Week 12 - "Peer Assessment of another groups film"

                               

 

 

 

 It's show time!

During this week’s final workshop, we were able to watch the films from all the other groups in this tutorial. Wow! It was an honour to see such great work, effort, and time that was put into making these films. What an amazing experience it was to see what the other groups created through incorporating all three strands of Visual arts, Drama, and Media arts. In comparison to our group’s film, there was a huge range in the types of puppets that were used these included: shadow puppets e.g. little red riding hood, finger puppets, other forms of creativity such as Barbie dolls, and hand puppets. However, when it came to peer assessing another group’s film using the rubric, I have to admit it was hard as all films pinpointed each aspect that had to be covered. Surprisingly, it was interesting in looking at ways for improvement for my group’s film as well as another group’s film.

 Overall, the whole unit of EDUP 3008 creative arts 2 was an amazing experience that I have learnt so much from! From starting this semester, I was not confident as how I am now. This is due to such amazing tutors i.e. Robyn Gibson, Miranda Jefferson, and Victoria Campbell who enlightened a completely new perception where I believe that it will be great and effective to incorporate everything I observed, did, and learnt into my classroom. This allowed me to take into account that it is important to give students wide opportunities to experience what there involved in when learning and making meaning with the topic. From this unit and with the integration of other KLA’S , leads students to participate in all forms, where they have the ability to express themselves, imagine far beyond expectations and most of all make fun in what they do when engaged in the lesson. Thank you to Robyn, Victoria and Miranda for a very interesting, new, meaningful semester.

Marking Rubric-

Take a look at our final product - We present to you 'Ciny Cinders (Cinderella'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCE19LNxM5Q&feature=youtu.be

Week 11 - Media Arts Workshop 'Production and re-editing of the Cindy Cinders (Cinderalla) Video'

                 

  

              

              Production and Re-editing...

"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.”

(Albert Einstein)

Wow! What a fun experience it has been so far, I really enjoyed working as a group in making this film. I have already thought about ways I could incorporate this into my classroom and believe or not I cannot wait to make use of this experience in my classroom several times in many different ways. During this workshop, we had the opportunity to focus on the final touches for our film where my group collaboratively worked together in editing the film. Although this was quite challenging and new to us, while editing we were able to understand the elements of Media Arts deeper and made a richer connection of film making with the curriculum. This entailed my group and I, by developing and realising the concept through looking at digital moving pictures, applying language and sound to capture the critical moment. The ideas that we wanted to include changed throughout filming where we discovered room for improvement such as background, setting, and lighting. Luckily as a group, we were fortunate enough to incorporate all our ideas together and compose, edit our film on the fairy tale Cinderella.  

One aspect I loved about today’s workshop was the fact that working together really helped me to work through the editing process in making the film. I loved how we were given the opportunity to be creative with our puppets, voices, editing and so on. As I would do the same in my classroom when working with primary aged students. This leads to my belief where it is crucial for  children to learn about, understand and participate in the processes of the film making, editing, composing and final touch ups. Not only do students feel their ideas, input and collaboration and student motivation is appreciated but it also enlightens students imagination on the process of technology with media and its links with other Key Learning Areas. The filming and editing process are forms of communication and help children develop their ability to control this communication and create a dialogue with their peers (Anderson, M. & Jefferson, M., 2009).

Anderson, M. & Jefferson, M. (2009). Teaching the screen: Film education for generation next. Allen & Unwin: Sydney.

Week 10 - Literature lecture (Robyn Ewing) 'What makes a quality literary text' ?

                  Quality Children's Literature

Robyn Ewing's Lecture -

This week’s lecture we were fortunate enough to have Robyn Ewing to talk about ‘Quality children’s literature’ and their use in the classroom. From my perspective I know it that all teachers should and will at some point incorporate and make use of quality children’s literature. However, from year 1 of my course up until this lecture I noticed and took into account how important it is to ensure teachers use quality children’s literature in a classroom. From the collections of quality children’s literature books I have, this lecture enlarged my list by taking noting of other authors and books I would like to add for my collection. How exciting! Good children's literature has multiple layers of meaning and can be looked at from many different perspectives. It introduces students to new worlds, perspectives and contains themes and topics that children can relate to and understand but that also introduces them to new ideas (Winch, et. al., 2010). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From today’s lecture, I took into account that there is a direct integration between drama activities, quality children’s literature, and imaginative play (Ewing, 2013). I understand there are many meanings beyond the literature of the text where this notion leads to students underpinning the images and artworks of the book. For future teaching implications, I will delve into incorporating a range of quality children’s literature, from what I learnt I know it’s a beginning chapter for students to encounter perspective, imagination, meaning, creativity encouraging them to not only become effective readers  but also to stimulate their imagination.

 

References:

Ewing, R. (2013). Creative Arts in the lives of young children. Camberwell, VIC: ACER Press.

Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy : reading, writing and children's literature (4th ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University.

Week 9: Media Arts Workshop

 

 

Rules of third - Elements of Media Arts

A continuation from the lecture was the Media Arts workshop led by Miranda Jefferson. We began the workshop with a very engaging, group game called “Wink Assassin” which led us to think about eye focus, direction, space, control of body and eye, movement that all relate to the process and conception of film making. We revisited the elements of media arts, which were composition, time, space, sound, movement, and lighting. So in this workshop, we looked at new information like the three rules that are considered to be important when composing a film. These are the rule of thirds, movement, and perspective.

At first before entering the room I thought Media Arts might be challenging and difficult for teachers to incorporate and for students to understand, but from this workshop and up until when my future teaching commences. I learnt that the more and more students are exposed to media at an early age, through the internet, television and computer games, it is becoming more and more vital to develop students ability to critically analyse the media and us it effectively (Gibson & Ewing, 2011).

From this workshop and implications for my future teaching, I take aboard the importance of introducing the concepts to the students at the beginning of the lesson; this could be done by incorporating a game to effectively engage students. By allowing students to think/pair/share through looking at a range of images and how they have been set and captured,  can lead to the features of film making, where students share their ideas with their partner. Finally they then share  their insight to the classroom which can enrich students to develop imaginative skills as well as it allow them to view other peers perspective taking into account the various examples demonstrated. "In the development of film narrative, an intimate understanding of the processes involved provides the best preparation for an understanding of how narrative makes the journey from the imagination to the screen." (Anderson & Jefferson, 2009, p. 15).

The Rule of thirds (as above) refers to how the objects in the image have been positioned in terms of controlling the direction of the eye and when it is being viewed.  The four points where the lines overlap demonstrate the strongest focus of the images to the audience. 

  Reference:

Anderson, M., & Jefferson, M. (2009). Teaching the screen: Film education for generation next. Sydney: NSW:  Allen & Unwin.

Gibson, R. & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the Arts. NSW, Australia: Palgrave Macmillan.

Week 8: Media Arts Lecture

 

What are the Media Arts ?

 

This week’s lecture was lead by Miranda Jefferson, which is a new aspect of creative arts in the NSW Australian Curriculum. Having said that, I was very excited and willing to delve into this component of the unit, as I have never had a chance to learn more about it.  Nowadays technology is rapidly growing and increasing through today’s world with many more expectations to come, so children have experienced and seen the range of technologies out there, which are linked closely with Media Arts. Walsh (2004) believes “Literacy practices of students outside school reveal engagement with mobile, gaming, and digital technologies with less interest in reading and writing print-based texts, particularly literature.” (p.14). I strongly believe this to be as it enhances a child’s learning through engaging them with the use of technology but also integrating other Key Learning Areas with Creative Arts and other curriculum areas. This helps to support student’s learning and engagement in making meaning with media arts as well as connecting ideas from other peers as collaborative team. Moreover, an assessment idea for teachers could be the use of film making, but it also allows teacher’s and future teacher’s like myself, to integrate film making with all of the creative arts strands by making connections to other KLA’S like: English through writing a script, drama; through role play. Film learning is an example of a sociocultural approach to learning because learning in this area relies heavily on the collaboration of learners who bring their own unique knowledge and backgrounds to the creative learning process. Film is a collaborative art form." (Anderson & Jefferson, 2009, p.12).

 

References:

Anderson, M., & Jefferson, M. (2009). Teaching the screen: Film education for generation next. Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

Walsh, M (2004). Multimodal literacy: researching classroom practises: Primary English Association (e:lit). - New Literacy practises.