Minjung's Image

Minjung: Really Strong? (Beyond time and Space)

Minjung is your image a reflection of how you loose track of time while using technology?

Minkyung's Image

Minkyung: Rest

How does your image reflect your title?

Trapped

The question -- how do I use technology on a daily basis -- is something I have been thinking about recently. The word "daily" is important. All the work I have to do is on the computer; I need access to Email, Angel sites, e-Grants, spreadsheets, Word, electronic articles. Combined with a heavy workload, this means that I must sit indoors (because I cannot get a connection outdoors) huddled over a computer from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. My eyes hurt. It is physically uncomfortable. I love to be outside. I like to move. On a daily basis, the indoor quality of technology combined with online workload feels like a trap.
(Technology on a nondaily basis, however, is exciting. The chance to explore new landscapes and languages is fascinating. The possibilities of Web 2.0 and how I use technology on a daily basis are at odds with each other.)

I agree, as people living in the 21st century we are tethered to our computers, blackberry's, ipods and cell phones and loose the excitement of knowing technologies. How do you think you could dodge the trap of technology?

Multi-connections

by Myoungsun

Myoungson, can you elaborate on your image? Do you use technology as a way to juggle you world around your culture and living and going to school in the U.S.?

Emoti-English & Emoti-Korean

Hongkyu

Hongkyu, I love how you created steps, or blocks that seem to build on each other. Technology at it's core is made with scaffolding!

networked self

image by Mary Elizabeth Meier

Mary Elizabeth, I looks like you have trapped or having an internal struggle using technologies. I know you use technology with much of your teaching, does this image describe that interconnection of life outside the classroom and life within the classroom?

inside outside

Am I inside the computer? or I am the computer? Does my avatar wants to come out? or I want to become my avatar living in the virtual space?

by christine

These are all great questions to ask ourselves when reflecting on how we use technology in our own lives and how we build that bridge to enter into an educational space.

Lets have a Discussion!

Step 1: Read the posted PDF:
Sweeny,Robert. (2004) Lines of Sight in the "Network Society": Simulation, Art Education, and a Digital Visual Culture. Studies in Art Education, 46(1), 74-87.

While reading consider these questions:
How can we use the technologies our students have at hand to create a richer learning environment?

Castells states that the “network society” is a shift in traditional notions in space and time. Is this a positive or negative shift? Does this shift impact a culture of simulation?

Will the creation and expansion of the “cyborg pedagogy” impact students negatively?

Using the internet as the basis for this discussion, Sweeney’s article sites Castell’s “network Society” as the a tool for educators to use in order to dissect and understand the “increasingly complex visual networks. Do you agree?


Step 2: Once you’ve read the article, post your thoughts provoked by the questions, or comments you would like to discuss.


Step 3: Sweeny uses Miroeff’s proposition that “visual culture is based upon the societal impulse to represent information in a visual manner. [The art is] not created from one medium, in one place…” (79). "The argument that visual culture is not based on the image, but on the existence of that image and its creation from multiple sources opens new doors for us (art educators) to use visual culture as a portal to aesthetic theories and practices in our classrooms. Allowing students to draw from their identity or experiences and visually represent themselves through mash-ups, remixes, or multimedia students are challenged to become part of the “network society”. Student’s participation in the internet and with technologies presents them with the opportunity to critically analyze the individual as their notions of identity and visuality have changed. We have the opportunity to critique “the self reflected in the computer and the computer reflected in the self, within the network society” (83).

Once you’ve read the article and posted your comments use Photoshop, or similar software to create an image reflecting yourself and your use of technology. Think about how you use technology or the Internet on a daily basis. I will have one posted for an example. Post the Image to the Web 2.0 Pedagogy blog I’ve created at http://web2pedagogy.blogspot.com/ by the end of the week.

DiDio: Step 3

The Internet is a large part of my day. It is the communication, information, and social part of my life. Sometimes when I look at the clock I am shocked at the amount of time I have been on line and exactly what I have accomplished.

I've asked myself that same question about 100 times, where does the time go? Do you think technology is an empty vortex people can easily get sucked into? If so, how do you think educators using the Internet in their classrooms can try to help their students avoid getting sidetracked by the nonexistent boundaries surrounding the web?

I liked this idea that there is a mutual relationship between computer and user. I started to think that maybe my computer encompasses much more of my identity then I thought, so I placed myself in there.

The question is how much? Do you feel lost without your laptop? How would you get along if it was stolen?

I'm interested in how technology can be used to create computer-generated visual image representations and identities. Identity is frequently played with in social networking sites. I used Adobe Illustrator to create a simulation of myself.

You could use the same technique you used for your image to create artwork if you were having a discussion about gender or identity on the Internet with your students. Users have the ability to become anything and anybody they want, can this be dangerous if educators are using a forum like this blog in the classroom?

I reflected on how I use technology and how it impacts my life and identity. I included the photos of me with my keyboard representing both my love and hate for my dependence on technology, I would be lost without my computer. Is that ok? I included my DIGITAL camera, to think about my need for immediate, fast, and quick production. I used my computers camera to create the images, falling into the category of simulation, what I created is not a group of photographs, but a simulation of them.

How to post your image:
To respond with your comments click the pencil icon below. There is a button on the Posting tool bar (3rd button from the right) that allows you to add an image. If you save your image as a GIF file it will upload faster, and have a smaller file size (recommended).

If you choose to create a machinima or some other type of video file there is a button in the posting tool bar that looks like film that will allow you to upload video to your comment. Save your video for Streaming or the web so that the file size is small. You can save it with the same parameters used to save youtube.com files.

Look for an email from me, through the course angel site, with the login information so you can all upload your images and make comments.

Have fun!
Lindsay