plan, produce, present, reflect
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007I spent the last 2 Tuesday evenings at the Institute of Contemporary Art taking a workshop about blogging and podcasting. I’ve been blogging for quite a while and have begun podcasting, so not much of that was super new to me, but it was a great oppotunity to see the new Digital Studio, get a free tour of the permanent collection, and swap ideas with the educators there.
Getting OUT OF the classroom is SO important! Just being in a new space and speaking with teachers in other schools, I was reinvigorated with an enthusiasm for what I am doing already, and motivated to keep pushing along with new stuff. It gets me jazzed, what can I say, when I meet other people as fired up about all these things as I am! Plus, there’s always somebody doing something different or new, and is best of all willing to share the tool or the trick or the technique. No one can be a “know-it-all” when it comes to emerging technologies in the classroom, cuz its always changing. Its more like a collective intelligence that keeps on growing, feeding off itself to get bigger and better. ( Oh that’s the web! ) It can also be overwhelming and even discouraging when you do see what other educators have done already - you think, man, why aren’t I doing that?! or whoa, HOW did they do that?!
One of those A-ha’s for me was, after the tour, realizing the importance of getting the students out there too (not just me next time!). Making connections between the history of art and the contemporary tools we are using is powerful - don’t just learn Flash to make a ball bounce up and down, animate to express an emotion you have or to explore issues of identity! We get so caught up in the ”coolness” of the medium, that we often miss the message.
What also struck me is the importance our guide placed not only on the message but on the process the artist went through to get to the end product. Artists had essays, videos, sketchbooks, and quoted reflections on the entire experience of making the artwork. Presenting it in a public forum was the culmination of their experience. Our students get so caught up in making IT, that often the reflection on the process and the celebration of the final presentation gets forgotten about.
I hope to get back to incorporating the entire experience into a project - from planning, to producing, presenting, and reflecting - for my students, and building more meaning overall into each exercise.
