omladina.ning.com check it out! My attempt at a Bosnian language school social network site in Syndey :)

Prensky, Wesch and McLuhan...

“The reality is, vast majority of human knowledge is floating around us now...” –Michael Wesch

So, what I’ve realised is that we are going to be teaching in a world which is becoming increasingly infested with ICT’s. Teaching students via the old script of ‘get textbook out, answer questions’ is not going to suffice. The script has to be altered to accommodate for the new learning needs of the student, the future worker.

In Marshal McLuhan’s terms the medium of the old fashioned student-teacher script is going to have to be altered for the message to become reflective of a collective knowledge exchange space.

Teachers have to become more sensitive to the nature of knowledge construction and potential for collaboration in the ICT sphere. Since the students are identified as ‘Digital Natives’ (Prensky, M 2001) , the teachers of which most are ‘Digital Immigrants’ will have to constantly revise their approaches to lesson planning.

Here is my reflection of learning in B Teaching UTS.
Sorry about the quality... the audio didnt render properly and I don't have time to play around with it...



Untitled from amina husic on Vimeo.

Immersion Activity: OPTION 1

For my immersion activity I have decided to create an online community for my future Visual Art students. Please follow the link to Eyesaw, but if you would rather read about it then...

Ning is a social networking tool where individuals can create a community of their own. So for example my community is aimed at secondary Visual Art students, it is a place where they can collaborate and participate in online debates with the involvement of the broader community ie. other schools across the globe, other school faculties, artists, musicians, writers, parents and other invited guests. Students can contribute via video, audio or written posts in discussion boards.

In my teaching practice I plan on incoorporating it into assesment tasks, where for example students would need to use Eyesaw as a collaborative medium in order to complete tasks. ie. uploading a weekly image or video and collaborate with a group of students in the creation of a larger art work. There will also be key discussions posted weekly which students will have to participate in. I have made differnet groups for each year with their own 'mascot' however I realised that perhaps they shouldn't be segregated by their grade, so year  9 & 10 and 11 & 12 will be a mixed group... just to keep things interesting. The main point of this is collaboration! I have also uploaded video from my mobile phone of an 'everyday art encounter' I've had at the beach recently where Inidgenous art was on sale, hopefully I can incoorporate more footage like this where students see the links behind 'theory' and everyday life.

Anyway, take a look at the site let me know what you think... I wonder if theres anything else I can do, I'm only new at this so any furhter ideas and guidence would be great!

Something all VA teachers and artists need to consider... http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

I stumbled accross vimeo.com

It appears to be something like youtube but with alot more video-art based consciousness about its users! :)) The content actually appears to be coming from people who are exploring their every day surroundings in a very inquisitive and intelligent manner. Maybe I shouldn't say that youtube isn't intelligent... I guess vimeo.com is just targeted at different users, users who I think my future sudents could learn alot from and vice-versa! :))

There seems to be more of a community initiative at 'what' and 'how' to produce content... for example the project's section called out for all vimeo users to create a work based around one subject "Make it interesting" , there was/is an overwhealming reply to this excersize! This in contrast to youtube provides a greater sense of communitiy and potential for collaboration... people exchange ideas, techniques, life stories! Unlike youtube where I haven't noticed any group wide initiatives to create videos, like weekly themes or ideas for people to work on... I could be wrong... let me know?

This is an especially beautiful video I came accross... made me smile :)

I’m waiting for the day when you tell some one “I’m from the internet” instead of laughing they just ask “Oh, what part?”

–xkcd

Yet another reference to the term 'Digital Natives', might be a little bit late but still relevant never the less.

My first experience with a webcam... and it has some really interesting features :) motion sensor and everything!

Laura's analysis of the article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" written by Prensky (2001) which examines the development of learning strategies and teaching techniques in a Digital Age. Prensky (2001) labels students born in the 'Digital Age'  as Natives and pre-digital age as Immigrants. Laura takes into account the difference between Natives and Immigrants. In order for contemporary high-school students who are digital natives to become active learners the teachers, who are mostly considered to be Digital Immigrants, must further develop their understanding of ICT's.

Laura makes a strong point for the teachers of Visual Art, where if students learning is completely transferred into the digital sphere, then knowledge can not be transferred to 'real life experience' of for example understanding texture of paint and the various physical attributes of creative materials will be lost in preference to i.e Photoshop. I agree with Laura on this possible future issue in a Visual Art classroom, coming to the conclusion that technology should be used as a tool and that the medium of virtual reality should not infest the organic physical reality. Teachers should create a stimulating envrionment where student's are encouraged to pursue their specific interests in a collaborative and co-productive manner. ICT's can be used as just one tool to enable students to collaborate and co-create, other in class strategies and games should be used in the physical sphere where kinetic-real-world experience is also stimulated.

Reference;
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital Immagrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-2.

So when was the last time you Googled? Do you feel slightly uneasy when you know that you don't have the answers you seek at your finger-tips? Has your laptop become alomst a limb? How small is your world now? I mean, now that you are a member of one or more 'Social Networking Sites', theres almost no need to speak to people, just send an SMS, WHO ANSWERS THEIR PHONE THESE DAYS? More importantly, with all this knowledge that you gain throughout the day, you tend to feel a little bit drained out at times, like you just need a break, just need time to be with your own thoughts in 'real time'.

I find that connecting to the internet my thoughts become hyperactive falling into the world of hyper-links and WWW 2.0 status updates. For example, a simple query can take you a million miles away from your original enquiery... You realise that youre in a place you never predicted you would be. Marshal McLuhan's statement "The Medium is the Message", like his comparison of a light bulb and a newspaper which are both mediums, however a light bulb does not have content like Newspaper's do but its medium functions to reveal space where "a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence." (WIKI)

"Likewise, the message of a newscast about a heinous crime may be less the individual news story itself — the content — and more the change in public attitude towards crime that the newscast engenders by the fact that such crimes are in effect being brought into the home to watch over dinner" (WIKI)

So with WWW 2.0 as a medium, what does the message become?

Hyperactive, blind, tele-present, rhyzomatic. The system of roots, a tree of knowledge where the origin can be identified by the breakdown of the root structure is no longer relevant in this world as Deleuze and Guattari proclaim "[...]any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be." (Deleuze & Guattari para 2) The rhyzomeatic is in a state of perpetual flux where "semiotic chains of every nature are connected to very diverse modes of coding (biological, political, economic, etc.) that bring into play not only different regimes of signs but also states of things of differing status." (Deleuze & Guattari para 2)

It is not just the hierachy of knowledge which has shifted, it is our understanding of the subject/object, the interplay of the sing and the signified which has been affected by the medium of WWW 2.0 The simple act of reading a WWW 2.0 document on-line (i.e Wiki) will alter your understanding differently to reading from paper. You are connected to vast combinations of sources, time converges, the space in which you process thought is hyperreactive, the medium affects your cognition, comprehension develops on another plane.

From my exerience, it is difficult to understand anything completely unless it is in my hands as a hardcopy, it is material and tangiable for me, I need to take my time reading it, not to be tempted to click on an option which will pull me away somewhere. On the other hand a 'Digital Native' of a higher callibre such as my 15 year old brother, doesn't have a problem comprehending information from a computer screen.  

How does this relate to teaching Visual Art?

WWW 2.0 is a challenging medium, since it is not standardised, it does not conform to the norms of the rational and logical argument. It poses a threat to traditional education, where the student teacher relationship is defined by the Industrialist concepts of knowledge power relations. The teacher is the constructor of knowledge and the student is the reciever, the relationship works in a linear fashion, where 'the script' (Ken Johnston 15/10/08 UTS B.Teach Lecture) of a lesson is embedded in the medium of teaching. Referring to McLuhans 'The medium is the message', students learning experience is scripted in this linear realationship e.g Come to class, sit down, keep quiet, take out book, listen to teachers instructions, watch and example set by the teacher, answer some short questions posed by the teacher, proceed with the set excersize.

According to Johnston's research (15/10/08 UTS B.Teach Lecture) of 4 Public Schools in NSW, most students classroom engagement falls into this script Students thus develop a passive relationship with learning. Johnston calls for a 'facilitating' where students become the co-producers of their knowledge, in that way becoming active in their own learning. Students should have a say in what, when and where they are taught. The classroom which utilises WWW 2.0 can be used as a medium to facilitate this inerraction and change this passive relationship students have to learning. Like Elissa Beech mentioned, in a Visual Art classroom students can work on their Visual Art diaries in WWW 2.0 format, where their concept development would be open to interpreation and collaboration of other students not just in the physical classroom but world wide.

Microsoft Share Point, is one tool which my last practicum school was implementing in their teaching practice. This site replaced the school inranet, it reflected a WWW 2.0 interface in that it had a WIKI function where content could be edited by students and staff, there were levels of access to certain documents keeping the structure of the site table. In the Share Point inerface designed specially for this school, students had interactive diaries, various other media was embedded video/photo content. Some faculties had started setting homework through Share Point however in the Visual Arts department that was a future goal. I found this method of teaching extremely useful as students had the ability to see their class mates work and comment/collaborate with them, something which previously was seldom done. The access to Share Point is available to every student/staff memeber via the school's website, so, with a connection to the internet via a PC or a mobile device students can review, discuss and complete work at anytime.

In conclusion, the medium of WWW 2.0 can be a positive structure for creating meaningfulness and motivating students to become active participants in their learning. However, there are still a number of questions which need to be answered, such as; what will determine truth? In a world removed from an organic structure and shifted to a hyperreal rhyzomatic structure, how is this going to effect cognition? If systems of comprehension shift what effect will this have on corporeal identity?

Here is a voice post based on the following:

The concept of the Genius, The learner as co-constructor, Cyborgs, Deconstructed Classroom, Liquid Architecture, The Industrial Revolution, Public Education, Hirearchies of Knowledge, Truth and Power, Scientific Hypotheses, Quantum Mechanics, High Art, Low Art, Postmodern Art, Modernist Art, Ghost in The Machine,The Death of the Author, WWW 2.0, Global Village, The Body Obsolete, The Voice Diffused



Handy reference's:

Triple J
www.ctheory.net

Barthes, Roland
Virilio, Paul
Korker, Arthur
McLuhan, Marshal
Haraway, Donna

Stelarc

Jing is a tool for demonstrating the usage of anything on a computer, it basically allows you to record in real-time the actions which you take on your desktop. Relating it to my KLA I think that it is a great tool in teaching various Visual Art software like Adobe's CS3. A teacher could upload instructions on a class blog or website where students could access the instructions anytime provided they had an internet connection. This type of student access to information could be utilised in a Instructivist classroom (Papert, S) where as students would simply use the Jing tool as a source of information on 'how to'. However, as Papert pointed out what is really most effective when it comes to learning is applying your knowledge to create something tangiable, something related to 'the real world'. (Which in it self proposes a whole other problem due to the nature of the internet)

The way in which Jing can be utilised in a Constructionist classroom as Papert would have it, is if the students were involved in creating an artwork which requiered them to use Jing as a medium, which would involve the dimension of observing the interactor interacting in an interactive environemnt, this excersize could be applied to anything computer-based, or even trasfered onto mobile phones. It could easily be incoorporated into video works, flash works, website design, corporeal multimedia installations, web based installations etc...

There is also a potential to examine deeper social issues such as techno-alienation which Michael Weisch in the YouTube video comments on and also the Simulacra; ie. The loss of the original in the age of digital reproduction, students could also be asked to question materiality and the corporeal in a Web 2.0 world, and also on a more anthropological level the development of a new culture which is the symptom of the internet in general. Students could use all these theoretical starting points in order to create an artwork which would reflect the above mentioned themes.

An example of artists using google generated information: www.wefeelfine.org

"We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved"

(Ha ha... I wonder if it will pick up this blog :))

Enjoy my awkwardness ;)

My name is Amina and I think I am a 'Digital Native'. As reluctant as I was to admit it, judging by my school experience and age group I probably am as defined by Micahael Wesch in 'Anthropological Introduction to Youtube'


To start off, I think that 'Digital Native' is a horrendously broad term, being a digital native in leisurely pursuits of ICT's and being a digital native in educational and specialist career contexts are completely different things. My KLA is Visual Arts and I have a degree in Media Arts, so web design, film and video have played a big role in my life. Using ICT's as resources for teaching or transmitting any sort of knowledge can be a an extremely powerful tool, as I found out in my first parch. The students were barely exposed to technology, the teachers seldom used the whiteboard and well, the video had cobwebs on it.

However after planning a powerpoint based class discussion, the students behavior changed dramatically, since they were engaged visually as well, they became animated and actually participated in a productive discussion. I then lead them on a sort of internet based 'treasure hunt' (yes it sounds cheesy but that's the best way I could describe it) where as I had given them a number of websites and key words to use in google to answer a number of questions. To my surprise I found that even though the students appeared to be extremely competent behind a computer, they actually had no idea how to run effective Google searches! I had to break up the lesson to give them a quick overview of what words to use how to use the Boolean option etc... The students took some time adjusting to these ideas. Since certain 'keywords' appeared 'logical' to me, I realised that the students had no clue as how to deduce this logic, I think it is the responsibility of every teacher using ICT's to scaffold and embed a good research practice in their students.

In conclusion the term 'Digital Native' is extremely vast, and in reality, just because they appear to be competent behind certain ICT contexts does not mean that they have developed and will be 'in tune' with certain ICT academic skills needed to succeed in school and tertiary education. The vastness of possibilities for further utilising ICT's in a classroom setting are an interconnected and sometimes uselessly complex process, one problem which strikes at ICT educational rescourse on-line is probably the great instability of all these edu-games, blogs, vlogs etc... They appear to be an excellent idea as a resource however, their availability let alone student security are something to be questioned.

P.S This response was to posted on edublogs.org however, due to the sites instability I could not continue attempting as valuable hours were being spent on general functions of blogging, ie. attempting to 'save' and 'preview' a blog would take roughly half an hour! Please accept my blog in the form it is now, I have also connected it to a number of other  UTS students blogs.