I have been always asking myself what is the connection between all we have learnt about the work of art of experts and the work of art of teachers. In the projects of creating the work of art I attempted to find out the relations between it and education. Nowadays it is well recognized that learners should not only learn to appreciate the arts, but also actively participate in creative work. The work of art is a language that most people speak, eliminating differences in culture, educational background, and ability. It can bring every subject to life and turn abstractions into concrete reality. Learning through the arts can result in greater academic achievement and higher test scores. I found that if we can import the work of art of experts into our teaching, the effectiveness of teaching and learning can be greatly increased.

The work of art decreases the diversity of students. Teaching would be more effective if everyone learned in the same way, but not everyone does. In most of the schools today there are more and more students with different cultural, social, and economic backgrounds that result in very different ways of thinking, learning, and behaving. In MSU, over a hundred different languages are spoken. Students with different kinds of abilities and disabilities are in the same classrooms. Students from low class families learn together with students from richer families. Therefore, it is no surprise that teaching primarily through the spoken and written word simply do not reach all these kinds of students.

Moreover, even the students with similar backgrounds perceive and process information differently. It is known to all that there are some perceptual differences in how people take in information. Someone learn effectively by listening, and they do very well in traditional classrooms where most of the information is presented orally. Someone, on the other hand, maintain a visual learning style. They need to have illustrations, charts, and diagrams along with words and numbers. There are also many students who must hold ideas in their hands before they can understand and learn. It is difficult for them to understand the abstract concepts presented verbally without concrete examples. Hence, many students cannot learn well in conventional classrooms. The work of art in photography, film & television, architecture & interior design, music, and fashion facilitate learning for those who are primarily visual. Also it makes all students learn more effectively, remember what they have learned more clearly, and know how to apply what they have learned in a variety of contexts more directly. So the arts not only can be taught as separate subjects but also can be integrated into the curriculum of most of the subjects.

In such a highly visual world our kids are surrounded by the images of television, videos, advertising displays, and other media everyday. Students always respond positively when they are able to learn through the work of art. The use of visual arts in teaching science, geography, and social studies lessons resulted in dramatic increase in speed of learning and retention. 

The same as visual arts we are surrounded by music too. A recent research suggests that music lessons, and even simply listening to music, can enhance spatial reasoning performance. And the studies of Rauscher and Shaw confirm an unmistakable causal link between music and spatial intelligence. 

To assess the effectiveness of the work of art in education, I would like to import a theory about human cognition. The Generative Theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 1997 & 2001) suggests that students learn better from words and pictures than from words alone, since dual presentation of information help students construct verbal and pictorial mental models together and build connections between these models rather than constructing either a verbal or a pictorial mental model.

Human beings can not live without arts. It is like we cannot live a life without feeling. The work of art shows great promise in education. It enables students to fully accept the rich and diverse cultures all over the world; to learn with their cognitive potential; and to be prepared for living and working in a technologically driven world. Our teaching must set our students on a lifelong journey with the arts.

Thoughts on video in education 1

     Like English songs, English videos can be used for an assorted number of language teaching and learning activities. The main difference lies in the fact that you see and hear. Television is however a lazy medium, providing little challenges for the mind, by spoon-feeding the mind with sounds and sights, thereby providing little room for one’s imagination to thrive. So how do we make this lazy medium a useful classroom tool? Lots of ideas come to mind. How about turning of sound and asking students to create the dialogue from a scene? Or how about, getting one part of the class to watch and describe to the others? Yes! How about simply using a freeze frame technique where you watch and pause when it gets very interesting, then ask your students a number of questions about what happens next?

music in language teaching

Module 4 makes me think of the possibility of using music for language teaching. As it is a compelling media we sould really take advantage of the power of music and use it in our language classes."..there is strong evidence supporting the use of music in the ESL classroom. Language and music are tied together in brain processing by pitch, rhythm and by symmetrical phrasing. Music can help familiarize students with connections and provides a fun way to acquire English." From Music and Language Learning by Bob Lake

 

Moreover, Language and culture is a pair of identical twins that are always seen together. Therefore by teaching a language we are teaching culture directly or indirectly. It is therefore not surprising that instruments of culture like music comfortably feature in language lessons.

A BAD EXAMPLE OF RETAIL PLACE

Urban Outfitters sells clothing and housewares to the teens-to-30s demographic. Often, the strategy to appeal to younger consumers plays up "independence" as at Hollister and Abecrombie & Fitch. Urban Outfitters follows this route, but with an interesting twist. Typically, when a designer wants to talk about being modern in an urban landscape, he or she will go for the converted warehouse loft look - exposed brick, wooden floor, maybe even exposed HVAC unites and pipes. Urban Outfitters tries a riskier direction with what might be described as the "unfinished basement" look - exposed 2-by-4s, plywood and pegboard, bad wallpaper. It's the raw look of a converted loft without any of the personality. The loft look is about inserting life into the city. The basement look is about an apathy towards living environment. And that fits with much of the clothing which focuses on retro, ironic, or kitschy words and images that provoke, but don't really convey any meaning.

In order to give a clear view of how many courses can be taught on SL campus, I would like to use the classification of courses in SL by David M. Antonacci and Nellie Modaress (2005). The courses involve activities of person-person, person-object, and object-object interactions can be better learnt in SL than anywhere else.
Person-Person Interaction
For example, students in medical professionals have to know how to interact with patients. Role-playing is a common learning activity for those students. Instructors can move such classes into the clinic center in our virtual campus, and require students to practice their patient-encounter strategies in the virtual world. This a clinic center for learning purpose in SL.
Person-Object Interaction
In these courses, such as designing and building objects, instructors teach students how to operate a piece of equipment or use an instrument. For students who study architecture SL campus could provide a convenient place to try their designs.
Object-Object Interaction
For example, physics, chemistry and geography. By creating objects and scripting them to interact with each other, instructors can simulate many physical or chemical processes. Universities also could have their students interact with the simulated process, changing variables and observing the results, to better understand the relationships among the objects.
Once you identify a course topic falling into one of these interaction combinations, you may have a topic which could be taught better by using virtual campus in SL.

Nowadays students in the universities usually take courses in the classrooms or online. The common online courses can provide students a learning environment where students can read, write, watch video, and listen to audio. But it is not easy to do real world practice. With the help of supplemental courses on SL campus students can expand their learning experience. For instance, universities can have libraries on their SL campus for students who study library science to practice. They can also have clinic center for medical students to practice, hotels for hospitality students to practice, and so on.

Second Life & Learning 2

Understand the advantages of using learning facilities on the platform of Second Life many universities build their virtual campuses in SL for their students. In late 2007, there were already 119 universities in Second Life. More than 80 percent of UK Universities have teaching and learning activities in SL.
Universities such as Harvard University, Texas State University and Stanford University have set up virtual campuses where students can meet, attend classes, and create content together. The Harvard Law School is providing a class called 'CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion' partly in SL. The students who take this course can watch videos, hold discussions, and attend lectures in-world at Berkman Island. (Akela Talamasca, 2006)
Coventry University is pioneering a MSc course in clinical management that holds problem based learning groups for students in SL. The course trains students in managing healthcare facilities.
Other medical schools are developing modules and courses in SL, too. St George's Medical School, part of the University of London, for example, is looking at ways in which SL can be used to help students interact with patients in a simulated environment. (Daniel Stott, 2007)

Green is a magic color. You don’t need them a lot in your picture, but it can still show the liveliness of the subjects. I prefer to live green the only color in the photos to catch more attention on it. The angle of the wall in the photo shows the distance of the wall, and makes people feel that they are actually walking by wall.

Second Life & Learning

Today a new opportunity to enrich the educational experience through media-rich immersive learning has been created by virtual worlds. As one if the most popular virtual worlds Second Life (SL) has attracted more attention due to its large user population and opportunities in different fields.
SL is understood as an internet based application which uses three-dimensional graphics to represent an online environment. Users may download its software and register for free, chose a character (known as an avatar) from an online menu, and then explore the virtual world of SL. Avatars can interact with each other through on-screen dialogue boxes and voice recognition. The most attractive point is that all the buildings and objects in SL are created entirely by its users themselves with SL's simple programming tools. So many people find it is the best place to create their dream land and run business in SL. Some of them even have already made large profits by selling goods or services in SL.
It is difficult to explain the significance of educational use of SL with words. But, once you enter SL and interact with other avatars, you will find its uniqueness and potential to be used in education.
After discovering the benefit of using SL as an educational platform, virtual university campuses are springing up in SL. Instructors and researchers like SL for many reasons. Here are the four major reasons I am going to talk in this essay.