2008 February Meeting minutes

Member present: Liliann Ling, Achilles Kjeller, Pinkpeony Trefoil, Kristy Handrick

Discussion: Did you know 2.0 discussion http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

In the for our children and students future, what can art do through technology? Does art education have any responsibility for our childrens future? Social justice, critical thinking, creative problem solving, and risk taking are necessary for them to have.

One high school teacher post this on her blog said that her students think this video

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_t2KAT1Sk)

can represent American culture. Actually many students they think, they criticize culture, environment, and their life. They want to learn. Some students will find meaning in the process of making and others will find importance in community, while others will like discussions most. When you’re watching super bowl commercials, you can kind of tell how we see the world. We were very ethnocentric, however you look at it; one of the scariest things is that, television is so sticky. If you take a look at the impact of the commercials on our youth, why things are marketed a certain way. We learn from what we see. CRITICAL THINKING, reflections, aesthetic discussions. But there is a big concern that teaching in a critical way takes the joy out of some things. By analyzing things to the nth degree, it takes the fun out of them. We need to teach that critical thinking does not mean no humor, no joy but we will be clear about what we are looking at. Teaching in a constructivist way is important because it takes into consideration what students are interested in. Then you can analyze the good and bad aspects of those things. It informs them to help them better understand the big picture and how they analyze interpret their own culture. The sexist of Disney. We want our children to be judged on more than their body, their ability to sing and charm the prince. Media is all about stereotypes. A more constructive criticism is that it reflects 1950s morals and tenets of white Americans. Students want to create their own culture, it defines them. Young people are very aware of the ways in which they create culture they may be affected by media images. We seem to get students to join that aren’t interested in popular trends, or leas they gauge their own sense of identity by how their friends see products, etc. Young people in fine arts typically are very self-aware Facebook, YouTube are all ways of conveying media & content, self-created media and content. Users decide what is important they have ideas, they have thought, media watches it to find out what is cool. Art plays in their lives and how they are able to really create some content videos, blogs etc. Students, younger people tend to live in an endless stream of user defined scenarios. The best content, web, video are created by those that have the media prowess. Disney has craploads of money for instance and a legacy to boot, sports logos, ipods, etc take the site where ppl can create ipod pictures of themselves or WARHOL style images of themselves like on photo booth, the apple software people are hungry for ideas about whats current and how they influence everything. The urgency, the impact, etc can be pursued with a little technology and sharing of ideas. Its hard to get students to leave the wonderment and possibility in the online world.

Achilles Kjeller sharing link: http://mcsdigitalphotography.weebly.com/resource-gallery.html

Field trip: Penn State’s Island in Second Life

Next meeting time: March 2, 6:00pm PST (SL time)