Arts at the Edge

“Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence”–sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz.

With the looming “fiscal cliff” federal budget crisis casting a shadow of economic doubt over the United States, one victim of  impending educational budget cuts will be funding for the arts.  While this story is nothing new–art programs have been under siege in this country for more than a decade (check out this article which outlines the decline of artistic institutions across the country) –the budget cuts inevitably caused by the fiscal cliff increase the threat to these programs’ existence.   “If the government is unable to come to a resolution, federal education programs for elementary and high schools would lose a little over $2 billion — or close to 8 percent of the current budget — starting next fall, according to the Office of Management and Budget and the Education Department.”  This quote came from a New York Times article published November 15th.

Why the concern?  The lack of artistic and creative programs in our schools–including music, theater, film, and digital art classes–threaten to block students off from spaces where serious creative expression can be allowed to flourish.  “Arts education…does solve problems. Years of research show that it’s closely linked to almost everything that we as a nation say we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity,” says Fran Smith of edutopia.org.  Linking to our ongoing discussions on multimodal education, arts in our schools is essential for students to experience the creative process.  Performing in front of an audience requires developing not only inter-and intra-personal skills, but also the the skills requiring the kind of artistic intelligence being done (musical, kinesthetic through dance, linguistic in the theater).  Visual art programs such as digital graphics and photography prepare students for great careers in media, film, and advertising.

If anyone out there has ever been fortunate enough to take an art course in high school with a passionate teacher, they know how beneficial that experience can be.  That is why it’s so critical to keep art programs strong in our school.  It’s an issue that is voted on in school budgets and should definitely be supported.  Support the Arts!!

Music Notes

Music!…and English?
When you read a book, do you listen to music or sometimes have a soundtrack to the events playing out in your head?  When you listen to music, do you imagine scenes, situations, or places in your mind?  That’s the funny thing about music, everyone has a different way of experiencing it, and everyone encounters it.  It’s as much a part of our lives and culture as written expression.  “In fact musical and language processing occur in the same area of the brain. (Medinan 1993, as cited by Mol, 1)”  Keeping in the spirit of our embrace of multimodal learning, I wanted to take this time to investigate how music and English Language Arts can compliment one another in the classroom.

Doorways to cultural imagination

This website is a great resource to start for teachers who are looking to expand their classroom environment into one that is “musically inclusive.”  Hans Mol cites Howard Gardner here, the illuminating observation that “It’s not how intelligent you are, but how you are intelligent.”  Students struggling with reading and general interest in the class can benefit from music as an environment enhancer as well as a creative outlet for class projects.  Mol outlines five categories in his report on music in the classroom, including socio-emotional growth, physical development, cognitive training, cultural literacy, and language learning.  As cultural literacy is one of the key components of teaching literacies, Mol states that “songs used in English classes can, in that way, shed light on interesting musical traditions in countries, but can also teach teens, young adults and adults to appreciate other cultures. For adult learners they can be “a rich mine of information about human relations, ethics, customs, history, humor, and regional and cultural differences.’

I remember back in AP English when our teacher, Ms. Agnew, played Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way while we read a short story about a young man’s struggle with heroin and how music helped him to find release from his addiction.  The name of the story was Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin.  It was memorable because not only did it introduce me to one of my most favorite jazz pieces ever written, it also made the story more atmospheric and tangible.  The music helped activate the imagination and accentuate the message of the story.

Music is a way to make the classroom more inviting for students.  Playing it shows that you have interest in different kinds of cultural expression and it can be a catalyst for student discussion.  It’s also a bridge-builder between teachers and students.  In my experience substitute teaching, I found that students stay on task and are more motivated when I took just a few minutes to talk about what they were listening to, reading, watching, even video games they were playing.  It always caused a few laughs and lightened the atmosphere.  I did this because I wanted to be approachable, and not have a wall built around myself.  I wasn’t an authority figure, but more of a guide-along-the-way.

BTW, here is a cool podcast I found about music, language, the brain and their interrelations: http://www.loc.gov/podcasts/musicandthebrain/podcast_aniruddhpatel.html

Thanks for reading!-Matt

Halloween Radio Extravaganza

It was great to get into some hands on learning as our group progressed through this project.  Brainstorming, in retrospect, was the hardest and easiest part.  At the brainstorming level we expressed our ideas freely, but it was difficult to find a coherent focal point.  The idea of a Halloween-based program was agreed upon to fit the time of year; also, working with scary sounds and atmospheres seemed like a cool way to integrate our developing multimodal skills.  We wanted to make something that told a good scary story, but was also informative about Halloween’s history and place in American culture. 

You’ll notice the “shocker” beginning–it’s a clip of Jane reading instructions on how to read instructions while actually carving a pumpkin.  We thought it was a good way to set the mood : )

Matt’s segment involves personal scary stories originating from his family circle.  The main story as told by his brother Justin is told from his memories of high school and college.

Sara ends the show with a discussion on the commodification of fear. 

You’ll notice the dark and scary aural sounds throughout–this was really the most fun part of the project!  Finding good sounds on freesounds.org and editing them into the show was exciting as we could watch it all coming together.  The sound effects really bring a new element to our show and we hope you enjoy them!

A clip of the show before it was finally edited, without Sara’s segment: 

http://soundcloud.com/dashboard

The finished project:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/eng-506

Intelligent Multiplicity

expand your mind

Has anyone ever heard of Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences? It’s an interesting concept that has been extensively studied, criticized, and practiced in the classroom. The theory accounts for seven kinds of thinking: Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Spatial, Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal. It expands beyond the traditional two kinds of knowledge tested in the SATs, being Logical-Mathematical and Linguistic. What Gardner’s theory does is to open up new connections between activities and intelligences once thought to be exclusive and not co-dependent on one another. It is a more holistic way of developing the mind, in which collaboration amongst the intelligences reinforces all of them. “For example, a dancer can excel in his art only if he has 1) strong musical intelligence to understand the rhythm and variations of the music, 2) interpersonal intelligence to understand how he can inspire or emotionally move his audience through his movements, as well as 3) bodily-kinesthetic intelligence to provide him with the agility and coordination to complete the movements successfully” (Brualdi 1).

How can we use this theory as educators? We have probably already experienced some of the pedagogical methods influenced by Gardner. Acting out plays and creating visual art in ELA classrooms are some of the activities which this theory helped manifest. The goal is to foster interest and interaction in different kinds of developing knowledge, making for a more well-rounded thinker. You can see how Gardner’s theory and and multimodal learning are interrelated: critically analyzing more than just print-based texts helps students to read the world from a wider range of perspectives and forms.

 I think what this kind of theory indicates is an awareness that the mind performs best when in a more organic environment.  In other words, a large variety of factors go into a developing mind, and to emphasize only two kinds of knowledge and to discount imaginative thinking which bridges disciplines is unwise.  Also, taking into account that each individual has their own unique way of learning and interacting makes way for understanding.  We can begin to develop approaches which take knowledge from one area and apply it to another.  So I say “organic environment” because in the natural world, every organism has its own way of existing, yet still interacts with and influences the whole.  Human beings are not different or apart this ecosystem.   What changes the world are creative thinkers who look beyond boundaries and draw from all areas of life. 

“The Facebook Obsession”–Or a Positive Addiction?

Last night, CNBC aired a program titled “The Facebook Obsession,” which amalgamated the history of the social network site with its extensive cultural impact. Fact: 70% of Facebook users live outside the U.S. It is now without a doubt the international social medium, used by individuals, businesses, politicians, even law-enforcement institutions, all around the world. Perhaps the most impressive achievement of the site was its involvement in the Arab Spring.

Undoubtedly, students now and in the future will, at the very least, have been exposed to Facebook and sites like it; most likely they will have their own individual pages and be participating in the revolutionary connection-making experience the page has to offer. Facebook is here to stay–in purely market terms, its value as a technology is just too high and it shows no signs of slowing down.

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In educational terms, however, there has been some controversy about the site’s risks. Students who use the site can have their privacy invaded by businesses and, worse, online hackers. In many cases, students can have purely virtual relationships with people they have never met in person, which obviously opens up the site to less-than-decent individuals who use the network for things they should be thrown in jail for. These risks of privacy invasion and the somewhat deceiving nature of virtual profiles have put some parents and educators on the offensive against FB. The online world can be a very scary place for those who do not have the critical knowledge to navigate it. Indeed, students have been negatively affected by the site, from the relatively innocuous teenage dramas caused by postings of embarrassing photographs to the much more serious danger of online stalkers.

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So when I started this blogpost, I first began research by Google-ing “facebook and education.” I expected to see columns of sites devoted against Facebook, from blogs by angry parents to official news of Facebook being banned or limited in schools across America. My predictions were unfounded. On the first page of the search, every site was all about Facebook, but in a good way. I found an agency which goes into schools to educate teachers about social networking as a constructive resource. They are called “social media bootcamps” and are serious about adapting the classroom to the communication revolution. I found a blog by the president of Southwestern College which practically lauds over the site’s positive capabilities. As the president, Dr. James Nolan states, “If Social Media were a person, I would have to make her the highest paid employee at Southwestern College. Her job description would be five pages long. Maybe ten.” He notes that because the site is used in the “real world,” by businesses, artists, politicians and so on, it is only practical to use it in the university classroom. In this sense, I am inclined to agree.

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What I think is most important is for teachers to not be afraid of social networking. Students are going to be using it whether we like it or not. We have, then, a responsibility to educate students on how advertisers use information to target consumers on Facebook, about the authenticity of virtual relationships, and the importance of balancing online interaction with face to face communication. In this way they are better armed to use the site for its more positive potentialities.

Unfurling Augmented Reality

Approaching Digital Sentience?

We’ve been discussing extensively about the importance of researching and using cutting-edge technologies as ELA teachers.  The benefits are clear:  more credibility among students and faculty, fluency at accessing and utilizing more powerful digital tools, and sharing technological knowledge in the classroom.  Thus students can become more efficient and responsible users of these immensely powerful technologies.  One of the discussed tools was augmented reality.  The concept seems broadly defined, at the same time provocative.  Soon we will be able to augment reality?  In what ways?  How does it work?  Will it be useful for students?

I found this video which explains Nokia’s City Lens project. Watch it and keep in mind if this is the kind of technology you think is useful, relevant, or even interesting to you.  Also keep in mind:  is the storing of geographic information, and the personalization of its delivery to the user, actually a kind of augmented artificial intelligence?  This appears to be the next phase in not non-digital reality, but an extension of how the digital world transposes itself upon the real world.  The delivery system has become more reactive to its environment, faster, more visual, and more streamlined.  In this way, we see how the artificial intelligence of these information systems have become more responsive and, in a way, more human.  

After watching the video and getting an idea of how this works, I wish to turn the discussion over to you.  Do you think digital knowledge is overtaking human knowledge?  Are we substituting massive server space for our own intelligence?  How will this technology affect the geographical and spacial intelligence of our students?  These are honest concerns I have about augmented reality (and its successive) technology.  I’m worried that this kind of layered reality, in which every image of reality is a canvas for transposed information, will make students unsatisfied with the real thing.  A balance between responsible use of technology and an appreciation for a genuine experience of reality needs to be found.  –Matt

 

The Teen Brain and Multimodal Learning

Hey everyone,

The discussion surrounding multimodal learning is a fascinating one and builds upon personal theories I hold concerning how people learn.  In high school I didn’t give it much thought, I was too busy being a teenager–trying to be the polar opposite of what my parents thought I should be, trying to get into college, trying to win Battle of the Bands, etc.  But as I progressed through my college years, transferring through three different schools and figuring out what I really wanted to do with my life, I found myself asking such questions as, “What is the best way to acquire and use knowledge?  Is the specialist–the expert–in one area better off than the one who dabbles in a variety of different subjects?  Does knowing ONE thing to its fullest extent grant the individual a better understanding of all things?”  I know this is starting to sound philosophical here, but let me just lay these questions down as a general framework for a more specific investigation into the science of the teen brain and multimodal learning. 

First, I would like to share this article by National Geographic which is a great story on current neuroscientific studies of the teenage brain.  The current trend in the scientific community concerning teenage development is starkly different from how teens were understood as recent as twenty years ago.  The article explains how the status-quo view of teens as “incomplete,” “still developing” individuals leaves out something huge: the fact that activities likened to teens such as risk-taking are essential for them to learn a sense of identity, to make important mistakes and develop healthy social skills.  In fact, they are part of the teen’s adaptive edge.  “The resulting account of the adolescent brain–call it the adaptive-adolescent story–casts the teen less as a rough draft than as an exquisitely sensitive, highly adaptable creature wired almost perfectly for the job of moving from the safety of the home into the complicated world outside” (49).  Indeed, the changes that occur in the teenage brain are incredibly critical and radical.  “The corpus callosum, which connects the brain’s left and right hemispheres and carries traffic essential to many advanced brain functions, steadily thickens.  Stronger links also develop between the hippocampus, a sort of memory directory, and frontal areas that set goals…we get better at integrating memory and experience in our decisions” (43).  Whew!  No wonder I was so tired all time.  Makes me worried because I’m STILL tired all the time and relish a good nap.  Anyways, this article can be used as a base to explain a vital point, that is, that the more types of collaborative learning, interaction, and multimedia are used in the classroom, the better.  It suits the teen brain perfectly.  They crave variety and novelty, and for good reason.  It helps develop a sense of identity but deeper down, it is an instinctual craving to learn as rapidly as possible.  

 

Now let’s get a little more scientific.  Coming across this study by Stanford, Multimodal Deep Learning, I found some concrete evidence to support the benefits of multimodal education.  “In the cross modality learning experiments, we evaluate if we can learn better representations for one modality (e.g., video) when given multiple modalities (e.g., audio and video) during feature learning” (Section 4.3).  The results were decisive. “On the CUAVE dataset (Table 1b), there is an improvement by learning video features with both video and audio compared to learning features with only video data.”  Think how these kinds of findings can be transposed and utilized in the classroom.  Expanding upon these findings, what other kinds of experiments with multimodal learning can we as teachers come up with?  If what we are trying to teach are texts, then it is preferable to find as many different ways to support that text through other media as possible.  The more connections students can make across different forms of media, the more their stimuli-seeking brains will essentially learn.  And of course, through using technology to express what students have learned–such as posting an interpretative play on YouTube–students will gain a voice and an avenue through which to express their identities. 

Autism and Technology in the Classroom

A Growing Concern

After reading the Horizon Report, I became interested in how technology can be utilized in the classroom for students with special needs.  Autism is being found in more students today than ever before.  According to Autism Speaks, “autism now affects 1 in 88 children and 1 in 54 boys,” “is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S.,” and strikingly, “more children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes & cancer combined.” (http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/facts-about-autism) 

Autism and Video Technology

I tried to dig a little deeper to find out how technology can aid students who are affected by autism.  Interestingly enough, University of California at San Diego published an article on video modeling as therapy and development for autistic individuals–Enhancing Conversation Skills in Children With Autism via Video Technology (http://vsmproject.pbworks.com/f/enhancing_conversation_with_vm_self_OR_peer.pdf). Without going too far into the details, the article posits that “children with autism are visual learners and typically excel in treatment modalities that rely on visual stimuli such as pictures…computer technology…and videos” (142).  Through looking at images and videos of others, autistic individuals have to opportunity to develop better understandings of their social environment.  Autism acutely affects how one relates and reacts to the world around them, and computer technology can be a bridge between affected individuals and their teachers, parents, and peers.

Progress and Implementation

This video is a summary of the Innovative Technology for Autism Tech Demo, an event by the International Meeting for Autism Research which showcases new technologies now being made available for possible distribution among schools and the wider community.  You can see some very interesting clips of how different technologies are helping autistic individuals learn in a wide variety of ways.  As Matthew Goodwin, Ph.D. states in the video, “with autism, you have a lot of needs but are short on technology, with science, you have a lot of technology but are short on needs.”  The scientific community is willing to research and develop solutions for students with learning disabilities, and there is no reason why technology should not be used as a powerful aid in this effort.  

 

 

HI

My first real blog.  This is pretty sweet.  Communication technology has really reached an exponential point of growth where anyone can be their own publisher.  I’m not the most tech-savvy individual around, but I’m no technophobe either.  This is a step for me into the world of streamlined Internet communication and I’m looking forward to teaching students these kinds of technologies in the classroom.