This week I made a time-lapse style video that shows how I made these DIY earring holders. I learned a lot about video creation during this assignment, and it was harder than I thought! I don’t love how it turned out, but I am grateful for all that I learned, and I am looking forward to trying this again next week with something different.
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Today we discussed digital curation which made me think about how many resources I have gathered over the past two months, that are all simply written down in my notebooks. For this week’s reflection, I am going to compile a list of all the resources and ideas I have been given so far. Ideally, I will continue to add to it as I go through the program.
Language Learning Resources
- https://livenupyourlanguageclass.weebly.com/
- A website filled with games for language learning.
- https://www.languagereactor.com/
- https://www.maniemusicale.info/
- https://www.youtube.com/user/swetlikoenero/playlists?app=desktop
- https://www.shareedbc.ca/
- I will only have access to this once I have a district email.
- Shauna Néro: “Francophone music resources”
- https://create.kahoot.it/profiles/cea2b03a-715c-4619-8859-c276540b88c1
- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VxAaWtS2Qan9rBPQpeILQgge1t1CUMnX/view?usp=sharing
- Rome Lavrencic: “How to get your students to parlez-vous en français.”
- https://www.bctf.ca/classroom-resources/details/enigmas-(en-fran%C3%A7ais)
- BCTF Classroom Resources
- https://www.bctf.ca/classroom-resources/professional-development-teaching-resources-search?subject=core-french
Classroom Resources
- https://www.commonsense.org/
This is what I have for now, looking forward to adding more as I go!
Today in class we discussed EdCamps, which introduced me to a new format I had never thought about before! Below is a video that explains how it works.
I particularly enjoyed this format because it gives the students the power to discuss what they want, and what is important to them. I’ve discovered that I like teaching methods that are very hands-off, and give the students as much freedom as possible, while still staying on task.
I can see this used in French class by discussing different Francophone countries or cultures. I also thought this would make a good format for a review day. For example, if we had an upcoming test on verb tenses, students could decide what was most important for them to review. Then they could work together to study or even answer problems provided by the teacher.
I also appreciate how Michael demonstrated how the EdCamp method could be used in class, by having us participate in an EdCamp!
In my methods class, I was introduced to a fantastic website by a man named Zachary Jones called Conjugarte. Zachary combines art and language learning through his worksheets that encourage students to practice their verb conjugation while learning about Spanish art.
How it works: Students match the verb with the pronoun and conjugate it on the table. Then they find the correct conjugation at the top, and draw the box into the table. Here is a video that demonstrates the worksheet.
And here is the one I completed in class.
I really appreciate this combination, art and grammar. Verb conjugations are one of the most boring aspects of teaching grammar. I don’t love teaching it, and I hated learning it. So anything I can find that makes it a bit more fun, I’m all for! I will certainly be using this resource in my classroom in the future.
This week, I had planned on interviewing a friend of mine, but they were unavailable. Without someone to interview, I decided to move to an artificial friend. Well, maybe not a friend, but at least AI can’t get sick!
I’ve known about AI art for a while, but I hadn’t ever played around with it until this past Friday. While sitting around with my learning pod, they showed me how it works. We had a lot of fun messing around with a few different websites and experimenting with different ways to phrase what we were looking for.
So this weekend, I found one website that I particularly liked called dream.ai. I chose to enter the same prompt but change the style each time to see what would happen. This is what I got with the prompt “never-ending ocean”.
I also tried the same prompt in Night Cafe.
Here are the links to the websites I used if you’re interested in trying it out yourself! https://creator.nightcafe.studio/create and https://www.wombo.art/create
Although it was fun exploring what AI art can do, it wasn’t nearly as fun as sitting down and working with a human artist. People can teach us the techniques and reasons behind their art, which is something I missed this week. With all that said, I did have a lot of fun, and I think I will be using one of these as my new phone background. 🙂
I have used Canva for the past few years, and over the summer I used it extensively to create posters for the school I EA for. I love Canva since it is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. I plan to use Canva to create posters to decorate my classroom. Below is a series of alphabet posters I made for a French class, that shows how to pronounce each letter in French. I have also attached an activity I did in my methods class where we needed to make a worksheet, and I chose to use Canva. As I create more resources on Canva, I will continue to add them here.
I can’t wait to keep creating more and more for the future classrooms I will work in!
I love collage for so many reasons. First and foremost, it looks dang cool. I’m a big fan of artists like Eileen Agar, Nancy Spero, and Raquel van Haver. Collage subverts our expectations, and it can say so much through the reworking of mundane objects.
Collage is a new(er) form of art and it has a weird history. It began during the Dadaist and Surrealist movements that came out of the first world war. It leans toward the absurd, the bizarre, and the strange, but it does not have to be any one thing. Granted I am not an art historian, so I have embedded a video below that will gives some examples of how famous collage artists have used combining and modifying to create art.
Another reason why I love collage, is that in terms of artistic hobbies, it’s cheap. Usually, all I need are a pair of scissors, a glue stick, and some old magazines. You can absolutely incorporate any other form of media you like, but this is all you need to start. I find my magazines at thrift stores around the city, National Geographic often has some fantastic images, and they are only one dollar at The Salvation Army.
Since I began playing around with collage, I notice it all around me. In fact, as I write this, I am listening to local artist Jesse Roper’s new album Horizons. Check out the cover.
Finally, collage is easy. It doesn’t take much technique, it’s easy to fix your mistakes, and try new ideas with low risk. Sometimes I can find it hard to start, and when that happens I try to find one picture or passage that I feel drawn to, and start building from there.
Here is my collage for this first exploration into “A Change of Art”. When flipping through some pages I have previously cut out to save, I found this passage about one of the Queen’s visits to Toronto. This was right after she passed away, so I chose to build around it.
For my last post of this project, I hope to try digital, or 3D collage. I am eager to implement what will learn into that.
Until next time,
Olivia
Most Likely to Succeed is a 2015 film directed by Greg Whiteley. The film critiques our current school system in North America, specifically the USA, and how it poorly prepares students for the future. Featured in the film is High Tech High, an inquiry-based high school that takes a very different approach than your average secondary school, using a project-based, student-focused curriculum.
I think there is much good to take from this film, in particular High Tech High itself. For example, I love the exhibition night, and how it gives the students the opportunity to display their learning in a new and exciting way. Also, the exhibition night gets the community together, which is so important in education and yet left aside. In fact, I had little to complain about until I had a conversation with a friend of mine and she asked me,
“But what happens when they go to university?”
She described how terrifying and difficult post-secondary would be for these graduates who have never taken an exam, or sat for a three-hour lecture. How can we expect these students to flourish in a system they haven’t been prepared for?
In this day and age, many/most careers require some kind of training after high school, whether it be in trades, college, or training at work. Education does not stop at high school, and it is important that we consider how we should change education outside of the K-12 system as well.
This free inquiry project will explore how different people in my life create art. In each post, I will interview someone new and ask them a series of questions about their creative journey, how they found this medium, and what purpose it serves for them.
I love trying new types of arts and crafts, almost to a fault. I tend to take a jack of all trades, master of none approach to hobbies. I spend 2 months cross-stitching every evening and then move on to something completely different. With that said, I don’t think I particularly excel at any style in particular, but I sure like doing it, and I love learning new mediums. Throughout this project, I hope to try out many different mediums under the guidance of my talented friends and family. I want to explore how others find their confidence and creativity, and see how I can best apply that to my own art.
Here is a sneak peek at what I will be looking at throughout this project
- Collage
- Zine creation and editing
- Tattoo design
- Film photography
- Cross stitch
- Music production and DJing
- Songwriting
For my next post, I will be working in collage. It is the only art form I plan to do alone, but I think it will be helpful to ask myself some of these questions first. Then it will act as a baseline to measure my growth throughout this project. See you then!