HW# 13/1: IFTTT

The receipt I created at IFTTT website was: "If there is an event search for 'party', then call my phone." I found this fascinating because our lives can be more efficient if we could use this system well.

HW#12/4: Lesson Plans

Students: 9th grade
 Learning Object: Through creating an one-minute mix sound track of 5 objects by using Audacity, students will learn that various sound and the duration of time can convey a narrative.
 Material: Audacity app
 Spark/Motivation:
 1. what kind of music do you like to listen and why?
 2. What kind of sound do you dislike and why not?
 3. Are there any other tools to make music besides instruments?
4. How can you use sound to convey a scary/upbeat atmosphere?

 Title: Self-Portrait
 Material: found object, toys, iStop Motion app, etc.
 Objective: Through creating a stop motion animation that represent one or multiple aspects of themselves, students will learn that they make a narrative art piece in a digital form.
 Spark:
 Before I came to school this morning, I picked out this pink sweater to wear because 1. Pink is my favorite color, 2. I like the texture and the color change on this sweater. I think both of them represent my interests in color and texture.
 1.) What about you guys? Why did you wear what you wear?
 2.) Do you think your clothes and accessories can represent who you are and how?
 3.) Besides clothes, what are some other things that can represent you?
 Demonstration/Material Dialogue:
Teacher: “Based on what you guys just discussed about how you can use objects to represent you, let’s think about how we can use iStop Motion to make digital animations.
1) How would you want to show the environment/atmosphere in your video?
2) How would you do that with lighting?
 3) How would you show quick transition? How would you show smooth transition?

 Title: Digital Communication
 Material: Sketchbook, Photoshop
 Learning Objective: Through making a typographic drawing/painting using Photoshop, students will learn that they can manipulate the arrangement of font size, line- length, line-spacing, letter-spacing and style through Photoshop.
 Spark
Teacher:
 1) “Where do you mostly get your information from nowadays? Do you read from newspaper and books or do you read online?”
 2) “When you read news, or read your textbooks online. What do you notice about the words appeared on the Internet?”
 3) “When you type your essays, what format do you normally or like to use?” Demonstration/Material Dialogue Teacher:
 1) “We talked about the possible fonts and sizes when typing on Word. Now if I want to make a typographic drawing that only emphasis one word, how would you do it?”
 2) “What if I want to have a message in my artwork, which associate with a product, what are possible ways you can relate to that product?”
 3) “Think about how you want your words and images to be communicated through a flat surface. What are the possible tools you can use in Photoshop that will help you archiving your goals?”
 Closure Teacher: “We discussed the ways one can use fonts, sizes, line-space and the artistic representations of words, which could incorporate images. Now please take a moment and think about what do you want to communicate through words. How would you like to represent it on the Internet so people could notice? You can start sketching out your ideas on your sketchbooks first, when you are ready, you may start. “

HW#12/3: Idea for Final Project

My dices were "environment," "drawing," and "digital photography." Because this is a media class, I wanted to use both the qualities of tradition drawing mediums and the qualities of photography to create works that convey the same environmental issues or even the same image to show differences.

HW#12/2: Artist Research-Raven Kwok

Raven Kwok is an animator and coder from Shanghai, China. Kwok's background was photography before he explored Processing. In his work, he brings his unique vision to life through code. he usually uses geometric shapes in his videos. “I design multiple ways to recursively subdivide a geometric shape, and constantly pass a continuous independent variable through the recursions to a Perlin noise function,” Kwok said. “The recursions produce parameters that follow a certain ‘wave,’ thus creating a sense of tension within the shape, which feels like being living or organic.”

 Kwok is using coding in a very creative way because he used colors and movement to create a powerful visual experience. I can imagine how powerful the phenomenology would be if I saw his work in person.

 Algorithmic Creatures

Fractal & Recursion
Reference: http://sdtimes.com/artists-use-code-to-create-mind-bending-digital-art/2/

HW#12/1: Pop-up Card

I was intrigued by the circuit sticker sketchbook. I tried the simple circuit by folding one corner. It worked right away. When I tried the second one, following the handout. Somehow it didn't work. Then I realized that I was pressing at the wrong areas. I think having students to make their own circuit is very a very good idea. Not only students will learn something about coding, but also this project has its "coolness," which will engage students. This project changed how I see what constitute an art class!

HW#11/5: Thoughts on Student-Teacher Visit

I was relieved to hear that when teaching a technology as an art medium, many students are either quite familiar with the medium, or they are quick to grasp the tools. Many times, teachers don't need to know "everything"  in order to conduct the class. Rather, students will be interested in the medium and they can quickly explore and figure out how the tools work. This makes sense to me because as teachers, we are much older than students. They have a future ahead of themselves and they live in a more digital world than we (teachers) have experienced growing up. Like in other mediums classes, teachers' roles are just being good facilitators for the class to explore materials and the possibilities out there for them to discover! 

HW#11/4: Lesson Plan-Sound

 Learning Object: Through creating an one-minute mix sound track of 5 objects by using Audacity, students will learn that various sound and the duration of time can convey a narrative.

  Material: Audacity app

  Spark/Motivation: 
 1. what kind of music do you like to listen and why?
 2. What kind of sound do you dislike and why not?
 3. Are there any other tools to make music besides instruments? 4. How can you use sound to convey a scary/upbeat atmosphere?