Week of 4/5

Collaboration is something needs to be mastered at a young age because will collaboration be necessary throughout one's life. I, personally, have delt with collaboration in many aspects of my life especially with my family. I come from a large family, I am the youngest of five brothers. The majority of my family resides in North California but my brother Jon and I are in San Diego and my brother Mark lives in Chicago. Since we are all so spread apart we like to get together and have family vacations so we can spend time together. However, with so many of us and each of us having hectic schedule, this requires lots of planning and COLLABORATION. We have to collaborate on where to go, where to stay, what activities to do and when we can go. I have also experienced collaboration in school when I am doing group projects or making plans with friends. Collaboration does not go away in life so in elementary school collaboration should be practiced by students. One way is putting student on teams. Being on a team can teach students many skills which they will take with them such as collaboration, team work, compromising, sharing, leadership, etc. When I put in the Suburn group for this art class, I learned ideas from my team members, engaged in teamwork, and compromised. Ultimately, in my classroom, I hope to use collaboration all the time. I could use collaboration to teach citizenship by showing students that they must all work together and obey rules in order to have a functioning society and I could also use it to deal with challenging social situations by emphasize collaboration is always a tool when a challenging social situation arrives.

**Missing Blogs are posted separately and not on this blog page because I did know how to work the blog when I first start!! Just wanted to remind you in case you were looking for them!

Week of 3/22

I really enjoyed our class visit to the New Children's Museum. The New Childrens Museum was unlike any museum I ever went to during my elementary school years. The museum has a very modern atmosphere but still allows viewers to gain knowledge from their visits. I think the New Childrens Museum is very unique because of its modern aspect. Many of the modern aspects use new media resources. For example, there was a wall made out of fur that kids are allowed to play with and make designs on using their hand/fingers. This allows students to think outside of the box and use their hand as a drawing instrument instead of a paint brush or a pencil. Also allows them to work with a surface they are not used to drawing on. Another cool feature of the New Childrens Museum was the barn room. In the barn room kids could play with different light switches that made certain noises they had to recognize or told them different tasks to do. I learned that the barn room is a good learning tool for young children because it allows them to strengthen their motor skills. Overall, I think the New Children Museum is a wonderful educational resource for kids because it allows them to be imaginative and think creatively while having fun too!

Week of 3/8

Today, the different media available in society has greatly influenced the world of art. One of the biggest influences has been the camera and photography. Photography has help assist artists in their work by allowing artists to use photos as a reference while they are working. Photography also developed into an art in itself as artists found ways to add different affects and alter their photos. Another one of the biggest contributions to the world of art today, is the video camera and computer generated images. The video camera has allowed human beings to capture acting on tape and broadcast it all over the world in the movie theaters. Computer generated images have been incorporated into movies, video games, and television shows providing creative images and entertainment for people view all over the world. These contributions to the world of art also have proved to be valuable contributions to the world of education. They serves as such valuable resources in the classroom and assisting teachers in their lessons. Photography is common tool used to assist students in making observations. One way a teacher could incorporate photography is by asking the students to collect photos of interesting faces from a magazine, interpret these faces, and explain the emotions conveyed by the face. The camera is also a great resource for a teacher. One way having a camera handy is beneficial is when an guest artist comes to class to give a specific art lesson, the teacher could record the guest artist to show future classes the art lesson or to show students who were absent from class when the guest artist came.

I was actually absent on the day of Luz Chung's presentation. But from the video clips and the overview from the powerpoint, I gather that Luz Chung is in favor of social justice and riding social injustice from the classroom. I absolutely agree with Luz Chung. I feel that every student should feel included and represented in the classroom. Every student in the classroom is like a piece of the community and every member is important. It is the teachers responsibility to make sure a student feels included. I feel that an easy way for a teacher to accomplish this is through art. A teacher could design an art project for the class in which every student has to make a collage to share things about themselves including interests, cultural facts, heritage information, etc. This way every student gets the opportunity to present themselves to the class and get to know the other students. If this or a similar idea is incorporated into the curriculum, I think every student will feel included in the classroom.