Art speaks!

                                                    Compose Critter Jar   by Anna Freeman
On September 22 Dr. Long took our class on an artistic adventure to discover some artist we had on our campus.  The exhibit was in honor or dedicated to two wonderful artist I was proud to call friends.  Molly and Doug Eubank were two kind and talented people that I met through Chowan College.  Doug taught me pottery and Molly was his wife.  They both recently lost their battles to their illnesses.  We will miss them greatly and so walking into the exhibit I was very emotional!  I was draw to this because it reminded me of Doug's unique pottery.  I loved the brown earthy color and the critters on the side.  It was warm and sitting nice with a cut lid in top.  I enjoyed the exhibit and it helped remind me why I love art so much!  It is free expression at it's best and we are allowed to read it and enjoy it how ever we wish.  Art is an important part of my life.   Express yourself when you can.

Semiotic representations are communication with many modes.

Translation is unique and different for each person.  When you see a flower it may make you think of something which spurs another emotion which causes you to be happy or sad.  The interpretation can be unknown or unexpected!  Students can translate things we expose them to differently and show a different take on works of art.  A poem may cause someone to want to draw or paint or make a statue. When people express this representation it is Semiotic!  A written or visual translation to an art can be very expressive for some.  Students pull from their personal reactions and experiences when they use artistic expression.  Written or drawn expression is an art form!

The new arts of today!

You can have a perception of a piece of art or in a you tube video!  How do we use the two in a classroom!  We can but, carefully with respect to being creative in art.  Art gives us feeling and expression and it can be sound, sight or any reaction.  Many people who do not like expression do not like abstract art and find things different to be strange.  In art in any expression we must stress that it is the artists right of freedom to imagine.  An artist dance is created from their perception of the music and so a person reads a great work and is moved to perceive a feeling.  Artists use different modes for their creations and they must use a design to pull their perception together. The production is the last step so this is the same when a person writes a blog or a wiki.  We have to accept perception but, we may not care for the expression!

Being Infused with technology.

Students may be exposed to technology at school but not always at home.  Not all families still have a computer with internet at home for students to use in homework assignments.  It is hard to believe but, students living in today’s times are not surrounded by the tools that they may need.   You and I would think that a computer or the internet is a given in a young persons life!  Not so because their family may be Digital immigrants and not think it is necessary.  Just a year ago I got a smart phone and I am still learning how to use it.  To send pictures to email accounts and download things on my phone just seems so star trek!  How can we make sure that the students are ready for a world that is on it’s way when they do not have access?  Educators must do our part and surround them with the vocabulary and interaction.  We could just jump on the web for everything but, it must have purpose.  Educators can use technology as a lesson enrichment to make the learning updated.  The student can still learn and have a product they have to create using the internet and great language arts.   They can use computers to create poems or papers.  They can find websites that help back their learning and it can all work together with learning targets and objectives that meet the standards for learning.  We as educators must think deeper and search ourselves for more “I can” statements to help our student learning with 21^st century technology.   

Yes, I am a Digital Immigrant!

I am proud to be a Digital immigrant!  I can remember getting on a computer for the first time in 6^th grade.  It was so big I could not see over me.  I have come a long way.  I have used type writers, word processors to write my papers to graduate Chowan college in 1995.  I have been on the World Wide Web and joined Face book. Now I can email and text from my phone and send my Graduate papers to my professor through a goggle doc.  I am even now writing on my own blog!  A lot has happened in our world and I am able to a lot more then I thought I would.  I have had to learn and it has not been easy but, unlike the natives it is not already in my everyday learning.  The students we teach have been exposed to technology from the time they are born.  Parents are texting, using computers and the internet.  The most technology my mom and dad used were the VCR and the turntable to play their Elton John records.  I think it is something you have to want to learn because it is a process that the immigrants are not always familiar with. My students in my kindergarten beg me to let them get on the computer and to use my ipad2 to play games in school.  These are a part of their vocabulary such as cassette player and boom box were mine and let’s not forget walk man!  I will never be a Digital Native but I sure will work hard at being a Digital Immigrant to keep up with the times.

Literacy of the 21st century learner

     Literacy of today is so different!The learners of today have to be able to use new technology and under the literature of the past.  It takes skills to make meaning of the text and be able to decipher different types of great Literature works.  Then they must be able to use inquiry based learning to answer questions they may come up with.   The article What Do We Mean by Literacy by Jerome C. Harste from Voices from the Middle, Volume 10 Number 3, March 2003 addresses just that!  As an educator we must take what a student knows and work to incorporate needed materials.  In today’s society we are better able to do this with technology such as you tube, blogs, and investigations on line into certain works written and of different genres.  Students are not exposed to all the great works as we are when we are being educated and readied for our job!  The more we expose them the more their eyes are opened to a different part of this world they know nothing about.  A student who may not understand about the reason being a Moore in Othello is different then today’s times.   Why the language is so different in an acrostic poem or why we can translate poetry in many different ways. The language used to text is not that of an elegant letter written long ago and may seem to be a foreign language.  We must expose them and allow them to feel that they can ask questions and use the work to get answers