http://www.daniela-reimann.de/

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An interactive book for teachers in high school
By Pierre Pepin, Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale Florida, USA

Teacher training/ Teaching methods

Using Multimedia Process, Through Arts, Sciences, and Technology, for Educators…
As an educator at the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale, my students come from different cultural backgrounds. Most of them are American but many also come from Latin Countries such as Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Porto-Rico…. This multicultural environment reoriented my strategies and approaches to teaching sciences, multimedia, and technology through art. For the last fifteen years, my teaching goals have been to experience different avenues on how a multimedia process could help to develop a new level of creativity by integrating the use of sciences and technology.

As the author of this reference book for educators, one of my challenges is to present easy and simple activities to use in the classroom. The purpose of these activities is to help teachers develop different approaches and strategies while using interactive multimedia through art and help them develop an efficient ‘hybrid’ way of teaching. Teachers should deal with the global culture. They should realize that by acknowledging the limitations of the global culture, for anyone but the cultural producers, the markers of identity, they should not reject the global culture altogether. “Teachers should engage with their own cultural heritage but should not retreat into it as if it was unchanging and somehow pure” (Duncum).

Teachers should communicate and preserve basic knowledge about the traditional approaches to art, while strategically facilitating the hybrid approach, which is the combination of traditional and technological components, within the classroom on a daily basis. The direction of my research points towards a new vision of globalization.

The strategic orientation of my book is based on discovery as a starting point for beginning a process of research and analysis by mixing art, technology, and science.

1,2,3, AND YOU ARE IN YOUR WAY…

Three easy steps to use this book…

1. Fist the wheel of reference. Teachers can locate the activity including Sound, Image and Video, mixing Classical approaches and Technology approaches.

2. Description in the book of the proposed activity mixing art science and technology. A step by step of how to how use Computer, Typography, Design Development, Animation 2D 3D, managing Images, Sound, Special Effect etc…

3. And visualization of the a group of activity on a DVD Experimentation with Students and Teachers Quick Time presentation Class Activities Interviews of Specialist, and a references for books, and Web site…

Biography

Pierre Pepin French Canadian Educator, He has more than thirty-five years of experience as a teacher in Art Science and Technology. He is known for his innovative approaches and was trained in the Industry regarding the introduction of art, sciences, and technology through art. His responsibilities consist on the creation of curricula, delivering instructions, evaluating students, developing and implementing strategic plans, and managing projects. He is presently working on a PhD in Media Arts and Technology at the ‘Université du Québec in Montreal, Canada. He is a full time professor at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida teaching undergraduate courses in Graphic Design, Advertising, Multimedia and Animation, Story Conceptualization, and Character Development. He regularly gives lectures and workshops both internationally (Europe, Asia), in the United States, and in Canada. He specialized at developing multicultural approaches and strategies for educators through his PHD in K12, College, and at University level. His book will be released in 2006 and is related to his research in this domain.

Mr. Pepin taught at the School of Visual Art, in New-York, F.A.U. University at the Boca Raton campus, Florida, at the NYIT New York Institute of technology to the Master Degree program in Graphic Design and Advertising, at the Broward Community College south campus, Continuing Education, North Miami where he trained students and adults for the Industry in Graphic Design and Multimedia field. He is a current member of the Art Director’s Club New York, the I.N.S.E.A. International Society for Education through Art), the C.A.A. (College Art Association) in New-York, and the I.S.E.A. (International Society Electronic Art). Pierre Pepin is also the recipient of the Achievement Award from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

Pierre Pepin, full time faculty member at the Art Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
PhD in Art, Interactive Multimedia Sciences and Technology.
For more information 954-253-9534 / e-mail ppepin1234 at hotmail.com

Blogging and social software in education

o Open source software and education (Graham Attwell, PontyDysgu, ITB Bremen)
o Journey to the Blogosphere: An Art Educator’s Reflections on Content and Process, Lori Kent, Queens College, NYC)
At the advice of numerous internet business and marketing sources, I have journeyed to the Blogosphere. In March 2005, I launched Currents: Arts/Education/Culture, a weblog with content that includes current events and artist/educator resources. I report on cultural and technological trends and little bits of individual wisdom absorbed from New York City life. Currents’ voice ranges from the factual, such as exhibition announcements, to the reflective moments brought on by urban teaching.

Overall, I assume that my audience is intelligent, has a creative identity and is curious about trends in culture. Most users, however, are passive readers. Despite the large numbers of visitors to my blog, a disproportionate few choose to comment or participate. I cannot know exactly why but it is my guess that a post sent out to the cyberspace universe can be daunting, or simply that Internet users are slowly adjusting beyond two-way interface communication to true communities online. The new Web allows for visitors to be active, in fact, passive web participation is generally not the norm. Interestingly, the posts that have the most emotional substance elicit the most visitor comments supporting the theory that emotion can be communicated, visited and discussed in an online forum.

My experiences as author are mostly positive ones. I have really enjoyed staying tuned-in to the world for potential Blog content. Because art education is a field that draws from many, many sources, I consider almost any topic bloggable. Publishing a post on ecology, for instance, opens up connections between two worlds. The substance of the Blog has been personal without being self-indulgent. When I inventory my heroes, such as Jane Goodall, Al Gore and Prahba Sahasrabudhe, it is a way of sharing good ideas. Books, new and old, are reviewed and “typelisted” as a result of my constant exposure, as a professor, to what is new and interesting in the arts. Like John Dewey generations ago, I build community, a virtual one, among diverse readers. It is also very positive, as a writer and former designer, to be faced with the daily task of composing, distilling text and choosing illustrations. I consider myself very fortunate to have the technology to be both a consumer and producer of information.

Are there drawbacks to art and art education-themed blogging?...only the relentlessness of writing. There is also the unknown such as identities, thoughts and interests of non-participant visitors. Perhaps, too, there is the disappointment that many art educators may not share my enthusiasm for the possibilities of technology in our lives.

With a purported 70,000 blogs beginning each day, I encourage artists and art professionals to begin their own journeys into this less than ten year-old communication tool. In blogging, the verbal, the visual and the virtual all combine to create great departure-points for ideas and action.

Dr. Lori Kent • loriakent-at-hotmail.com •
o Wales Wide Web by Graham Attwell
Pontydysgu, Wales/ Bremen, Germany)

If you go to any educational technology conference today, you will here talk around Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). But PLEs are not a new platform or application which can be downloaded and installed. Neither are they based on learning content. PLEs are based on the idea that instead of seeking to manage and control learning through Learning management Systems and Virtual Learning environments, we should instead provide learners with powerful tools to manage their own learning. Such tools should not only allow the consumption of learning - through access to externally created learning materials - buts should also help the leaner to express their ideas through creating and sharing digital artefacts. Another key issue is that the leaner should be in control. They can form their own groups and can decide whether and with whom they wish to share their ideas and work.

One of the key strengths behind the idea of the PLE is that it can bring together learning from different contexts - from the home and from work - as well as learning in educational institutions - and can encourage reflection on informal learning. Prototype PLE development builds on Web 2.0 approaches to software development and design and on social software. Social software is software that lets people rendezvous, connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. It supports networks of people, content and services that are more adaptable and responsive to changing needs and goals. Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software. Social software underpins what is loosely referred to as Web 2. Whereas Web 1 was largely implemented as a push technology - to allow access to information on a dispersed basis, Web 2 is a two way process, allowing the internet to be used for creating and sharing information and knowledge, rather than merely accessing external artefacts. Social software is increasingly being used in education and training through such applications as web logs, wikis, tools and applications for creating and sharing multi media and tools for sharing all kinds of different personal knowledge bases including bookmarks and book collections. In software terms, rather than monolithic vendor driven and designed applications, Web 2 and social software is based on the idea of ‘small pieces, loosely connected’ utilising commonly recognised standards and web services for linking ideas, knowledge and artefacts. Social software offers the opportunity for narrowing the divide between producers and consumers. Consumers become themselves producers, through creating and sharing. One implication is the potential for a new ecology of ‘open content, books, learning materials and multi media, through learners themselves becoming producers of learning materials.

Social software has already led to widespread adoption of portfolios for learners bringing together learning from different contexts an sources of learning and providing an on-going record of lifelong learning, capable of expression in different forms. The idea of the Personal Learning environment is in effect a Web 2, social software concept. Although we still are unsure of what exactly a PLE is, there would appear to be a common understanding that PLEs provide tools and functionality for creating knowledge, as well as consuming it. Furthermore, there seems to be a common agreement that a PLE will facilitate connections between people and between different software applications.

To find out more about Graham Attwell’s ideas on the future of e-learning visit his web