Bad at Sports reaction

When I looked at the website, I didn't know that it was a station for interviewing and art talks. The format of the site is very contemporary with its white and black design. The description of what the people do in this website is a little vague, but mostly it is a palce where the staff does interviews with artists from around the USA and outside of the USA, talking about their art practice and about themselves. It sound s strange that they named a webiste this way, is it because the staff really are not good at sports or that they were good and had to give it up for some reason? It is a interesting site, they provide a list of all the interviews in a podcast format that they had done since 2005. They put up pictures of the works of these artists that they had interviewed as well.

Reaction to Storycorps

After looking through the website, I have to say that i really loved it! This is such a great way to learn about the history or stories of normal people who lived ordinary lives. I have never heard of this organization before coming to this website. I find it interesting that they developed a organization where people can bring their loved ones to and have a menaingful conversation with them about their lives. I found the website very straight forward, it tells you where you can contact them to record your own stories, what you should know about the process of recording your stories, you also get to leave with your own copy of the recorded story that you just made, and they ask if they have your consent to keep another copy of your story in the library of Congress. They also had a link for education where teacher can even make a lesson plan about interviewing and storytelling for their students. This website would be a good example for students on how an interviewing process works. They also have short animations of people's stories as well for the public to watch. The main purpose of this website is to present the stories of people from different backgrounds, beliefs, and thoughts the opporunity to share their stories abotu their lives. The website also gives you links read and listen to other people's stories at any time that you want. It is really a great site and I am glad to have been introduced to something that is so meaningful, especially as it is a way for these people to open their heart to the world and have the world lend their ears to hearing this person's story.

Digital Interactives at the Art Institute

In our class on Thursday night, we were able to go to the Art Institute of Chicago to try out their new digital interactive ipads that they had installed in one of the gallery. It was really cool that the museum was able to install these devices within a gallery space. You had your choice of picking a piece of art, pushing any of the numberd labels that were on the piece in order to find out more information about that part of the art work. It also gives you a detail summary of the name of the piece, what time period it is from, and where it came from. There was another button that gives you related stories or information about the time period, country, or something else that relates with the art work. For works that were three dimensional, you are given the option to press the "360 degrees" key to rotate the 3D piece all the way around. The only flaws I would have to say about these devices is that the ones that were attached to extended wires to the benchs in that gallery space were not padded with something that can protect it from breaking if it falls. People usually come to the museum with their families, and if they are with little children, they might want to play with the ipads on the bench and they might damage them if they start banging them on the bench or accidently dropping them to the ground. Plus they might try to pull the ipad away from the bench and break the wire. The other negative about this is that there are not too many of these devices around, it is only installed in a few places. Some of the ipads had a holding stand to keep the ipads in place, but I feel like by doing that it can also be in the way of people's spaces, people who bump into anything. So if they came up with a better idea of how they can use and install the digital interactive device in a place or way in which it will not be in the pathway of the people walking around. Another negative about the ipad is that you are not really looking at the real art work that is front of you, instead you are staring continuously at a picture of that same piece and reading the information that is already in there, so it kind of takes you away from paying attention to the actual work. 
    However, it would have be great if they had put a zoom button as one of the choices so that if a person wanted to take a closer look at a piece of work, they can zoom in on it. The only ipad that I saw that can do that was in the Picasso and Chicago exhibit that I went to see with my classmate aftetrwards. The ipad was next to a display case where a book was locked in. On the ipad, it gives you the opportunity to flip through the book, to rotate the book, move the book around, and a zoom button if a person wanted a closer look at a piece of art in the book. Overall it was a good attempt.

Trying to find contemporary artist

So I'm trying to find out where is the best place to find contemporary artists of today. I know in Thesis 1 yesterday Karyn mentioned going to the New York Times or Chicago Times to look for artists, someone else mentioned the magazines or some other stuff. I only ask because I tried looking in google and being that the internet is so big with information about artists I still had trouble finding one, I'm still trying to look for a good one that I can use for reference for my thesis. I will try the magazines I guess...

Action Research in education

I never heard of action research before reading the articles that we had to read in our Thesis 1 class. It is an intereting way of researching, you are actually going out into the world and researching the community, schools, students, or teachers of that place by talking with them and asking questions. You do alot of observation in action research and there are many other ways of doing this sort of research than just observing. I'm still not sure how I'm going to go about doing action research or what methods would I use yet, I'm sure I will know when we do start doing the action research process itself.

Art Institute and CPS website

In reading the Art Institute's website, I found it interesting and great that they provide workshops and programs for teachers from all grade levels and subject matters to come in order to learn how to incorporate better teaching methods of teaching art. They also teach teachers how to incorporate art into their curriculum. From the CPS website, it is helpful that they provide links to teachers and parents that can help guide and show them ways in which their student or child can have a succesful pathway in education. These links are useful in which the goal is to provide better ways of teaching students in order for them to go on and success in school.

Artist that I like

This artist's works are really interesting. I love tha fantasy and details that he put into his works. His name is Tomek Setowski. Here is his website http://www.setowski.art.pl/main.php. It's so cool.

Scenarios USA

Went to the Scenarios USA meeting yesterday. It was very interesting the talks that the presenters gave. Its cool that they are doing lesson involving often times hard questions for these teens in order to have them ponder about and give their own interpretations and thoughts to subjects on identity, gender, power, and so on. Glad that I went!