“Interaction and Teaching in a Digital Age” by Caprim

I really liked Caprim’s described activity for an interaction. Ted Talks are a great resource for students and the take on “Ceci ne pas une pipe.” is a great way to help students open up a dialogue about what it means to make art. I am a little concerned about the length of the video and the sophisticated language that’s generally used in Ted Talks. For the most part the video uses a lot of complicated dialogue which may be hard for Grade’s 6-8 to understand or pay attention to for a prolonged period (10 minutes is a long time for a child to watch someone talk, especially if the subject is complicated or abstract). For example, in my education, art teachers did not start bringing in abstract concepts about art like this until Advanced Placement courses in High School and then throughout University. I do believe the deconstruction of preconceived notions of art can start to be broken down earlier like at Grades 6-8, but I would be cautious about potentially overwhelming the students.

The exercise Caprim is describing is actually a common and extremely helpful exercise that exists in classrooms today called a Blind Contour. The activity is known to improve student’s understanding of abstract space, coordination, and ability to let go of the demand for “perfect replication”. Traditionally Blind Contours allow the student to see the object, but they are not allowed to look at the paper for the full duration of the exercise. I really like how Caprim took this one step further by removing the aspect of sight entirely, so that students are only able to envision what is happening with their minds eye. I think an exercise like this can really help lessen how ‘seriously’ art is often taken by the artists in their desire for perfect representation.

“Interaction Prompt” by Zihan Bai

I think this video would work well for kids in grades 6-8, its basically a crash course in how to compose art, but its done through animated characters, bright colors and slides, which may help keep their attention. Note-taking by writing on paper is a great and classic way to help students remember what they are hearing, its a strategy I use almost daily myself. In addition to note-taking Amy suggests a drawing activity, I really like this applied method where students need to try and replicate the strategies they see in the video. I also like the idea of sharing the drawings with each other afterwards, however I don’t know how I feel bout having peers select the “best” drawing. By having a peer reviewed best, you are including competition in the assignment. Art is a very sensitive topic for a lot of students, and “losing” is usually not taken well. There’s also some flaws where the most popular students work may be picked over the best applied work, and this could come as a hit to other student’s confidence.

Instead I believe it would be better if choosing the best work was taken out of the activity all-together, and instead was replaced either with interaction from the teacher addressing the works or through independent self reflection.