Journey: Moments in Student Teaching

Have created a Vimeo Channel to place high quality versions of all my Master's Project videos!
Journey: Moments in Student Teaching

Professional Blog Page

Been working on modifying the materials here for a more professional blog page that can be shown to employers, etc. Checkout: LeslieDawnDickinson

Artistic Thinking: Studio Project

AT: Studio Project from Leslie Dickinson on Vimeo.

Here is what I've created for the Studio Project: A 5 second A/V Stinger. It is unfinished, although it's headed in the right direction and has given me some additional ideas about how I want to approach my opening title for the course videos I'll be creating over the summer. I think I want to go back to having it be a 10 second intro and only create one opening title sequence with "aesthetics" "technology" and "tools" all a part of it (instead of three separate titles). I can change up the imagery and the color and it will improve the pacing of the into. Unfortunately, I have run out of time to complete it for this semester's coursework.

Final Project: Teacher Resource Kit

For my final project I chose to create a Teacher Resource Kit for my AV2 course's Final Video Project. Although we do some Studio Thinking during this project, I was interested in looking more closely at and reflecting on the way I have been structuring and presenting this project. In my Teacher Resource Kit I have identified specific areas of studio thinking associated with each activity and created new, more focused activities that help to facilitate studio habits in my students.

Open publication - Free publishing - More video

Also, this Teacher Resource Kit can be accessed via Google Docs.

If you would like to see the Final Projects produced by AV2 students this semester, check out our YouTube Channel @ MizzouAVcourses. Enjoy!

Artistic Thinking: Week 14 Reflections

Part 1: Gude quote, “Consider whether ALL your curriculum projects engage students in making meaning through meaningful making.”

What are the classroom implications of this statement? Do you agree or disagree with her statement or stance?

To better understand and define what makes a good art project, in her powerpoint Gude also makes two more powerful statements: “When students are not introduced to a wide range of meaning making strategies, students tend to fall back on familiar, hackneyed image making techniques” and “Good art projects encode complex aesthetic strategies that give students tools to investigate and make meaning.” When I first read the quote, I remembered a discussion I had with a host teacher during field experience one semester. She had said that their art department was trying to find a balance between implementing art projects that are designed for meaning making and trying to equip students with the skills necessary to be able to do the projects. I think she raises an interesting dilemma: How do you continually engage students in meaningful art making if they are not equipped with the technical skill to create these projects? Gude address this concern by encouraging projects that incorporate technical skill building, indeed she says to “encode” it, into meaning making. As we’ve seen throughout this course, incorporating studio thinking techniques like “play” give students the opportunity to envision, think through materials, explore a wide range of strategies, and to build technical skill. This means that incorporating time in the art classroom to explore gives students the chance to build technique. I agree with Gude, technique should and can be “encoded” into meaning making art projects, not as stand alone ideas.

Part 2:

Value #1 – investigation on the new, not representation of the known. If the artist already knows what he or she wanted to say there would be no point in making the work. Art generated new knowledge; it is not merely a picture of what we already know.

What are the classroom implications for this value? How does this value connect to your studio practice and how might it affect your classroom now and in the future?

In my own studio practice, unpredictability is a necessary part of art making. While I start a project with some thoughts in mind and ideas I want to experiment with, if I am too detailed in my plans I feel exactly as Gude describes: If you already knew what you wanted to say, there would be no point in making the work! Art and meaning making comes as much from the process of making as from the final product. In the courses I teach, students are required to do some pre-planning through writing a script of their video project that outlines what video they are planning to shoot and what audio they envision going with it. While I like for them to be detailed enough so that I can also visualize their proposed work, they are not tied down to this script as often they form new ideas and knowledge during the process of creating their work. In the future I plan to provide them with additional ways to “script” their ideas as right now I have them limited to a two-column typed format. A way to digitally create a storyboard would also be very useful for them.

Value #2 – investigating how culture generates meaning over projects that merely mimic commercial culture. Are we as teachers shaping the future or merely providing the work force for designer culture? Will the employed designers of tomorrow be the students who learned to mimic today, or the students who learned avant garde ways of thinking and making?

Do you agree or disagree with including this value? Is it important or not? What are the classroom implications for this value?

This is an important value that can seem overwhelming to implement. I see in my courses how students are engrossed and tied to their current commercial culture. When I ask them to create their own concept for a video, many of them head straight to popular culture for ideas. And why shouldn’t they? However, they do have difficulty with deconstructing the popular culture they turn to for ideas. I often have to ask some “big” questions about their ideas to get them to do more than mimic and to help them create something new that will respond and react to their culture. In my courses I don’t specifically set out to teach this value during making, indeed I haven’t yet implemented a unit designated to the study of visual culture, but I try to point it out whenever possible. I find that this method works best with my students (who can sometimes get uptight when asked to think aesthetically) as it seems less intimidating and more like what it is; an observation I’ve just made and shared with them.

Visual Literacy fun!

For fun, I thought I'd share a video I created this semester for the Visual Literacy course offered via MUdirect.

Dramatic Interpretation of Robert Frost's 1920 poem "Fire and Ice" (2011):


VL: Multimedia Composition from Leslie Dickinson on Vimeo.
Multimedia Composition for the Visual Literacy course I am enrolled in via MUdirect. My video is a dramatic interpretation of Robert Frost’s classic 1920 poem, “Fire and Ice.” I shot simple footage of “fire” via matchsticks and “ice” via cubes in a clear glass using a Canon 5D Mark2 DSLR camera. The final product was complied, with video fx, and text added and animated using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. The video has been color corrected to leave only the red/orange color to emphasize “fire” and a blue/steel color to emphasize “ice.” Audio is intended to be “low” and includes a background drone, natural sounds captured in camera of the match sticks lighting, dubbed in sound fx of ice cubes falling, and a sound track from a library my students use that includes a dramatic “thud” to cut graphics to. After listening to a YouTube recording of Robert Frost reading his poem (youtube.com/​watch?v=_3vjU43kJ8U) I decided to make my video more dramatic through lengthier pauses and lack of spoken word. I have not used, nor followed, much of the punctuation from the original poem and only include a period at the very end of the video.

Artistic Thinking: Week 13 - Read and React

Studio Thinking – Stretch & Explore

Read:

Chapter 11: Learning to Stretch and Explore by Hetland

            In this chapter, Hetland gives examples of how two teachers encourage students to explore and experiment with materials. Both examples are ceramic sculpture classes in which students are encouraged to go beyond what they know already about materials to play with alternative possibilities. The teachers talk with students about their experiences with stretching their abilities to explain that it involves getting out of their comfort zones. The author describes one project where students experience clay by quickly creating creatures and then destroying the results. Without the worry of how the final piece will end up, students are free to experiment with the material without judgment. Students are encouraged to create unique tools, take advantage of “happy” accidents, and to experiment with multiple versions of an idea.

The Role of Artistic Play in Problem Solving by Pitri

            In this article, Pitri discusses artistic play for children in the art classroom. Arguing that pleasure and recreation are a part of, but should not be the only definition of play, the author states that players are concerned with the process of the activity over its final results (p. 47). Pitri gives an example of artistic play through a project in which children explore, design, build, and problem-solve ways to keep an imaginary Princess dry in an unexpected rain shower. While problem solving the young students unconsciously create and test hypotheses. By being encouraged to make use of knowledge acquired so far during their childhood, they were able to encounter new evidence to test their knowledge and create new knowledge. Through artistic play, children can experiment and develop reasoning and problem solving abilities.

Chapter 8: Play by Pink

            In this chapter, Pink describes the importance of play for personal well-being and emotional intelligence through games, humor, and joy. Pink cites James Gee, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, who says, “When kids play video games they can experience a much more powerful form of learning than when they’re in the classroom. Learning isn’t about memorizing isolated facts. It’s about connecting and manipulating them” (p. 193). When discussing the importance of play, Pink also describes how the comprehension of a joke involves both the logical left-brain and the metaphor-loving right brain. Research into laughter shows it to decrease stress hormones, boost immunity, and activate the cardiovascular system. Pink argues that play through games, humor, and joyful laughter can lead to improved creativity and productivity.

TEDtalk: On Creativity and Play by T. Brown

            In this talk, Tim Brown discusses three aspects of play that contribute to increased creativity: (1) working in quantity, (2) construction and prototype building, and (3) role-playing. He encourages being open to all possibilities by asking simple questions such as “What is it?” and “What can I do with it?” As a reminder, Tim Brown encourages productive play by the creation of agreed upon rules by all players and making play activities into a game.

TEDtalk: Play is More than Fun by S. Brown

            In this talk, Stuart Brown encourages play that is social, physical, inquisitive, involves rituals, and uses narrative. He is currently interested in the effects of play on the human brain. For Brown, play is not one thing, but many things with no particular purpose or goal other than experimentation and exploration. He also describes the increased ability to problem-solve in adults who have played in ways that are physical and involves hands-on construction activities.

React:

            For the most part, all of the readings have aspects of play that are consistent across the texts/talks: (1) the importance of exploration and the process of experimentation over the final product and (2) that play should involve hands-on construction. These aspects are already a part of art education as we explore materials! As I was exploring and “playing” during this week’s activities I found myself looking for a way to keep the “hands-on” benefits of play and problem solving when using computer software. There are already ways to simulate the feeling of drawing in software programs through devices such as Wacom tablets. I have a small tablet attached to my home PC that I bought almost 5 years ago that I love using and still works great! The iPad (which I experimented with the play concept of quantity with) also allows the user to interact in a more “hands on” way with applications. It would be interesting to see if the same parts of the brain are activated when working with these types of computers/devices as when performing activities involving our hands!

References:

Brown, T. (May 2008). On creativity and play [Video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_brown_on_creativity_and_play.html

Brown, S. (May 2008). Play is more than fun; it’s vital [Video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

Hetland, L. (2007). Studio Thinking. New York: Teachers College Press.

Pink, D. (2006). A whole new mind. New York: Riverhead.

Pitri, E. (2001). The role of artistic play in problem solving. Art Education, (54)3, 46-51.

Artistic Thinking: Week 13 - Play Assignment

Granimator is an app for the iPad that allows the user to create wallpapers for their iPad and iPhone. By manipulating stamp-like elements in the artists packs the user can create a variety of compositions. The background to this blog was originally created in Granimator.

Screen Shot of Styles Palette

The following are some of the images created during my play with a few of the new Granimator packs. I gave myself 1 minute to create an image using the app, then created 5 images per pack, had 6 new packs to explore, and made a total of 30 images. I was exploring the play concept of quantity to learn to work spontaneously without editing. Here is a link to a page showing all 30 experiments: http://bunniesthatquack.blogspot.com/p/granimator.html

Reflection: I decided to work with quantity as it has been described as a way to boost creativity and play by Hugh MacLeod in the first of my creativity books "Ignore Everybody" and by Tim Brown when describing the "30 Circles Test" in this week's TEDtalk video. Tim Brown describes working in quantity as having the mindset to just go for it, even when the results don't seem that different from each other. To work quickly, without allowing for opportunities to self-edit, allows ideas to flow into each other. I found myself building off compositional ideas and approaches to work flows that I was discovering as I played with the program. I even found a randomize button in the styles palette that allowed for less "set-up" time and contributed to a better flow of ideas between canvases. Having to think in terms of quantity let me work freely to discover, explore, and purposefully apply new ideas as I moved from canvas to fresh canvas. I think working in quantity would be a good way to quickly explore the possibilities of a software program. For example, Adobe Premiere (the non-linear editor we use in the AV courses) has many video effects. I could easily see students take a handful of clips and start exploring the available video effects to discover their possibilities. In our Hetland text, Beth Balliro describes the importance of this kind of exploration by saying that, "If I had more time, I would have them learn entirely from the materials. And let them learn, and then fail... It's not about perfection and dominating [the] material, but it's about letting [the] material do what it will" (p. 75). While she is describing large projects, in my classroom practice I think software exploration could be broken into smaller chunks that can be explore in single class periods.