Blog #5

 My most significant accomplishment is multifaceted when comparing my Midterm and my final project.  I feel that I will continue to learn more about Photoshop and continue to use it.  I appreciate the opportunity to utilize the skills I learned in Art Ed 252 and feel I have used them wisely in conjunction with my Big Idea concepts then converting them to visuals. My final was an extension, drill down and continuous improvement of my midterm big idea.  My final project big idea is relative to my college plans, as well as future plans to improve the current day school system in the US.  Using statistics from my research about “at risk” children, I created an interactive pair of home pages; a proactive scenario that prompted challenging, meaningful dialog and the participation of my classmates.  Their participation was much appreciated.  Successful utilization of the Photoshop animation tool is indeed an accomplishment, even though it appeared to be a complicated process at first.  I was able to take my initial thoughts of a slideshow embedded in a Photoshop document and implement that concept using the Photoshop animation tool.  Just a little practice with the Photoshop animation tool allowed me to see what the program could do and how to convert my Microsoft thoughts to a Photoshop document.  Certainly, the in-class demonstration was helpful.

My self portrait was most challenging; using the selection tool was tedious.  With practice, I found comfort with enlargement of the image to in order to see selection better and most of all, deciding which selection tool to use for what task.  My self portrait was frustrating, but meaningful because that is when I started to feel confident about improvement of my Photoshop skills.  My first try at the self portrait was very bad.  I have mastered selection.

For sure my most meaningful work was my final project as the subject matter is about my passion for helping "at risk" children.  I am pleased that the presentation of my Photoshop works came together as a proactive class participation scenario.  

Final Project- Big Idea Drill Down-2 Home Page Proposals

My Big Idea for the final is further expression of my midterm big idea, defining my interest in family and discipline. For this project, family breaks down to parent/guardian and discipline, specifically, drills down to “at risk” students. “At risk” students are children who may have environmental reasons why they are unable to perform to their full potential. It is my intent to provide a possible solution to some issues of educating “at risk” students, for further emphases on maximum participation from the parents. I propose a website that provides opportunities to elevate students to successful graduation from K-12 to high school and assist with preparation for college. 

Daily, I ride by a yard sign at an elementary school and it says, “A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.” I agree and deduce that most parents attempt to educate their children prior to kindergarten; however, too many are unsuccessful and unequipped. Therefore “at risk” students and their teachers begin their relationship at a disadvantage. According to research done by the RAND Corporation, many parents hand their children over to teachers and school administrators expecting them to just complete the education process.  A Rand Corporation research report states, “A series of assessments for a recent nationally representative kindergarten cohort indicate that disadvantaged children enter school lagging behind their more advantaged peers in terms of the knowledge and social competencies that are widely recognized as enabling children to perform at even the most basic level.  Substantial gaps are evident for disadvantaged children in measures of reading and mathematics proficiency, in pro-social behaviors and behavior problems, and in readiness to learn.  For example, although 18 percent of children overall are not familiar with basic conventions of print or writing (e.g., knowing that English is read from left to right and top to bottom, or where a story ends), that fraction is 32 percent for children whose mothers have less than a high school education but only 8 percent for children whose mothers have a college degree or higher. Other risk factors include being in a single-parent family, a family that has received welfare, or a family that does not speak English at home. Thirty-one percent of this kindergarten cohort had one of these four risk factors; another 16 percent faced two or more of them.”

These children start out behind and often can not catch up.  I propose that the school system can make a difference by not only starting to educate children from kindergarten, but include mandatory education for parents simultaneously to begin continuous improvement of parenting. I have been influenced by my first grandchild, and expect her to graduate high school with parental support and go off to college well prepared. 

 Described below, overall website infrastructure, visual strategy and context envisioned:

·         Title:  The Learning Legacy/The Virtual Art Gallery, artistic teamwork promotes continuous improvement for the education of children.

·         Home page:

o    Animation of artwork

o   One central home page for proposal 1

o   Split screen for proposal 2

·         About Us:  Parents, students, teachers and administration working together as a team for continuous improvement for the education of children.

·         The Virtual Art Gallery:

o   The Gallery will be a world renowned place for artist, critics and collectors to conduct art business transactions online.

o   The Gallery will be a showplace for any and all artists, including students, show work on consignment. 

o   Self sufficient financially (Art sales, grants, business advertisement, sponsor)

§  Gallery:  Artwork/Consignment Sales- Shopping Cart-accepting Visa, Master Card and American Express credit cards

§  Advertisement sales- Participation requested, OSU Fisher College School of Business

§  Grants and donations

§  Sponsor- Ohio State University

·         Business Partners:

o   The Gallery will be a world renowned place for artist, critics and collectors to conduct art business transactions online.

o   Self sufficient financially (Art sales, grants, business advertisement, sponsor)

§  Gallery:  Artwork/Consignment Sales- Shopping Cart

§  Advertisement sales- Participation requested, OSU Fisher College School of Business

·         Artists:

o   Consignment only

o   Artist must provide acceptable photo(s)- Staff Photographer available upon request by appointment

·         Student & Parental Legacy:  Separate links to complete curriculum

o   Mandatory participation from parents, children, teachers and school administration as a team, responsible to graduate successful students- High School & College.  

§  Parent teacher conference discussion follow up to online participation

§  Sample online curriculum for parent

·         Essay and multiple choice- Sample topic kindergarten bullying

·         What do you think your child should know about bullying?

·         When and who should explain how to react to a bully?

·         When and who to advise of consequences of being a bully to the child?

§  Sample online curriculum for child

·         Multiple choice- Have you been bullied?

·         Are you a bully? 

·         Do you know a bully?

·         Can you discuss this problem with your parent?

o   Annual milestones- monitored and met as each child receives the necessary guidance for success through K-12.

o   Team effort:  Parents, teachers, school administration and students

o   Team members will have direct and educational dialog when child starts kindergarten and ongoing utilizing the Learning Legacy curriculum.

o   This website is a great way to team up with parents for the catch up needed for some “at risk” children.  Yes, better late than never.

§  Rand Corporation study:  Early home literacy-building activities that are associated with better school performance in kindergarten and beyond include reading to a child regularly (3 or more times a week); teaching children letters, words, and numbers; and telling stories or teaching songs and music. Among children ages 3 to 5 in 2001, 16 percent are not read to regularly at home. Among children whose mothers have less than a high school education, that fraction rises to 31 percent, compared with just 7 percent for children whose mothers have a college degree.

o   Continuous improvement for Parents, children and the school system.

o   Parental requirement - complete online training minimum once per semester based on individual child progress and behavior issues.

o   Context designed with age of child, evaluation of child progress and other factors, for example:  existence of discipline problems, etc. 

§  Curriculum based on semesters and designed by Sociologist and Psychologist to be proactive for discovery of any and all issues.

§  Participation requested- OSU College of Sociology & Psychology

§  Curriculum designed by Sociologist and Psychologist to be proactive for discovery of any and all issues.

§  OSU College of Sociology & Psychology participation

·         Events Calendar:

o   Calendar with relevant art shows, due dates for completion of online program for the team, etc.

·         Contact Us- Contact Person, Address, Phone number

Research References:   When researching other websites, I was reminded; keep it simple and less is more.  The back end of the site will do all grunt work, unseen to users.  Initial Programs installed: Grading, Artwork upload, shopping cart and one or more database(s) to store valuable, vital research data for continuous improvement evolution. 

·         Childrenatrisk.org

·         Bridgesforkids.org

·         Armsoflove.org

·         Atriskchildren.org

·         Rand.org

o   The RAND Corporation is a non profit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.  These are excerpts from a research brief describing work for RAND Labor and Population documented in Early Childhood Interventions: Proven Results, Future Promise by Lynn A. Karoly, M. Rebecca Kilburn, and Jill S. Cannon

·         Parenting- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society

·         Parenting the At Risk Child- Blog by Dr. Liane J. Leedom, MD

·         US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census

Please check out my statement about two movie posters and explanation of changes.....

My two poster choices are very different, similar, ironic and opposite in some ways.  Training Day, starring Denzel Washington was a pretty violent movie, the main character was very cold blooded, heartless, ghetto fabulous and plain old gangster bad cop!  While training a Caucasian rookie cop, he was careless and plain mean.  He was not to be trusted, so the rookie had to come to the realization that he was on his own and the “training” was in no way fair and the expectation was to survive the so called training.  This movie opens in 2001, very relevant to today’s perception of the hood, drug life and/or under the table activities of bad cops.  This guy flick is a thriller with fights, guns, murder, drugs, gang activity and more.   There is a very dark side in the color scheme of this poster and the clothes and jewelry worn are perceived as typical gangster, just like the movie.  The racial tension in this movie was very apparent, but the rookie cop is the minority.

Guess who’s coming to dinner on the other hand, a love story made in 1967, during a time when fighting for racial equality was in every newspaper and every television news report.  Interracial marriage was still illegal in many states of the USA.  It was definitely taboo that a Caucasian girl from a well to do family and African American doctor would fall in love over a 10 day vacation to Hawaii, and then expect both sets of their parents and friends to accept their desire to marry.  This definitely was a chick flick, because of the love story.  But because there was a serious political storyline brewing, the audience size grew.  The entire world was watching this movie for its’ controversial subject matter. 

My changes are to the poster for the movie, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner."  I added to this poster a picture of the African American parents (Glenn & Richards) and you can see the expression on the face of Mr. Prentice (Glenn) is surely disapproval.  Both wives had to convince their racist husbands that they should allow the young couple to make their own decisions.  Also, I darkened background, added ghetto-graffiti, and other actor names.  The original color scheme in the poster was light, bright and optimistic, kind of like the two people in love.  The pictures of Tracy & Hepburn were arbitrary portrait shots obviously not family portraits.  I kept these visuals because they work in my poster design.  Included a clip of the cook (Isabelle Sanford) and the betrothed, Joey Drayton (Houghton), it appears these two ladies were arguing.  A small picture of Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellaway), priest and friend of old line liberal Matt and Christina Drayton (Tracy & Hepburn).  Monsignor was the voice of tolerance, and is now located on Matt’s shoulder.  The love story is lost in the new poster, even the love birds look a little shady now.

Repost of Midterm Big Idea. Thanks!

Re-post of Midterm Big Idea.  Thanks!

My Artist Statement- Big Idea is Family and Discipline.

Human interaction and relationships pertaining to family and discipline is my Big Idea. I have aspirations to make my mark in a big way in the urban community in reference to “at risk” children.

I believe there are some untapped resources and unused ideas that can be reorganized in order to redirect some groups of people, namely the “A-Team.” Who is the “A-Team”? Parents, grandparents, guardians, caregivers, school administrators and last but not least, K-12 students are on this great team, even though they all have never believed to be on the same team in the past. I have a proposal that lives in evolution at this time and it began last quarter, my first quarter back at OSU after 35 years.

My granddaughter Aviva is six months old and is my inspiration for this Big Idea. She is an “at risk” child as are many in the USA. By the time she is ready to attend school, if not sooner, I plan to implement a series of ideas that will breath new life into how “The A-Team” can work better together to bring new hope to our nation’s education process. The next generation must have hope and be disciplined enough to successfully graduate high school, attend and graduate from college without fail.

This future proposal will create continuous improvement to our countries public school system, utilize the work of artists with no discrimination for age, gender, race, or nationality engaging with the worldwide web, recycling self-empowerment to the “A-Team” for many generations to come. I continue to develop this Big Idea as I go through my student life in order to implement a successful future plan of action as a result of ongoing research.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Storyline

The film tells the story of Joanna "Joey" Drayton, a young White American woman who has had a whirlwind romance with Dr. John Prentice, a young, idealistic African American physician she met while in Hawaii. The plot centers on Joanna’s return to her liberal upper class American home in San Francisco, bringing her new fiancé to dinner to meet her parents, and the reaction of family and friends. The film depicts the discomfort of her parents, and also of John's father (a retired postal carrier, who with his wife, are also at the Drayton's dinner) as they all try to accept the choice of their son and daughter. A senior Catholic priest friend of Mr. Drayton's is also present at dinner and is a voice for tolerance.

Source:  Wikipedia

Training Day

STORYLINE

In a city where streets are overrun by drug dealers, those who have sworn to uphold the law are breaking them to clean up the streets. Denzel Washington plays L.A.P.D. detective Alonzo Harris, a veteran narcotics officer whose methods of enforcing the law are questionable, if not corrupt. 'Training Day' follows Harris as he trains rookie Jake Hoyt over a 24-hour period. Ethical dilemmas arise for Hoyt as well as the audience as questions present themselves as to whether or not Harris' methodology for ridding the streets of South Central Los Angeles of drugs is right or wrong. Written by Anna <dimenxia@yahoo.com>

Beyonce' and her Mother Team Up Making Grandmother's Dream a Reality

Tina Knowles, mother of Beyonce' was inspired to create a fashion legacy that she named "House of Dereon" after her mother, the late Agnez Dereon.  She was a skilled seamstress and dressmaker who made beautiful custom clothing for private clients throughout the south about 80 years ago.

Here we have another example; Beyonce' Knowles and her family have created quite an empire in the entertainment and fashion industry.  I appreciate that they are focused on family and discipline to set positive examples for our next generation.  This family works together for the greater good of the family. 

To make my final project stronger I will attempt to dig deeper to locate the core of why this family is so successful and incorporate how I can add focus to my work.

Oprah Winfrey Network "OWN" Hit the Airwaves on January 1, 2011

The queen of daytime television has launched her own cable network. The "Oprah Winfrey Network" is now on the air. Michelle Miller reports on "O's" biggest gamble of her career.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7204160n#ixzz1CZ7PNeAr

Oprah appeals to me because her success speaks to the Big Idea that family discipline is mandatory in order to accomplish what one sets out to do and plan to help others.  Family may be the team you belong to as we travel along the way.  I believe her Big Idea is and has always been helping others.  Oprah has received many blessings due to her generosity.  It is inspiring to see her success, I have seen many things in my lifetime and her success is at the top of my list of my favorite things.  I like that future generations will pattern themselves after the examples she set.  She is a pioneer, then quickly raises the bar.  

The questions I might like to ask her are how have you been able to stay convicted over these many years?  Tell me Oprah, what would you like to tell the youth in the African American communities though out the USA?  As a future teacher, what suggestions might you have to utilize your many successes to lead and encourage the next generation of leaders?  

For my final project, I plan to dig a little deeper to identify some of Oprah's most basic skills and her source of power to assist and empower me for a most powerful project.  For instance, she is well spoken, intelligent, quick on her feet with questions and responses.  Also, she has a strong constitution to back up her confidence, she is fearless and just steps out on faith.