Week 8 Assignment: Final Project Workshop
In Partnership with Stephanie Sinwell, Stefanie Koseff, Selin Miskavi, Athia D. Fadhlina
Topic:
Our group decided to create a learning activity/prototype based on cyanotypes- which is a early version of camera-less photography that involves chemical and sun exposure. It was originally used as a method to easily document and archive botanicals, etc.
We thought that creating cyanotypes with students would be a great opportunity to introduce chemical reactions as well as creative expression and possibly the introduction of physical computation by building the UV boxes themselves.
This week we started off by trying to create cyanotypes ourselves using a UV light and photosensitive paper and also set some learning objectives for possible lesson plans. We also came up with three ideas for possible prototypes such as creating cyanotype postcards, cyanotype fabric patches, and teaching the process of building a UV box for creating cyanotypes.
Our process and milestones are documented in the group documents linked below.
︎︎︎Link to Milestone 3 Documentation
︎︎︎Link to Milestone 3 Presentation
︎︎︎Link to Milestone 4 Documentation
Reading Response:
Alexandra Bal, Jason Nolan, and Yukari Seko, “Mélange of Making: Bringing Children’s Informal Learning Cultures to the Classroom ”
This article about the changing landscape of education and DIY making as a societal shift was a very thought-provoking reading for me. It made me realize how much the education industry has changed even in the last ten to fifteen years. It made me think about my own experience in the early education system and how a sense of curiosity was encouraged, but not often to the point where students were empowered enough to make actual changes to infrastructures. One thing that I always did not enjoy when I was in early education was that a lot of real world activities were dumbed down to the level of children in which was considered to be ‘safe’ and ‘appropriate’. I also feel that when I was a student in the education system there was a lot of focus on doing the ‘right’ thing which was to obey the laws of the education system which inherently discouraged students from questioning things and taking action against them. On page 164, the authors address this issue as well as they point out that “ The formal structures and social processes of institutions create barriers that are very difficult to overcome. Schools tend to block the potential for new value systems to be introduced in a hidden curriculum, which is embedded in the very nature of the school system, its internal social structures, and the behaviors and attitudes of its staff.” This point really resonated with me but at the same time I was pleasantly surprised to find out that these kinds of rigid social structures within the education system was now being questioned and re-worked. For so long, it seems that the system has not accepted students who think outside of the box and that a lot of creativity and imagination was suppressed as a result of that. I feel that even as adults in society are constantly questioning and re-working social infrastructures nowadays, such attitudes should absolutely be reflected within the education system as well.
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