Skip to main content

What Do Creative Humans Do In School?

What Creative Humans Do In School
When I saw the Barcode Transformation ds106 design assignment I immediately gravitated to it. After reading Ken Robinson’s, Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education,I have come to understand the typical public school system as a concept emerging from the modern/industrial era. Ken Robinson also refers to “No Child Left Behind,” and high stakes testing that is part of the current educational landscape for K-12. He even refers to the barcode system and children viewed as products with an expiration date. Ken goes on to describe people as creative human beings that would be best served under an ‘organic system’ rather than a robotic, industrial system. So in response to finishing “Creative Schools” I created this illustration with a propaganda feel utilizing the barcode assignment on ds106.

For the past three weeks, I have been totally immersed in the narrative of Ken Robinson. I’ve watched his videos on TED and I’ve listened to podcasts and various other interviews in conjunction with listening to his audio book “Creative Schools.” Needless to say, I’ve been imagining the industrial educational system in my head as gears, assembly lines, and barcodes. So when I set about to create this illustration, I looked for art inspiration and assets that felt industrial. I was able to find some vectors of the figures and the school house on shutterstock for download. The gears I created myself in Adobe Illustrator along with the text, barcodes, and overall composition. I set my composition to A4 setting to create a mock-up as a magazine spread. In a way, this combines elements of other design assignments to make a more comprehensive project. Here is a brief tutorial on how to make a magazine layout as A4 size. Basically, the assignment was rated 2.5 stars so I needed to bump it up some.

The composition came about by playing with the various vector shapes, scale, color, and contrast to get the desired layout. The biggest chore was using the pathfinder tool to crop out the ‘barcode’ lines on each figure. The pathfinder tool is sometimes picky about how shapes are separated and combined to trim, divide, merge, etc. I found the trim function in the pathfinder palette to be most effective, although there were some stray shapes generated. I just deleted any unnecessary artifacts and re-ordered the layers over the other element to get the ‘crowd’ look. My favorite part of the barcode elements is how the figures sort of dripped down into the area where the serial codes are implemented, along with, the ‘standardized tests’ text that is combined with numbers. Overall this was another really rewarding assignment that delivers meaning to my focal topic ‘the importance of creative arts in education.’

Citations

Aronica, Lou; Robinson, Ken Ph.D. Creative Schools the Grassroots Revolution That’s Transforming Education. 2015. Narr. Robinson, Ken Ph.D.
Tantor Media. May 8, 2015. Accessed June 20, 2015. Digital File.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VR ‘Redefining’ How We Design

SAMR: REDEFINITION. Image courtesy of Christina Moore 2017. In recent years virtual reality (VR) technologies have gained popularity for enhancement of a myriad of industries and experiences. It’s hard to dispute VR has the potential to transform. It’s exciting to consider exploring these technologies for the purpose of education, but before putting VR into practice in the classroom, it’s important to apply the study of theory to VR potential. The SAMR model (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition) is a great way to apply rather basic theory to VR tech. Although it’s possible VR practitioners and learners can traverse SAMR, based on how VR is used, “redefinition” may be the most impactful way to demonstrate use of these technologies for learning. Redefinition, in regards to SAMR, refers to the ability for technology to “create tasks and ways of learning that were previously inconceivable.” (Technology Is Learning 2014) From the perspective of a CAD and Int...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Discourse and Creativity Express Meaning

Moving from literacy and ‘new literacies’ to D iscourse. In chapter one of New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning Ed by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel . I learned about literacy as a historical concept and a social practice. I also learned about new literacies as ‘paradigmatic’ and ‘ontological’ (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011, p. 27). In chapter two I began to learn more about literacy as a social practice through Discourses and encoded texts. “Hence, literacies are ‘socially recognized ways in which people generate, communicate, and negotiate meanings, as members of Discourses, through the medium of encoded texts.”  (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011, p. 50). As a social practice one can think of literacy as observable ‘things’ humans do with their bodies and minds to create meaning. Lankshear and Knobel cite the work of Scribner and Cole to describe these practices as “consisting of three components: technology, knowledge, and skills. (ibid,: 2...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Is Your Passion Archetype Character Buzzfeed Quiz

Archetype Collage (Buzzfeed quiz cover) What are your natural aptitudes? Based very loosely off of multiple intelligences. Are you the Artist, the Technologist, the Naturalist, the Performer, the Musician, the Poet, the Athlete, Puzzle Fighter, or the Renaissance Man or Woman? Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/421860690073254141/ Diana Ziv - http://zivcreative.blogspot.com.au/ A Meaningful Assignment This week I focused on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory and Ken Robinson’s The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything . In so many ways this scholarship resonated with chapter seven in the Lankshear and Knobel text as well as my focal theme ‘the importance of creative arts in education.’ I wanted to find a ds106 assignment that could help me synthesize scholarship with ‘new literacies’ application. The literacy dimensions and cultural appreciation in order to craft a Buzzfeed personality quiz that has humor and meaning is really challen...
Post a Comment
Read more