M Verse

On the Job Hunt

2010-01-12T10:42:00.004-05:00

It is January and I just recently graduated with a MAT degree in December. I am on the job hunt. I am interested in obtaining a job that involves any aspect of art education. Who knew there were so many others out there that also want to be art teachers. I recently discovered that a job I applied for had 65 applicants. 65! I was one of 65! That was just crazy to me. However, I don't feel that bad because I was still completing my student teaching when I applied to the job and I am still waiting on the Pennsylvania Department of Education to approve and award me my teaching certification. I check PA's education department website everyday, and everyday the same thing pops up on the screen "application in hand, being viewed". How long does it take? So I am in a "hurry up and wait" type of limbo right now. Some days I am relaxed and enjoy some down time, other days I am anxious because I just can't wait to get back in action. But, I am hopeful, even though the double digits of January are here and creeping up higher and higher on me. I know that the hard work of the past four years of graduate school will be rewarded, even if not right away. I think I can wait another week...

Understanding Jasper Johns

2009-07-13T17:37:00.004-04:00

Well,

Todays lesson was much better. We looked at Jasper Johns number and letter paintings. The subject matter was easy to understand. The students seem to enjoy the simplistic and colorful images. I gave step by step directions. The only personal involvement for this project was that that students used their initials. This was much easier for them to think about and it still excited them. The wax resist letter project went well. The students wanted to get more messy and did not enjoy staying within the lines of their letters. I would normally say that this is a juvenile project but for the attention deficit that exists in the group of students that I am working with and because it is a summer activity I am Ok with the lesson that I had prepared.

Arcimboldo lesson follow up...

2009-07-11T20:17:00.005-04:00

Well, the lesson on Friday did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. You see, I think it would work in a more educational setting, but I am working in a summer program and the goal of "art time" is entertainment and if something is learned along the way then great. The students loved Arcimboldo's images. However, some of these students have severe attention deficit and the filling in of the heads was too tedious and time consuming for them. Also, I left it too open for them. Next project which will be this coming Monday needs to have more specific directions. A step by step how to type of project. Critical Thinking questions and answer sessions will work with this group of students but full out critical thinking art projects are not appropriate. So...I am off to find my ideas for Monday. OH. P.S. budget for this gig=0

Back in Action, Lesson Planning

2009-07-08T19:55:00.005-04:00

Vertumnus. 1590-1591. Oil on wood. Skoklosters Slott, Balsta, Sweden.

I have decided to "re-start" my art education blog today. I am currently teaching a two day a week afternoon art program. I haven't taught by myself in 6 months, I am back in action, working on some new as well as modified lessons. So, I thought what better way to remember my lessons, but to blog about them. Even if no one is reading, I will have this blog to look back at whenever I feel a bit stuck. I don't know about you but I have lessons on Cd's and on flash drives, and in rubbermaid containers, and in books, and on and on and on. So, as a newly married woman, with a new name, and with my student teaching placement starting on September 8th; I am going to write about my summer teaching experience. I would like to remember what works, what doesn't work. What engaged the students for what could be hours or what lasted only 5 minutes.

So...I am currently working on a lesson I derived from the wonderful "incredible art department" website. The lesson is based on Giuseppe Arcimboldo. I never heard of him in any of my art survey or history classes. I just love this lesson because of the kinetic experience children can have. It involves movement, art skills, and interpretation of self.

Here is the link to the lesson:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/high/Nerina-ArcPortraits.htm

Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s paintings of composed heads pieced together pieces of fruit, foliage, and more are a great example of collage, portraiture, and Renaissance Art.

I actually tried this lesson with high school students last summer. They seemed to like it. The results were not as detailed as I would have preferred, but they were able to finish their heads in two hours. ( i rushed along very quickly due to the time frame) I think the self expression was their favorite aspect of the project. As well as act of creating a collage of abnormal findings. I gave the students the option of making their head 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional. They could draw in their head with colored pencils or they could cut, tear, and rip images out of magazines, tissue paper, and other random materials I brought in. ) things such as feathers, textured wallpaper samples, shiny paper, etc.

This Friday I am going to try the lesson out with 8 students. All different ages. Age 8 to 15. I will let you know how it goes...

The Text Book Answer: What is Social Tagging?

2009-03-22T18:30:00.005-04:00

Worldwide there are over one billion people online, and the ways that they are connecting and creating together are literally exploding. (Richardson p.87, 2009) We are already seeing social connections on websites such as Facebook—a social networking site where friends request friends to chat with, comment on, and post photos of others. Another popular site Wikipedia—is an example of a social encyclopedia. Anyone can post, edit and delete on a Wikipedia page. Tagging is a buzzword that started a few years ago. It has since evolved from technical Internet code to a user-friendly tool that helps people to search, explore, and locate information on the Internet.

Social Tagging became popular on the Web around 2004 as part of social software application including social bookmarking and annotating photographs. (Folksonomy, 2009) Social Tagging is a technical feature of organizing information on the World Wide Web. Using metadata that consists of keywords and phrases the user arranges information how they prefer to organize their favorite websites. The result has been a boom in websites built specifically to cater to “Social Tagging”. These are all used differently; some are based on tagging socially (by people you know), academically (by subject matter), or strictly for functionality (organizing all your many bookmarked websites). Even though Social Tagging is a considerably young concept, it has a history and technical evolution that has created a plethora of functional websites that are based on the concept of “tagging”.

There are a few different definitions of social tagging on the web. Some sites focus on tagging being the assignment of words to digital content, like photos, bookmarks, and blogs. Others focus on the managing of tags to categorize content. Overall, from what I have read the consensus is that Social Tagging is a tool that makes searching the Internet easier.

Social Bookmarking—a subtopic of social tagging—is the practice of saving bookmarks of website addresses to a public website and “tagging” them with keywords. (Lomas, 2005) The bookmarks that are tagged can then be searched by phrase, popularity, and by the person who tagged them. Searching by person is why it is referred to as “social” bookmarking. Author Will Richardson explains it well in his book “Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts. He says millions of people have begun using public online book marking services where they can save links, annotate them with unique keywords or tags to organize them, and then share the links with the world. (Richardson p. 88, 2009)

When researching social tagging the word folksonomy appears many times. Folksonomy is the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content. (folksonomy, 2009) A well-developed folksonomy is ideally accessible as a shared vocabulary that is both originated by, and familiar to, its primary users. Two widely cited examples of websites using folksonomic tagging are Flickr and Delicious. (folksonomy, 2009) On Flickr someone might tag a series of photographs that the have taken of horses with words such as horse, beautiful, pony, brown, animal, etc. The series of photographs that were tagged are now searchable by other people on the Internet looking for images with the keyword or phrase “beautiful, brown, horses.

Technically speaking, Social Tagging is a type of metadata where one or more descriptive words (keywords) are assigned to an asset. (nihlibrary, 2009) On websites, there is a gadget that one can add to their own personal blogs that displays the tags in the form of a word cloud. The larger the word the more popular that particular word search is. Users of the Internet that are tagging their photos and bookmarks are creators of the meta data that is used to categorize the Internet by the people using it. The experts who program the websites that are used for tagging purposes also create the metadata. The idea that words are being freely chosen besides being pre-determined by programmers is another aspect of what makes tagging on the Internet social and collaborative. An example of using meta data to organize information is on the I pod. I pods use meta data in much of the same way. The songs on the I pod have information like artist name, song title, album title, and genre attached to them. This helps the listener find the song that they want.

The result of tagging with keywords can be a rewarding gain in the user's capacity to find related content (a practice known as "pivot browsing"). Part of the appeal of folksonomy is its inherent subversiveness: when faced with the choice of the search tools that Web sites provide, folksonomies can be seen as a rejection of the search engine status quo in favor of tools that are created by the community.(folksonomy, 2009) In other words, instead of using the Google search engine, one may find better more extensive results from their research by looking at other people’s bookmarks on delicious.com.

Some of the top social tagging sites according to Mashable.com are;
Diigo.com, which is a site that highlights portions of a webpage, write on it like you would a piece of paper, share with your group, and search all publicly saved pages. (Aune, 2007) There are many different sites that allow you to organize and tag your bookmarks such as:
BmAccess.net - Bookmark a site, add tags, when you look up a tag, you get the names and a little thumbnail image of the site along with it.
BlogMarks.net – Allows one to save your bookmarks, tag them with keywords for easy searching amongst your list, share with others.
Givealink.org – Allows one to donate your bookmarks to this site to help them recommend sites and get a better understanding of how each person bookmarks. Some of these websites are based on searching other websites using likes and dislikes that you declare.
StumbleUpon.com - Lets you “channel surf” the Internet and review sites; it learns what you like and recommends more of the same.
WireFan.com – Allows one to vote on links as well as add thumbnails for sites.
Lilisto.com - Ratings, notes, categories, smart categories and in-page editing. There are also social tagging sites strictly for clinicians doing research. There are themed sites for businesses and the list goes on.

Social Tagging has evolved into a tool for the everyday user of the Internet. Using keywords to tag bookmarks and pictures, and people make it easy for everyone to find information, collaborate on projects, and brainstorm ideas. Tagging is changing the way research is completed, it is eliminating the general use of search engines, and allowing individuals to find more specific information on the many web pages of the Internet. It is the group effort that makes it possible for this idea to work. Hence why it is considered social.

Bibliography

Aune, S. (2007). Social Bookmarking: 50+ Social Bookmarking Sites
Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/social-bookmarking-2/ on March 9th 2009

Folksonomy. (2009). Wikipedia
Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy on March 9th 2009

Lomas. C. (2005). 7 things you should know about social bookmarking
Retreived from: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/ELI/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAbout/39378?time=12361767687 on March 4th 2009

NIH Library. (2009). Social Tagging FAQ
Retrieved from: http://nihlibrary.nih.gov/FAQ/SocialTaggingFAQ.htm on March 9th 2009

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful web tools for
classrooms. California: Corwin Press

How does one decipher what is social tagging and what is not?

2009-02-25T14:09:00.011-05:00

www.flickr.com/photos/pulguita/2868952310/

So I think I have figured out some things about social tagging since I posted my last blog. I realized that the website Delicious is much easier to use than I thought. Tags are helpful and convenient because you are basically getting other people's information about topics you are researching or are interested in by the click of a few buttons, and all for free!
Now my question is: What is considered a social tag and what isn't? What websites are social tagging websites and which aren't. Is Facebook social tagging? Is Twitter? I think that they are, but are there different categories of social tagging? Do you think Social Tagging is an umbrella over multiple topics? Are there specific websites that cater to academic tagging rather than social tagging? Are Twitter, Facebook, and Delicious all really in the category of Social Tagging, or are they sub categories of social tagging? What do you think are characteristics of social tagging sites?

My midterm group
Group 1. Social Tagging e.g.,Delicious, Flickr, etc.
Melissa - What is it?
Beth - How Does it work?
Laura - Examples?
Christopher - How Can it be used in the Art Classroom?

Can Social Tagging Make Teacher's Lives Easier and How?

2009-02-14T21:21:00.003-05:00

http://www.wordle.net

In order to take full advantage of social tagging, I will have to learn to give up my addiction to google.com. When learning about social tagging, I must admit my immediate response was “Um, whatever subject I want to research I type it into Google and hit enter”. Why would I need to tag the hottest travel sites, the hottest education sites when Google tells me what they are; or does it? I love the Internet and technology, but have maybe five websites that I visit repeatedly. Since this isn’t a large number I can remember the names of them. This is another reason a site like delicious and the idea of social tagging can be confusing. I feel pressure to collect more interesting websites. I do have a feeling that as I become a more seasoned teacher I will have more web sites that I favor. This is the question. Can tagging really do what technology should do? Can tagging make teachers lives easier and more organized or is it an added dose of confusion. If the easier part is true then I believe that tagging can also make students lives easier? I am wondering what others think?