Reviewing a Helpful Blog

I have chosen to look at a blog run by a Mr Tony Pritchard, who is a course leader on a Diploma Design for Visual Communication. He uses his blog to showcase design ideas that he uses in his teaching.

"My teaching and design philosophy relates to my belief that an understanding of the fundamental design principles such as visual language (colour, form, structure, composition, etc), typography and information design is essential to being an effective visual communicator."

(Tony Pritchard)

He posts videos he has made (posted via vimeo) of art techniques and talks about how he uses them in his teaching, ranging from videos looking at people and their sketchbook work to people working on their pieces ready to showcase in art exhibitions

This is a video revolving around 20th century typography he has made and it looks at the concept that typography is constantly developing.  I think this will be a good blog to look at and research for my own teaching purposes due to it being well formatted, very informative and professional.

Resources:
http://tonypritchard.wordpress.com

AnyMeeting

Today we attempted to use an online group meeting, using the online software called AnyMeeting, it seemed like it would be a helpful piece of software but sadly we were plagued with problems.

The software enables the tutor to run an online classroom where the students can be present with their microphones enabled as well as their webcams as to be completely interactive. the tutor can then use the software to show presentations (powerpoint etc)

and allow the student to give real time feed back and answer real time questions.

Although i like the concept of this online software and think it would be beneficial for the classroom where a classroom was not available it did not work well for us today, due to the wireless network provided by the college there was sound/camera lag which had heavy implications on the all round use of this software.

Also available through this online software is the ability for the main tutor to share a second screen which for showing a presentation and still being able to see all the students in the session is also a big plus because i noticed when you show a presentation you only see a limited amount of students.

Powerpoint Presentations

Microsoft PowerPoint is somewhat simple to use, and that is one of the reasons it can be so beneficial to teaching, the simplicity of it is one of its biggest selling points, the ability to go from nothing to a presentable piece of work in a short amount of time is definitely one of its best points.

Talking about using PowerPoint in teaching art and design may seem like it is not that much of a helpful teaching tool.  Using PowerPoint to show multiple images, which have been sourced from multiple different sources like online, books, photographs and others, but compared to holding up multiple materials it is one of the most helpful tools available.

Using PowerPoint was a big part of completion of projects in university for me, each time a project was coming to a close we were given the task of presenting our work to the group for peer assessment and to build our skills at talking in front of people.  It was up to you whether you wanted to hold up your books and final pieces of work or make a presentation.  The ease of doing a presentation with a PowerPoint built showcasing your work was not only more professional but it made the whole experience of talking in front of a group a million times less stressful.

Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud

"So whats my wish? My wish is that we design the future of learning.  We don't want to be spare parts for a great human computer, do we?"

The idea of leaving a computer out in a place where people have never used one seems like a waste of time but as Sugata Mitra saw it, it was an invitation for children to investigate technology and an invitation for children to teach amongst themselves.  It sounds bizarre that the children he talks about had never used a computer and in just a few months they learnt to use and understand what it was without any guidance from teachers.

The concept or his wish, as he calls it, is brilliant, the idea that a whole selection of different learning materials from mentors all over the world could be taught from the cloud to people all across the world is the type of concept that reinforces the need for technology in education.  The whole system running from one location with only one person monitoring the facility yet having the ability to give education to anybody in the world could be the future of teaching, the future of schools.

He talks about what he calls ‘SOLE’ which stands for ‘Self Organized Learning Environments’ which is somewhat of a strange concept. Making the teachers ask a question and then stepping back from the interaction almost completely and letting students discover through using the internet show just how much technology is vital in the future of learning.

References:

https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud/transcript?language=en

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sugata-mitra/2013-ted-prize_b_2767598.html

Using Online Mind Map Software

For me using mind maps in my work has always been something that is quick and full of scribbles, a piece of work, which Is there for quick thinking. Throwing ideas onto paper without the intention of ever tidying it up and using it to look back on. 

From using them for years in this way, I don’t see the need for online software to make them look all neat and tidy, although it seems they are a lot more professional and presentable presented like this. I understand that in some fields that this may be a handy tool for showing your mind maps to other people but is it really better than having a huge piece of paper and multiple people throwing ideas down?

I looked at a few web based programs which do just this, they help you present your mind map in a professional way, although I completely think www.bubbl.us is not a good example of these programs (It is not nice to look at, from a design perspective)

I searched and found www.coggle.it which I made the embedded mind map on and I think it is a much better looking piece of software, it is simple to use and is very user friendly and if the idea of using this software to present mind maps then that should be the highest priority.