[4] Interactivity #4: The Pedagogical Uses of Technology

Lesson Plan Breakdown

This lesson focuses on a sculptor who creates chairs for her installations in which the viewer sits (in the chair) in front of a screen which projects them and the chair in another time period. I thought it was interesting how the artist uses technology to help convey her message- much like we are using technology to help support our lesson plans.

I was actually disappointed after I read the lesson due to its lack of technology. The curriculum goals, of which there were many, were well supported in the plan but I had to make some additions to incorporate supportive technologies. I made the connection to Mac's app PhotoBooth- where you can create your own background and project yourself into it. In this lesson students were already examining the art (the different chairs) and then creating their own. They also had to collaborate in groups to make a collage which they then cut and pasted their chairs into. I altered it so the students hung their collages, with their chairs, on the wall to use as the PhotoBooth background which they then photographed themselves in- much like the artist did in her works with the viewers. Foreground and background elements were used in this lesson, so I had students adjust their positioning accordingly to achieve foreground and background distances. 

I also added more Student-Centered Strategies to keep the students engaged and active in their learning. A class blog was created to allow us to keep a record of their learning and progress of their understandings that they could then share with the public via internet. 

I felt that technology was essential in achieving the curriculum goals. The goals wanted students to understand how the artist’s media/mediums chosen affected the message/content of their works. This lesson provided no opportunity to use the technologies that the artist did- leaving them only a conceptual understanding. The modified lesson gives students multiple chances to incorporate technology as a tool for recording information, critiquing/discussing peer works, publishing the information and their learnings, and actually producing similar works to the artist using very similar medias.