Blogs for process AND product

Jennifer MundayFlexible Learning Institute

(FLI) Fellow - CSU

Stanford professor Howard Rheingold,a blogger and author of Smart

Mobs (Perseus, 2002)

Learning to use online forums, be they social network services like MySpace and Facebook, blogs, or wikis, is not a sexily contemporary add-on to the curriculum—it’s an essential part of the literacy today’s youth require for the world they inhabit. . . . The way today’s students will do science, politics, journalism, and business next year and a decade from now will be shaped by the skills they acquire in using social media and by the knowledge they gain of the important issues of privacy, identity, community, and the role of citizen media in democracy. (2008)

WHY USE A TASK LIKE THIS?

This task gives the student the opportunity to use art media, music, drama, movement or construction as expressive languages for their own self-expression. They will engage in their own personal environment that will support their own creative expression and meaning making through the arts. They will engage in critical self reflection regarding their beliefs and practice in the arts.

5 years ago

Now…

• Expansion of literacy for hypertext environments

• Writing in multiple modes, eg. Images, links, text, video

• Critical friends to challenge ideas

The task

InstructionsYou need to take time to think and plan

the execution of this task. The intention is to produce a multi-layered piece of artwork in any

discipline. The task itself is taken from:

Healy, A. (Ed.). (2008). ‘Art' efacts of knowing: Multiliteracies and the

arts. In Multiliteracies and diversity in education: New pedagogies for

expanding landscapes. Sydney: Oxford University Press.

You will be required to journal your thoughts and planning using the

Blog tool in Interact. You can make your blog available to the rest of the student cohort and ask for feedback during the process. Or you can keep

the blog private and only available to you and the Subject Coordinator.

You will be given instructions on how to manipulate the blog.

TaskDraw, paint, perform or photograph a representation of how you see yourself (it may be literal or metaphoric or abstract). Now think about how your friends may perceive you - add any elements to your ‘art' work. Next, reflect on how people who have authority in your life may perceive you - again add to your work. Finally, think about yourself in relation to a broad issue in society (such as the environment, war, refugees, or racism) - and again represent your reflections in your ‘art' work. You may now have a multilayered drawing or painting, a collage of performance, or media presentation. You also have a complex representation of self. Consider how this process has helped you to consider yourself or your relationships with others or with the world in new ways.

Example

http://tinyurl.com/l348ns

Art work 1:

Reflection

I know what would take some

people five minutes has

taken me days to figure out (photos & computers) and

even still it's far from perfect and

that with enlisting help from my

siblings ten years younger!! I know i'm not the only

one, I've read other people's thoughts and

problems and that does help

knowing i'm not the only one who is not an IT wizz..

Changes for the next versionFurther scaffolding for creating the artwork; by helping them work on each stage of the process; by reading and exchanging ideas with each other; give more examples of artists who are motivated by social issues; sharing of other artist’s blogs so the progressive nature of the online journaling is shown as beneficial

The Sakai/Interact blog is the tool or vehicle for creativity,

learning and reflection