Week 16 Reflection –Sheryl Lamme
Multimedia Composition – ‘Noise Day’ a poem by Shel Silverstein
In my introduction for this course I recall noting that I’ve been accused of being overly detail oriented. As I reflect, this closure is no exception. How could I possibly attempt to summarize this class in 500 words? I enjoy word clouds, such as the one above, and thought that perhaps I could better organize my thoughts with a visual, which utilizes the discussion board text. The more I look at it, the more I realize how much I have learned…. literacy, culture, media, semiotics…I don’t think my word cloud has helped at all!
I feel like I have come a long way, from Week 1, when I didn’t quite understand what visual literacy was, to Week 16 when I’ve just finished posting my ‘comprehensive’ video to YouTube. Some of the early course readings I had to read over and over, highlighting and outlining. I wondered if I stuck the papers under my pillows if it would hasten the comprehension of van Leeuwen.
Now, I find myself analyzing every nuance of every text I encounter. I look for AND find metaphor everywhere. I’ve mentioned in a post that in the music I listen to, I hear with a ‘new’ ear. I’m in total agreement with Sheryl Crow:
I've been wondering if all the things I've seen
Were ever real, were ever really happening
In this age of continual visual bombardment, one must sift through, interpret and make sense of what is real. I feel that this course has equipped me with the tools to do that, and of equal importance, pointed me in the direction to do the same for my own students. Participating in the group lessons and viewing the Unit plans of my peers has given me a nice file of ideas for planning future lessons. Implementing my own Visual Literacy unit plan has proven to be relevant and engaging. There’s no better feeling, when teaching, than to gaze out at one’s students and see that ‘Wow, she GETS it!!!” look on their faces.
At a time when many states and school districts fail to recognize the fine arts as core curriculum, the information I have learned in this course has MORE than adequately prepared me to be a strong and articulate advocate of my program. The passage (p ix) of the Smith-Shank introduction, is stuck firmly in my mind, If we passively interact with images, we accept the messages without critical examination. Perceptions that grow and develop without conscious attention to content and context, and un-interrogated responses to visual input are dangerous to democracy. If the mission of education is to prepare students for successful lives, I believe Visual Literacy should play a key role in education!
Do I feel like I’ve mastered anything? Could you categorize looking at everything with a critical eye as something to be mastered? I feel very proficient at that! However, I feel like I‘ve just touched the tip of the iceberg as far as visual literacy. I feel like the process of being visually literate is one that is ongoing and changing as the world around us evolves at a dizzying pace!
(Please stop reading here if you only wanted to read 500 words!)
In closing I leave you with:
Top Ten Things I Learned While Composing my Multimedia Composition:
10. Despite very limited experience, IMovie 11 is incredibly easy to use.
9. Relying on the images of other people to express what you want to say is sometimes difficult.
8. Relying on stock sound clips to express what you want to say is sometimes difficult. (Garage Band is wonderful for creating your own sound clips!)
7. When your laptop gives you that annoying alert buzz and says that the battery power reserve is running low - STOP working and plug it in. Thankfully IMovie automatically saved my many hours worth of work before the screen went black.
6. Working back and forth between a PC desktop and a Mac laptop can be frustrating, especially when you can’t get a file to email and you can’t find one of the gazillion flash drives that you own.
5. A strong ‘visual’ text easily translates to a multimedia composition. (Note to self when creating lesson for my elementary students!)
4. Multimedia presentation making can be addictive. Packing my husband off to Turkey Camp (where I strongly suspect very little actual turkey hunting takes place), allowed me to work many happy and guilt-free hours on my project.
3. Limitation of IMovie, or maybe just a limitation of the user…There was a place I wanted to stop the ‘Ken Burns’ panning effect, but I could not figure out how to deselect it for just one clip.
2. I wouldn’t say that I have mastered multimodal communication in this project, but working on it provided me with experience and inspiration for future projects, both personal and professional.
1. Now I know how my kindergarteners are capable of destroying a perfectly wonderful painting because they are so engaged in the process of painting. It was hard for me to know when to stop tweaking every little detail!
A Final (This time I promise) Addendum
Cultural Relativity in Action:
A scene from my school last week ~A kindergarten teacher was dropping her students off at the music room, next my room. The music teacher had a sub. As students filed into the room the sub nods at a student and questions the teacher, “Is his eye okay?” The kindergarten teacher stared back questioningly. The substitute teacher repeated her question. Again, the kindergarten teacher stared back, tilting her head in question. The substitute said, “His eye, it’s really pink, is it okay?” The kindergarten teacher burst out laughing, “Sorry, we’ve just been working on our vowels, I couldn’t figure out why you wanted to know if his ‘I’ was okay.”
