3.3 EBook

3.2. Conversations and Critique in Cyberspace

In New Opportunities for Interest-Driven Arts Learning in a Digital Age, the author, Kylie Peppler writes that critique is important part of student's learning process. In the section, "Conversations and Critique in Cyberspace," Peppler points out that digital platform is a great resource to make critiques easier because everyone can join the online conversations from their phones and computers. From critiquing, students can expand more on their ideas, reflect, and question. Critiques are important part of student's growth in learning.

Peppler's statement connects well with my learning objective. I stated that I would like to think continuously on how technologies can be a great learning resource for my future students. Peppler gave me a great idea that online critiques can be great learning resource for my students. I never thought of online communities like that. Through the reading, I realized that by teaching students how to participate in online critiques well, it will have a positive impact on their learning growth.

3.1. Digital Collage

For my digital collage assignment, I chose the subject, National Museum of African American History of Culture because it recently opened in Washington D.C. and it's such a historic opening in our nation. I am from Washington D.C. and am sad that I didn't get to go the opening. I am also amazed by the architecture of the museum, so I decided that drawing the museum would be interesting with paint tools in Photoshop because the architecture itself has a lot of textures. Photoshop offers many different brush tools and I thought that it would be fun to describe the architecture's texture with them. Here is my result:

2.3. On/Off Experiment Part 2

For my artistic response to my on/off experiment, I decided to create a physical Facebook button and place it on the things I would approach without using Facebook. An example is below where I found out that my roommate received a bouquet of flowers from her boyfriend because it was their two year anniversary. I thought it was so sweet and placed the Facebook like button on top of the bouquet. It made the flowers look more special and more recognizable. It suddenly had more meaning to it with just a Facebook like button on top. It was more interesting as well because the Facebook like button is such an animated graphic where as the flowers were realistic. The combination of two made it look more entertaining and fun to look at.

2.2. On/Off Experiment Part 1

I am on Facebook all the time. Facebook is where I catch up on the current news, entertainment, and cute cat videos. For my on/off experiment, I decided to quit Facebook. It was really difficult on first day because I turn on Facebook on my phone the minute I wake up in the morning. I usually check Facebook to look at the current news and see if any of my friends has a birthday that day. Few hours had passed on my first day without Facebook and I already felt so isolated and lonely. I missed the like button and felt like I was missing out.

To see the current news, I went onto CNN.com. It was a different experience for me to read the news on CNN because I am so used to Facebook's short and summarized news. Facebook also has comment section where I can go on to read other's opinion, but CNN.com did not have this feature which made me feel more lonely. I kept wondered, what are others saying about this or that news? I wanted to talk to people about the current news, so I went to my roommate's room and started a conversation with her. We have been both busy with school and work; and haven't talked to each other for a while. We talked about what was going on at our school and New York City. It was really refreshing to finally talk to someone in person and it made feel less lonely. I also thought that it was a better conversation as well because you could read the person's body language when talking in person and you didn't have to wait for their response like you would online.

A day without Facebook was definitely difficult for me. I felt very isolated and frustrated. I was really attempted to go onto Facebook because I wanted to see what was going on in the world. However, it made to do a different action such as talking to people in person and it was good exercise. When you are too consumed by the digital world, you forget to talk to real people about real subject. Turning off Facebook actually made me feel part of the real world again.

2.1. eEtiquette

I cannot agree with this statement more. When I was working as a graphic designer at a corporate, there were millions of files archived for each graphics request. My design team had a folder naming rule so that we can find the files easily. If an employee from another department requests a certain file and we can't find it, it becomes a huge deal because so much time would be wasted to find the file. People need to have their own rule when it comes to naming files because a lot of time and effort will be wasted if they can't find the file.



It's important to protect yourself and others from random unsourced web materials. This also comes from my personal experience where my email address randomly started to send spam mails to my friends. My friends opened the emails thinking it was from me, but it turns out it was a bad spam email. It's crucial to not deal with random ads or emails because your personal information could be at risk and it really does "steal" time from others.



I love this quote! I cannot agree with it more. When I was working at the corporate, since some employees live in another state, we would use a program called WebEx to communicate. Sometimes this can be difficult because you can't read any body languages and some information can't translate well through the computer screen or on the phone. So whenever we have a chance to meet in person, we prefer to do that to avoid any misunderstanding and confusion.

1.4. Program or Be Programmed Chapter 1

After reading the first chapter of Douglas Rushkoff's "Program or Be Programmed," I learned that:

• Online activities allow people to have more freedom and power over what they want to share or say on a certain topic. Since online activities, such as emailing and blogging do not hold any time limit or certain time commitment, people have the opportunity to consider what they would like to say deeply. Because of this, people are able to have more meaningful and rich discussion.
• As new technology inventions come and go, they have changed how we act around them. They have altered how we can map certain places, make appointments, and find people. We depend so much on technology today that it degrades our brain's ability. 

1.3. General Assembly

General Assembly is an educational institution that offers classes in:

• UX/UI design
• Android development 
• IOS development
• Digital marketing
• Web development
• Javascript
• Visual design

Located in New York City, the company helps individuals to master skills in design, technology, and business, to advance and transform their careers. The classes are offered both on campus or online.

1.2. Miguel Chevalier

Miguel Chevalier is a French artist who specializes in digital and virtual art. His most recent work, "Magic Carpets" is an interactive virtual-reality installation that seems to celebrate his love for digital art and today's creative technologies. Chevalier used many technologies, such as sensors, computers, and softwares to create this great work. The carpet is full of colors, geometric shapes, and multiple motion combinations. Because of the huge size, it also allows the audience to interact with it easily. The carpet has a sensor which reacts and produces different virtual scenes when the audience moves on top of it. Both adults and children enjoy being on the carpet and this is one of the reasons why this work is so successful. It creates a fun environment and entertaining digital experience for all age groups. At the same time, the carpet recognizes today's innovative technologies and celebrates infinite creative solutions.

Video source: http://www.miguel-chevalier.com/

1.1. About Seung

Seung is an art/design educator and a graphic designer. She received her BFA in graphic design at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2014. Her interest in art and design education grew when she designed typography workbooks for her senior thesis. She briefly worked with middle school students at Baltimore Design School to develop the workbooks and realized that she wanted to continue immerse herself with art and design education. She is currently a masters student at Teachers College, Columbia University and is studying art education.

During the MICA years, Seung was introduced to many different technologies, such as 3D printing, laser cutting, vinyl cutting, web codings, and Adobe Creative Suites. With technologies becoming very important part of art education, Seung is very excited to broaden her technology experience and learn new skills through the course.