Professional Development Bank

Hi Everyone!

It has been a long time since I have posted.  I just finished reviewing the feedback that I received on my Cited.org Toolkit.  I chose to send my toolkit to a special education teacher and fifth grade teacher in my building.  Both people are moderately comfortable with educational technology. They both liked the idea but only found some of the sites engaging.  They really didn't go into deal about why they only found some of the sites worthwhile, but they suggested that it was time consuming going through the list and then having to click on and search through each site.  They also said that the school PD site that I designed was very similar.  They felt that they would use that resource more than the Cited.org Toolkit that I created.

I also think that this web resource is a bit redundant when compared to the PD site that I created.  In the future I will add some of the resources in my Cited.org Toolkit to my school's PD website.  I also like the layout better on my school's site.  Things are more colorful and I can add a graphic to help describe the different links. 

My kit would change if I sent it to an administrator because the resources that I would include in the site would be based on change theory, adult learning, systems management, whatever else an administrative Needs Assessment deemed important. 

I think that this web resource is a good idea, and it is a prime example of using the Read Write Web to share and generate knowledge.  However, I do not care for how the resources are organized and I feel that it is similar to the tool that I created on my school's PD website. 

Mini Art School Numero Cuatro

Storyboard

I'm not really sure how creating a storyboard of our MMP relates to the way that storyboards were presented in our readings for this week.  I spent a lot of time looking for images to place into my storyboard.  It was fairly simple to come up with an implementation timeline, but again, the majority of my time was spent trying to find pictures to illustrate each part of my timeline.  I created my storyboard using PowerPoint, then I imported it into Keynote and exported it to iMovie and then finally to YouTube. I know a lot of those steps could have been avoided, but I literally spent hours trying to upload my original PowerPoint that I saved as a QuickTime movie to YouTube only to find out that most .MOV files cannot be uploaded successfully. So going all around the mulberry bush was the way that I solved that problem. 

Getting back to the focus of this section of Mini Art School, storyboarding, I could see using storyboarding as a way to organize your ideas in relation to a movie or photo shoot.  In my opinion it could be equated to the prewriting step of the writing process.  It is a great organizational tool that lets you simply see, through visual cues, what the action plan for a specific "shoot" is.  I guess when I put it in that context you could actually apply it to our MMP.  It did help to establish an implementation action plan.
60 Second Video
This is an edited version of a video that I made, using Animoto, in regards to my qualifications as an educational leader.  I normally send the longer version (2 min 7 sec) to districts that I have interviewed with.  I embed the video into my thank you email.  On the extended version, I add the district's logo right after my picture.  I attempted to edit the video using iMovie, but found that it was much easier to edit it using Animoto.  I know that we were supposed to add credits at the end, but that would have put me way over the 60 allotment.  I am still over the time limit by 3 seconds with this version.  Animoto does have a credits option, but that comes with a paid subscription.  I could have easily added another text slide with my name to this to create a credits slide, but again, that would have put me well over the time limit.  I was able to significantly shorten the length of my film by editing the amount of time that the audio recording played.  All of the photos in this video are my own, screenshots of websites that I have created, or they came from stock photography websites (mostly Getty Images). 

 

Mini Art School Numero Tres

This post is long, so please click on the Read More link below to see my second activity.
I really enjoyed this week's required project.  It was so much fun to look through all of my albums on iPhoto and then crop some of the pictures to give them a "different feel".  I found myself utilizing the "rule of thirds" that Golombisky and Hagen (2010, p. 133) mention when I was cropping my pictures.  I wanted to create something new like the exercise suggested, but I also wanted my picture to be visually appealing.  Now I know why a grid of 9 squares always appears when I crop or edit photos on iPhoto.  I always tried to make each third proportional, but now I know the rule behind what I was doing instinctively.  I know that the exercise only required us to pick 6 images to work with, but I decided to do more than that because I was genuinely enjoying manipulating the images.  I placed the original images and the cropped versions in the photo collage below.  See if you can guess which is the cropped version and which is the original photograph.  All photographs were taken by me, except the ones that have to do with my wedding.  Happy browsing!

 

Mini Art School Numero Dos

This week was all about typography and texture.  The first art activity I chose to try was based on typography.  The goal of activity number one was to choose about 1 dozen fonts and type a few words that would correspond to the emotion or theme evoked by the font and then write a word or phrase that would go against the emotion or theme that the font represented.  I had the most fun with this activity.  I am big on fonts!! When I scroll through my fonts I always think of what they represent and when I am trying to choose a font I really try to choose a font that would contribute to the theme of my writing or the goal of my presentation.  That is one of the reasons why I enjoy creating presentations so much.  It is the one time in the academic world that you can get away from boring and old Times New Roman.  So take a look at my fonts and tell me what you think.  Did I do a good job at representing and misrepresenting each font that I chose?

Activity #1

The second activity was also from the Design Basics Index.  This was a textural composition.  The purpose of this activity was to take a simple shape and use that as a focal point.  Twelve identical shapes needed to be created and placed around the original shape.  Each shape had to have a different texture and by the end of the activity a "visually pleasing and interesting overall composition" needed to be created.  I had some trouble with this exercise.  It was difficult to find textures that would coordinate, when the instructions specified that they needed to be different.  I tried to keep some in the same color family and to use complimentary colors to help balance things out but I am not sure it worked so well.  Positioning the shapes in a more organic pattern was also difficult since the shape I chose was symmetrical, but had curved lines.  I wound up using what I like to call an improvised griding structure to arrange the shapes.  Overall, I am not pleased with the final results.  It is not organic looking and I do not like some of the textures I chose.  The wrinkled paper bag texture is my favorite and I think it visually pleasing next to the pink and denim textured hearts.  

Activity #2

Mini Art School Numero Uno

The first activity that I chose to complete was the Alignment Exercise on p. 87 in the Designs Basics Index.  The activity suggested that I create an ad for a toy store first using alignment in a structured way and then producing a similar advertisement, but this time I needed to use alignment is a more free flowing way.  Well, let's just say that my mind really has a hard time thinking in a non-linear way.  I have created two advertisements, however, both seem to use alignment in a more structured manner. See if you can guess which ad I intended to be the more loosely structured of the two.

Advertisement #1

Advertisement #2

Composition #1

Composition #2

Both Compositions

The second activity that I chose complete was all about composition (p. 71). The goal of the exercise was to help me fill in space in many ways. I started off by creating 12 different sized rectangles on a word document using the auto-shapes tool. I then printed out two copies of the rectangle layout and started to sketch.  As you can see, the first sheet that I began to sketch contains basic shapes. I held this sheet horizontally as I began to fill in each square. As I made my way across the paper my doodles became a bit more detailed. For the second sheet, I held the paper vertically. I did this because I wanted to change the way I saw the rectangles, hoping that this would give me a bit more inspiration and steer me away from filling in the negative space with hearts, stars, and smiley faces. I worked my way down the page in a right to left motion. I began to bend the rules of the exercise a bit as I made my way across and down the page. The original directions requested that I fill in each box with geometric shapes. As you can see, I did that for the first set of squares, but on my second composition sheet I began to use more organic or free form shapes and lines. I also just started filling in the negative space with my pencil rather than drawing distinct lines and shapes. By the end (bottom left), I was able to draw attention to another part of the rectangle rather than having the main focus of each box be in the middle.

A Small Public Service Announcement...

Please disregard the formatting errors in the post below.  My computer has been acting funny all day and I just can't get what I see in my draft window to post correctly on my blog.  After two hours of trying to fix it I am giving up for today.  I will try to work on it tomorrow.  Thanks for your understanding and I apologize for any inconvenience.

Jen

Website Design Critique

For my website design critique I picked two websites to examine, both examples of great design practices.  The first website I chose to look at was a site for a small business located in New York City and in Los Angeles.  The business is called Blind Barber.  I found the website after Googling "best designed websites".  I chose to start my critique with an award winning design concept so I would have something to compare the other sites that I was looking at to.

The second site that I chose was a site that I look at almost everyday.  This site belongs to a gym called Guerrilla Fitness.  This is a gym that my husband belongs to.  The gym's website design had a lot to do with me choosing this gym for him (it was a present from me).  I think that it exemplifies the basic design concepts that Glomsky and Hagen (2010) discuss.

Before you view my screencasts I would like to let you know that my Internet connection and/or my computer is very slow today.  So some of my words blend together and the video may lag a bit.  I tried to re-record the second part of my critique twice, but the best version of what I was trying to convey is posted here.  The point that I was trying to make in regards to the Blind Barber site, that really gets garbled up in my second screencast, is that that particular page in that website (the one with the video) is really just a more advanced approach to the "Works Every Time Layout" that Glomsky and Hagen explained in the White Space is Not Your Enemy text.

Multimedia Montage Project

For part one of our Multimedia Montage Project (MMP) we are required to join a professional online educational community that will help us to design our MMP.  I chose to join the professional development community on Thinkfinity because my project will be rooted in teacher learning.  One of the main reasons why I chose this particular community was the discussion topics that I saw as I was browsing the site.  The majority of posts deal with adult learning issues, as to be expected on a professional development site, but a lot have to do with technology and teacher training.  So, I think that this would be a valuable resource in that respect.  A discouraging observation I made was that there are tons of postings that people put up, and people read them, as indicated by the number of views.  However, the majority of the postings only have a few replies.  This shows me that community members are reading what their peers have to say, but there is a lack of communication and sharing within this particular community.  I wonder why people are not responding to people’s posts as frequently as they are viewing them. Could it be a time issue?  Do people feel uncomfortable responding to a total stranger?

In my opinion this is counterproductive to the purpose that this discussion board serves.  As a member I will be seeking the advice of other members to help me implement my MMP project to the best of my ability.  One of the requirements of the project is to receive feedback from your fellow online community members.  I hope that someone will respond to my requests for feedback as this project moves forward.

On another note, I noticed that a lot of the postings do not have to do with ISD or the ADDIE model. As a professional development provider, I feel that the ADDIE model is great way to design adult learning experiences.  The steps in the ADDIE process also correspond to the three steps in the change process—initiation, implementation, and institutionalization (Fullan, 2007).  The ADDIE model incorporates needs assessment, capacity building, goal development, plan piloting, and constant evaluation (Hodell, 2011).  All of these elements are important if one is looking to create and most importantly sustain change within an organization.  I hope that I can contribute some information and insight in this area to the Thinkfinity group I just joined. 

References

Fullan, M. (2007).  The new meaning of educational change. (4th edition). New York: Teachers College Press.

Hodell, C. (2011). ISD from the ground up. (3^rd edition). Alexandria, Virginia: ASTD Press. 

Media Messages

 

If you watched the Super Bowl last year then I am sure that you saw the Eminem and Chrysler commercial that I embedded above.  I was really excited about this assignment because I do tend to look at advertisements, in general, in a more analytical way.  Why?  I'm not really sure.  I think one reason could be that I see myself as an educated consumer.  I agree with Kellner & Share's (2005) fourth principle of critical media literacy: "Media messages have economic, political, social, and aesthetic purposes".  I think that this principle rings true in regards to this particular commercial.  

Rewind to last year at this time.  The country was in even worse shape economically than it is today.  The Wall Street and Auto Bailouts were still making headlines in the news.  Many people were losing their jobs, homes, and small businesses.  However, during all of this mess, some companies were deemed "Too Big to Fail" by the government and received special funding and tax breaks to keep them afloat.  The majority of the American public couldn't understand why certain companies were not allowed to fail, by government standards, and others were left floundering.  Chrysler, the company responsible for the commercial, was at the center of this controversy, having received the largest proportion of the Auto Bailout funds from the United States government.  At the time of the Auto Bailout, Chrysler, once a major player in the US auto market, was on the brink of a total collapse.  Many politicians and economists argued that if the US government did not intervene and save Chrysler, the social, political, and most importantly, economic repercussions to the state of Michigan, in particularly the Detroit area, where Chrysler is headquartered, would be catastrophic.  

So that little history lesson brings us to the commercial itself and what it represents.  It is apparent to me that the focus of this commercial isn't necessarily on a particular product.  It is much more than that.  The focus is on the branding of Chrysler itself, its re-acceptance in American society, and its rebirth.  However, this rebirth isn't the invention of another new and failing product line.  This rebirth is specifically aimed at the old successful Chrysler of yesteryear and what it accomplished in conjunction with the people of Detroit. 

Notice how the director of this commercial focused on highlighting the older grandiose art deco buildings in Detroit.  How did they get there, who built them?  The answer is the Big Three Auto Companies, especially Chrysler.  In their heyday they were very successful and they were solely responsible for the economic prosperity in the area.  Their profits were made on the backs of hard working "blue collar" Americans, hence the focus on the painting depicting the assembly line workers.  The narrator of the commercial alludes to that, using terms like "generation", "hard work", and "know how".  Detroit was once a very productive and prosperous city, whose citizens knew of the finer things in life.  Again, the focus on the architecture, the statues, the painting, and the few citizens in relation to Chrysler's product riding through the streets of Detroit brings about a sense of familiarity with the relationship between hard work a higher socio-economic status. Isn't that what the American Dream is all about?

The commercial closes with Eminem, a successful Detroit citizen, pulling up to a beautifully restored theater, which has "Keep Detroit Beautiful" displayed on its marquee.  One may take this message as a sign for the citizens of Detroit to follow.  The city is run down and crime ridden---a shell of its former self. And this theater is a beacon, with its bright and colorful neon signs.  However, this sign is much more than a simple public service message.  The phrase "Keep Detroit Beautiful" is telling consumers that to keep Detroit beautiful you need to purchase this car.  The money generated from its sales can save the city and restore it and the auto industry to the grandeur that they once knew.  The responsibility to bring the city back is now placed in the laps of the American public.  The commercial's purpose is to make you forget about Chrysler's gross management missteps and to focus on...First--What can I do to help these people and their city? Secondly--What can I do to help my country be number one again?  The choir inside of the theater in my opinion represents the hope of Detroit's citizens.  Their heads are bowed in what one can assume is prayer.  Eminem's simple directive at the end, "This is the Motor City, and this is what we do" summarizes Chrysler's theme--back to what we know worked, you trusted us then, so trust us now.