought of the logical next steps of how to structure this kind of learning into projects and learning objectives, but I feel like it is only the beginning. I am now starting to truly think of the limitlessness of the art classroom and its ability to get students excited and encourage them to always be making.
This Chapter clarified for me some of the practical applications of using technology in the classroom and encouraging it with students. As my previous responses have touched on, I am wary on how much technology is affecting youth, with deep concerns about social media specifically and its affect on self-worth, comparison with others, and egocentric behavior. Part, if not all of this, stems from the fact that social media did not exist until my first year of college, and as result I had a social media and smart phone free late adolescence, and am very grateful for that experience based on how socially complicated high school was to navigate without those tools. Something in this chapter made me think differently, however, and that was the example provided of the late elementary students designing educational video games to teach fractions to younger students. Hearing about this not as a theoretical concept, but as a project that was successfully implemented in classes was truly inspiring. What a wonderful idea for a project, what a rich and interesting medium to explore and become familiar with, filled with problem-solving, reflection on one's own knowledge and built around the concept of helping others. Perhaps part of my hesitation for understanding how these tools could really be utilized was not being able to dream up projects that could encompass deep and meaningful learning that utilized technological mediums as platforms for the learning. This example, and the fact that 10-11 year olds were able to accomplish it, really made me re-think basic tutorials or ways of teaching technology to how it could be woven into a long and multi-leveled learning experience. Peppler also references the work of James Gee and Elizabeth Hayes as they discuss that remixing games can shift the focus of game culture from violence to creativity. Thinking about providing fourth to fifth graders the introduction and tools they would need to be able to continue to invent and remix video games as opposed to get glued in as a player, shooting other players for hours on end, definitely seems like a worthwhile cause.
2. My other "light bulb" moment came in reaction to both the Peppler Chapter, and from Chapter 6 from Invent to Learn, by Sylvia Libow Martinez and Gary Stager. While discussing how making, creating and performing matter, Peppler references the concept of "everyday creativity", defined as "the phenomena of individuals creating something novel unto themselves", and explains that making something individually as opposed to being a passive consumer can have a large effect on an individual. But of course! How can art classes encourage an interest in making beyond just the fine arts? How can they establish a life-long love for creating and innovating? How many classes can be just about having fun as well as experimentation to get students to love the process? These ideas were well supported by the Martinez/Stager Chapter that enthusiastically calls on teachers to ask their students to go out and make something, use a variety of tools, and encourage a range of responses. I feel like my view has been too narrow, focusing on the visual arts because it is a topic I love and one I wish I had had much more exposure to during my personal schooling, but the key is not to fit students into one artistic box where they all have the same studio skills, but inspire them to become creative learners for the rest of their lives, to be excited about making, to want to be innovative. This breakthrough in thinking is slightly new for me, so I haven't yet thought of the logical next steps of how to structure this kind of learning into projects and learning objectives, but I feel like it is only the beginning. I am now starting to truly think of the limitlessness of the art classroom and its ability to get students excited and encourage them to always be making.
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