Blog Post #8 - Tool Kit

Wow! Cited.org is pretty much a bookmarking website! Those are usually very handy as it can be difficult to remember the numerous websites that you easily come upon. Another bookmarking website that I really like is educlipper.com, which also includes screenshots of the website and it allows to write a brief info about the website. You can even install a quick button onto your task bar. So for some of those reasons, I do prefer to use educlipper than cited.org. Granted, cited.org also has many awesome articles - which can be sometimes be difficult to find. However, to my dismay, there were many links that had "page could not be found". Nevertheless, cited.org is another good source to get resources! (It is also extremely organized - which I love!). 

The resources I chose to put in my toolkit centered on how to integrate technology to help students with special needs. As a general teacher, I find myself still not sure how to teach students with special needs effectively. The resources I included are the following: 

• Accessible Book Collection  Remove
• Accessify  Remove
• ASL Pro  Remove
• ASL Video Dictionary and Inflection Guide  Remove
• Assistive Technology for Children with Autism  Remove
• Assistive Technology Ideas for Writing, Reading, Math, Studying, and Organizing  Remove
• Classroom 2.0 LIVE Conversations  Remove
• E-ssential Guide to Assistive Technology  Remove
• LD OnLine Teaching with Technology Forum  Remove
• Using Digital Mapping Programs to Augment Student Learning in Social Studies  Remove

I especillay like the Classroom 2.0 LIVE conversations website. On that website, you can plan to participate in a live conversation with whoever that volunteers. Topics ranges to professional development to help with algebra. It would also be a nice space to get guest speakers and the class to meet. It includes video, chat, and audio. With the ease of crossing from space, I would love to have a guest speaker meet with my class in a live session. That's utilizing the power of technology! 

If I would send the kit to an administrator, I would include articles and resources for curriculum development. If I would to send the kit to a teacher anxious about technology, I would include forums, and tutorials for professional development in integrating technology into the classroom. The tool kit is an easier and effective way of sharing meaningful resources. Based on who I am delivering it to, and what the overall goal is, I would modify my toolkit accordingly. 

As for now, I'll continue shopping for more tools! :)

Reflections

Blog Post #7

I've always liked to format/design with paper and pen. Especially when taking notes, I like to bold headlines and subsections for a quick and easy overview - this was helpful when studying notes. However, I was a bit timid trying to design using technology. I thought that it would be too tedious to learn how to format every detail - and to learn what you can format. However, this class has shown me more than how to design, but the resources for design! From resources for audio, still media, to moving media, I did not know that so many were available - and free! This really showed me the power of this Web 2.0. and how basically anyone, with an internet connection, can create and share.

One of my favorite tools that I learned from this site is screen-o-matic. It is very easy to use and is very helpful. When seeing screen cast tutorials on YouTube, before trying it out myself, I thought that it required some sort of fancy download or equipment - not true. It was really simple and as long as you have good sound quality, creating a screen cast is a snap! I plan to use screen casts for my MMP project to show students how to analyze or present data.

Also, Professor Holan was right about how the Mini Art School can change how you see design. The books, White Space is Not Your Enemy, and Designs Basic Index, were concise and provided us many examples. I especially liked the Design Basic Index book for it was compact and to the point. It provided many examples to illustrate how design affects perceptions and thus, impressions.

Multimodality & StoryBoard

Activity 1:  WHAT IS MULTIMODALITY?

Multimodality is the meaning-making via audio, visual, and textual representations. The mixture of these modes (a.k.a media, elements, mediums, etc) create a single artifact of information. It weighs the itty-bitty details of each mode - the angles of the visual, the semiotics of text, the pitch of the audio. All of these distinctions play into the perception of the product at hand. In general, multimodality is an inter-disciplinary approach to understanding communication and representation (Bezemer, J. (2012)). 

The three theoretical frameworks to multimodality include: 

• Representations derive from the use of multiple modes (i.e. nonverbal cues, spatial elements, dimensional representations) to create meaning.
• Multiple modes are socially and culturally influenced and therefore, meaning is agreed upon the community context. 
• Individuals create multimodal representations purposefully within norms, motivation, and interests in the social context. 

Below, I tried to create a video to illustrate what multimodality is and its theoretical concepts.

Activity 2: Storyboard for MMP

This is a storyboard in a form of an "ad" to the GBCS Youth in Action website. Here is the video to show what my MMP project is about - which is to document the research process of the after school program.

As a side note, the "Poof!" scenes are supposed to be the change scene cue.

Other side note: The website is actually http://vtsai01.wix.com/gbcsyouthinaction

Here are my drawings: (Note that a few slides are not in order so be wary of the #s and arrows for its proper alignment)

Other side note: The website is actually http://vtsai01.wix.com/gbcsyouthinaction

Blog Post #5

Activity 1: Color Echo

Activity 2: Border Variations

Activity 3:Typographic Conveyence 

Shred - Centaur  

lightly - Edwardian script ITC                                     

atom - andalus 

brick - castellar 

pillow - gill sans ultra bold  

XXL - Berlin Sans FB Demi 

Experience on Activities Video:

The Elements and Principles of Design with Images

White Space Activity 1: Elements & Principles in Photograph Analysis 

• About the Photo
• Title: Amateur contest for children Final eliminations, Sept. 24, 1936.
• Creator(s): Levine, Estelle, artist
• Date Created/Published: [New York : Federal Art Project], 1936.
• Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
• Summary: Poster announcing amateur piano contest, showing two girls playing piano.Source: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/wpapos/item/97502865
• 
  

ELEMENT #...

1. SPACE

There is a right amount of space on this poster; even the girl's extended leg fits neatly in the space. The spaces are uneven in all four corners and its irregularity creates a playful and comfortable feel to the poster. 

2. LINE

There are straight and curvy lines throughout the images and font. The combination continues to bring a playful tone to the image. Most of the lines are slanted with a positive slope and also brings a friendly tone to it. It provides an informal tone and almost illustrates the essence of music- how it is not straight forward and a bit quirky. 

3. SHAPE

The shapes of the dresses yields to an inorganic shape, a perfect circle. The tops of the girls' heads and hands are also similar to a circle. To me, I think that the first shape that the child learns to draw is a circle, albeit, not a perfect circle. The popularity of circles in this poster, as illustrated in the font as well, supports the child-focused theme of the poster. 

4. SIZE

The grand piano, being the largest, grabs one's attention first, then, it would be the girls playing at the piano. The size of the piano illustrates that the amateur contest will be about music, specifically, with the piano. it does not even need to be described via text; it is described visually. The poster's sizing of the piano did an effective job embedding event information through visuals. 

5. PATTERN

There isn't really a pattern in this poster except for the duplicated style of another girl. With that, it adds minor familiarity to the piece. 

6. TEXTURE

The background has a texture of a chalkboard, again, bringing out the theme of children as we may associate the chalkboard as a classroom and therefore, with children. The texture may also be of watercolor and its uneven gradience may note the amateur skill of children (due to lack of practice, not implying inheritance).

7. VALUE

There is a light and dark contrast with the dark piano and light objects, background and font around it. This brings focus onto the piano. And considering that there aren't many tones for each color (1 shade of yellow, 2 shades of blue, and 2 shades of brown), there isn't much depth to the poster. Although the text may pop, there the objects come off as 2D. The 2D effect also provides a friendly and informal tone to whole image. 

PRINCIPLE #...

1. FOCAL POINT 

• Rule 1: have one - CHECKED (piano)
• Rule 2: have only one - CHECKED (only piano)

2. CONTRAST 

• Value - CHECKED (light & dark)
• Lines - CHECKED  (makes rotated perpendicular lines)
• Colors - CHECKED (blue & yellow are opp. colors on the color wheel; i.e. complementary colors)

3. BALANCE

Asymmetry is positively slanted which creates an lively and upbeat feel to it. It makes it more visually exciting and visually interesting. 

4. MOVEMENT

There are no visible signs of movement but the asymmetry and slanted image creates a lively tone to it. It's almost as if the lines of the image creates movement rather than with a blurred effect. 

5. RHYTHM 

Color tones are repeated which gives off a "rhythmic movement...like a backbeat" (Golombisky & Hagen, 2010, p.53). Ex: The same yellow shade is in the text from alternate sides, girl A's dress, girl A's shoe, and girl B's hair, all with similar spacing from each other. 

6. PERSPECTIVE 

Atmospheric perspective: The foreground images (piano, chair, the girls) have a darker richer value than the washed-up pale-blue background. This creates the depth of what is viewed closer in the bird's eye view. 

7. UNITY 

Everything does look like they go together. Even the extended leg of the girl in a yellow dress looks like it belongs there. The extensive occupies the largest space in the poster which then makes it similar to the other spaces. 

COMMENTS...

I really like this design - the overall tone of the poster gives me slight smile and a curious feeling. I am impressed that even the designers from the early 1900's got it right - so design is not some sort of new field - it's been here from the start of media! 

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White Space Activity 2: Comparing Social Media Websites

Venn Diagram of Facebook's and Twitter's Website Design: grid structure 

SCREENSHOTS 

Facebook (1)

All 5 columns has content.

Twitter (1)

The use of 3 columns from the center creates a simple and clean feel to the website.

                                                                           Facebook (1)

So many visuals make the website look cluttered. Also, which visual is important? Ads or other users' content?

Twitter (2)

Surprisingly, there were no ads! Only visuals posted from other users.

COMMENTS...

I didn't realize how Facebook's design is not that visually appealing - especially with the abundance of ads. The large visuals of ads in the news feed and on the side bars can make the material distracting and diminishes the social focus. I feel that because Facebook is very popular and that I have used it for years made me a "Facebook fan" (i.e. I go on Facebook daily) and therefore, accept its design no matter how cluttered with ads it is. Twitter, on the other hand, is less cluttered and visually appealing. The content is from followed users and all of the information about your account seems to just be there. 

Putting Multimedia Design Skills to the TEST

Blog #3:

Required Activity: Analyze a Website: Autocoachsport.com

Activity 1: Edit your OWN multimedia.

Chosen multimedia: My default welcoming profile pic (on one of these sites)

       (Before)                                       (After) 
        (design ignorance)                                                      (design skill attempt #1!)

          

                                         

This probably doesn't look like it took a lot of time... but it did... (yeah, I'm a bit upset with myself). Anyways, I originally had this photo up as the front slide of an introduction power-point that I had to share with another GSE course. I then adopted this picture as one of my default profile pictures for one of the sites (which site? Idk.. there's too many to keep track of now). Now, the following will be my explanation to my edits:

• Erased background --> distracting & no value 
• Blue color added --> next to the green in color wheel to complement(that's not the word, is it) one another.
• Border added --> to enclose the whole image
• Dashed lines --> aesthetics 
• Enlarged bubble --> the focus of the visual is my greeting and name 
• Nothing centered --> purposeful, a lesson learned from DBI text

Activity 2: Mini-Composition - draw at least a dozen rectangular borders and fill it with geometric shapes 

                       

This was a nice activity away from the computer...

Multimedia Montage Project: Joining Communities

This project sounds awesome - but scary at the same time. It is worth 45% of the class' grade! That's intense! But at the same time, this project really will demonstrate if I've learned anything - and definitely put my skills to the test (which I am scared of the most because creating complex multimedia is my weakest skill).

As I was going through the variety of project audiences, I couldn't make up my mind. It was only after I thought about which objective would benefit me the most did I decide on the one. Instruction for K-12 Students sounds great and something I could share with my future class but as I just said, my future class, and therefore cannot even pick a grade level or subject! Professional Development for Teachers sounds exciting as my dream goal is to become a professor in professional development! But I'm still learning (not yet an official novice teacher) and cannot choose what to teach myself and professionals (plus, it'd be a bit hypocritical). Online Community Awareness sounds challenging... I would choose a specific matter (fueled with passion and curiosity), learn about the issue (from the nuts and bolts to its analysis), and decide on its projectile (is it to inspire, to call for action, to disseminate resources, all of the above?).

Why not?
(I say this as I shiver with anxiety)

So exactly what educational topic do I want to explore and share about? NCLB? Achievement Gap? How schools kill creativity? How education varies across countries? I don't know, I don't know, I can't make up my mind! 

People are always talking about the American education system, and the education system as a whole. People are filled with opinions, "it is broken", "it is outdated", etc. I have a general idea of the American education system (i.e. compulsory education; high-stakes testing; more strict teaching evaluation; stark racial academic achievement gap; federal curriculum of  the Common Core; lowly ranked Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores across industrialized countries), but I feel like I do not really know that much about the U.S.'s education system. I feel like I've heard from many people's opinions but did not necessarily formulate my own independent or different question...maybe because I always felt like I didn't know enough or experience enough for me to judge appropriately. 

So maybe I'll start with that first. I'll try to compile a mass of information about the American education system and how it relates to other other countries. This is going to become very political. 

As I was perusing through the Thinkfinity groups, I found myself to be slightly disappointed; many did not pertain to my general question of "WHAT IS THE AMERICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM?" As I reached to the 7th page, I found the International Perspectives on Education (IPE) group. Awesome. Recent content includes 2 months ago, 6 months ago, 2 years ago... not so awesome. But it'll do; I'll just read their archived stuff and see if I can instigate participation (*shrugs*). I figured that this group will give me insight about how other countries view education - perfect for my exploration of the U.S. education system compared with other countries. With this, I can compare and contrast international education systems. As for the other online community, I subscribed to John Bergmann's , creator of Flipped Classrooms, blog  http://jonbergmann.com/blog/. It was actually difficult to find an online community that talks about educational issues (many was to subscribe to information like this site that offers archives of educational issues and trends). The concept of Flipped Classrooms is radical in terms of students studying/learning about the content before they come to class. This pedagogical system has been enacted specifically with urban schools and is showing some signs of improvement. I hope that my subscription with this blog will illustrate the possible turns of American Education and its pedagogy. 

Media Analysis from a Viewer and a Creator: Ciroc Vodka

Blog #1:

The commercial that I saw was by Ciroc Vodka, called Diddy/Sinatra Ciroc commercial (on YouTube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF3G7vdM2UI. Sean Combs, popularly known as P. Diddy, a famous American rapper and record producer, stars in the commercial as (I interpreted,) a host of the party providing Ciroc Vodka. The crowd, also noted in the location, appears to be of a high income class as they stroll and relax dressed tuxedos and cocktail dresses. In addition, the commercial plays Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me" in the background of the black-and-white video, with the lines, "Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly" most prominent.

Analysis: 
The purpose of the video was to instill the idea that Ciroc Vodka is high-end and apt for any celebration. Starting from the commercial, Combs explicitly noted, "When I celebrate life, I celebrate with the best - Ciroc Ultra Primuim Vodka", with Sinatra belting out the line, "If you can use some exotic booze, there's a bar in far Bombay". Although the type of celebration is not verbally specific, "celebrate life responsibly", the visuals denote that Ciroc Vodka is appropriate for high-end celebrations.

However, how true it is to its claims is a bit unknown. Accordingly www.thedrinksbusiness.com, and gayott.com, Ciroc Vodka did not even get reviewed into the top 10 vodka brands (http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2013/09/the-top-10-vodka-brands/11/; http://www.gayot.com/spirits/top10vodkas/grey-goose-vodka-review.html). And accordingly to a vodka review site, Ciroc Vodka was rated 2 out of 5 stars (http://vodkabuzz.com/vodkas/ciroc/).

So how exactly "high-end" is Ciroc Vodka?

Audience:
Considering that Combs, the star of the commercial, is African American, and the majority of the cocktail crowd is African American, I would reason that the target audience is African Americans. However, it is not necessarily targeted to wealthy African Americans, as they are portrayed in the video, but to African Americans of middle-class or higher. It is unclear why African Americans are the targeted group, concerning that they are not the largest consumer of alcohol across ethnic groups nor the largest within minorities (Chartier & Caetano, 2010) (http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh40/152-160.htm).

Representation:
Since many are clothed with jewelry and tuxedos, the figures are portrayed of a high socioeconomic status. As a creator, I would single this SES class to highlight the idea that Ciroc Vodka is high-end. After all, it's the stereotype that the wealthy consume expensively, and therefore, the products are assumed of high quality. Combs is also used as a form of celebrity advertisement in which his image is used to promote and endorse Ciroc Vodka.

Design:
First, the video is shown in black and white and the location is of a luxurious house with out-dated appliances like a record player. Followed by the Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me", which was released in 1958, an Old Hollywood feel is illuminated. I think that these design techniques were used to highlight the idea that Ciroc Vodka is high-end and to give off a nostalgic desire.