Seeing as this is an experimental class with experimental expectations, I feel like my posts have been more meaningful this time around. Meeting with Dr. Zappala really helped me to direct my learning. His big three pieces of advice were that I should (1) use more historical data and that I should (2) incorporate illustrations into my blog and (3) use diigo more often to document my self-directed learning.
As far as Historical Content goes, I have a few rules when it comes to learning something new from a class. I am a firm believer that I should be able to find something exciting or interesting in every topic. (Yes, that even means economics =) ). With that mindset, I have truly been able to see some cool sides to math and to the complex systems of our world. I have posted various blog entries where I try and think things out and I try to see things from my own angle. See the Alan Turing post for an example of this kind of historical post.
Additionally, I have always been a great appreciator of debate and discussion. So when assigned a theme as controversial as evolution, I have enjoyed putting my perspective out into the open. The beauty of a blog is that there are many who can read my thoughts and choose to agree or disagree, as some have done. So those are two different kinds of ways I approached historical content. I just feel like there’s no need to put out an unbiased, seamless encyclopedia report when we already have some of those out in the open source world.
I feel like my approach to blog entries helps me also to synthesize the knowledge that I take in. Talking through my thoughts, writing them on a word document, and then deciding what to keep and what to toss for the blog is a really great way to clarify what I am learning, and to learn how to impart that knowledge or those thoughts to others.
On the same self-directed vibe, I have used Diigo much much more this semester. I don’t know how much my bookmarks have affected other students, but it has definitely been a great tool for myself alone. It’s like putting a little pin on a map of my knowledge and my discoveries on the internet. One of my more opinionated blog posts was on “spiritual truth” and “artistic truth” and where they run parallel to eachother, and where they intersect. As a side project, I started a visual essay on a tumblr blog, full of photos that I have taken that are trying to find some sort of sense of the glory of God’s Earth through nature. I won’t necessarily say that these photos are extremely effective, but I will say that it has got me thinking a lot about art and its value in this world.
As far as illustration work goes, I decided to take Dr. Zappala’s challenge and make illustrative work for this class alone. This takes time and preparation, so I wasn’t sure where to incorporate it, but then we had the wonderful book club assignment and I really found it an awesome opportunity to illustrate Gulliver’s Travels. Earlier through this block, I also did a study of a J.W. Waterhouse painting for the Romantic Era. I posted this on the blog as well.
Although I do believe I have accepted all of Dr. Zappala’s challenges, I think I haven’t been quite as digital this semester. Jaky, my evaluator, mentioned the lack of more than one digital lab this semester. And she’s completely right to notice. I do plan to make a more in depth photoshop art digital literacy lab this weekend, so that should be uploaded before the interview. For the rest of this semester, I will strive to be a good teammate in our group project, in which we will be making a music video. I will also catch up on digital tutorials. This class is a pretty good exercise in balancing time and emphasis.
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