I've been meaning to put this up for a while but never had a chance to upload the photos!
Inspired by the movement of water and the subtle waves created by ripples. I translated this into the metal to make a solid form with a fluid quality.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Vessel Project
Inspired by the movement of water and the subtle waves created by ripples. I translated this into the metal to make a solid form with a fluid quality.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Jewellery & art and general interesting/inspiring websites
Jewellery/Art sites:
1. Dazzle Exhibitions
2. Whos Who In Gold and Silver
3. Association for Contemporary Jewellery
4. Genna Delaney I could put more jewellers up here, but I particularly liked her work.
5. Deviant Art (I would post my profile but I haven't updated it for almost a year and its mostly just got my old photomanipulation pictures I used to do. I check this site everyday to see what artwork people are favouriting and to see what artwork the people I follow/watch are producing).
General interesting/inspiring websites:
1. TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design
2. BBC
3. NASA
4. Youtube e.g. Christina Aguilera's Fighter music video directed by Floria Sigismondi
5. The Guardian
:)
1. Dazzle Exhibitions
2. Whos Who In Gold and Silver
3. Association for Contemporary Jewellery
4. Genna Delaney I could put more jewellers up here, but I particularly liked her work.
5. Deviant Art (I would post my profile but I haven't updated it for almost a year and its mostly just got my old photomanipulation pictures I used to do. I check this site everyday to see what artwork people are favouriting and to see what artwork the people I follow/watch are producing).
General interesting/inspiring websites:
1. TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design
2. BBC
3. NASA
4. Youtube e.g. Christina Aguilera's Fighter music video directed by Floria Sigismondi
5. The Guardian
:)
Monday, 9 November 2009
Researching Dyslexia, teaching and testing.
For Design Studies I was asked to look up books and journals on my issue that came to light on assignments 2 (brainstorm & mindmap in a previous blog entry).
My issue was based on personal experience where no one noticed that I had dyslexia in school. I decided to research at the beginning, starting off with general books on dyslexia and learning difficulties. My journals are on the point of view of the teacher to see how they can spot difficulties. No teachers managed to pick up on my perhaps not-so-obvious dyslexia (looking back now, it was obvious... I just thought I was normal... I shouldn't have had to struggle as much as I did though).
If I was going to improve the education system these are the texts I would first look at before going into schools observing and asking questions (even though I'm not one for asking questions! Again my school life is to blame).
Here are the texts I found:
Gerber, M., (2005), Teachers are still the test: limitations of response to instruction strategies for identifying children with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 38 (6) 516-524.
As it says in the title, this journal concentrates on RTI (response to instruction) as a way of earlier identification of learning disabilities. However its limits include expenses, teachers responding to students differently based on behavior and the fact strategy training and results are rarely reported (e.g. each session cannot be done in the same way, have the same results everytime and unnoted improvements would be made).
Hultquist, A., (2006), An introduction to dyslexia for parents and proffessionals [online]. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. http://site.ebrary.com.libproxy.dundee.ac.uk/lib/dundee/docDetail.action?docID=10156041
This online book goes into the various types of dyslexia, giving basic examples of how the children with dyslexia spell, not be able to retrieve certain words or read. It brings into account different levels of dyslexia - mild to deep dyslexia. Apparently there are many tests to identify dyslexia but she particularly talks about IQ tests. Other areas are covered such as laws and other reading disorders.
Martin, D., (2000), Teaching children with speech and learning difficulties. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.
This book shows how to spot a child that is having issues. It tells us about teacher's observation and shows examples of situations. The book has sections where it shows what questions the teachers should be asking themselves in regard to a student.
Muter, V., (2003), Early reading development and dyslexia. London: Whurr Publishers Ltd.
This book covers very early learning, going onto children with difficulties. From chapters 7 until 12 is specifically looks into the testing and teaching of children with dyslexia.
Reid, G., ed., (1996), Dimensions of dyslexia - Volume 1. Glasgow: Bell & Bain Ltd.
Information wont be that up-to-date but will still be relevant (it was reprinted in 2000 though). Each chapter is written by a expert or group of experts, so there is a lot of information regarding each section. Covers teaching, support, all types of assessments and further education.
Taylor, H., Anselmo, M., Foreman, A., Schatschneider, C. and Angelopoulos, J., (2000), Utility of kindercarten teacher judgements in identifying early learning problems. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 33 (2) 200-210.
In this journal, it is the teacher's view on the child's progress, to predict if they will struggle and how they will be in the future, based on their behaviour and if they are learning at such an early age. The authors do tests on groups of children in kindercarten classes.
My issue was based on personal experience where no one noticed that I had dyslexia in school. I decided to research at the beginning, starting off with general books on dyslexia and learning difficulties. My journals are on the point of view of the teacher to see how they can spot difficulties. No teachers managed to pick up on my perhaps not-so-obvious dyslexia (looking back now, it was obvious... I just thought I was normal... I shouldn't have had to struggle as much as I did though).
If I was going to improve the education system these are the texts I would first look at before going into schools observing and asking questions (even though I'm not one for asking questions! Again my school life is to blame).
Here are the texts I found:
Gerber, M., (2005), Teachers are still the test: limitations of response to instruction strategies for identifying children with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 38 (6) 516-524.
As it says in the title, this journal concentrates on RTI (response to instruction) as a way of earlier identification of learning disabilities. However its limits include expenses, teachers responding to students differently based on behavior and the fact strategy training and results are rarely reported (e.g. each session cannot be done in the same way, have the same results everytime and unnoted improvements would be made).
Hultquist, A., (2006), An introduction to dyslexia for parents and proffessionals [online]. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. http://site.ebrary.com.libproxy.dundee.ac.uk/lib/dundee/docDetail.action?docID=10156041
This online book goes into the various types of dyslexia, giving basic examples of how the children with dyslexia spell, not be able to retrieve certain words or read. It brings into account different levels of dyslexia - mild to deep dyslexia. Apparently there are many tests to identify dyslexia but she particularly talks about IQ tests. Other areas are covered such as laws and other reading disorders.
Martin, D., (2000), Teaching children with speech and learning difficulties. London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.
This book shows how to spot a child that is having issues. It tells us about teacher's observation and shows examples of situations. The book has sections where it shows what questions the teachers should be asking themselves in regard to a student.
Muter, V., (2003), Early reading development and dyslexia. London: Whurr Publishers Ltd.
This book covers very early learning, going onto children with difficulties. From chapters 7 until 12 is specifically looks into the testing and teaching of children with dyslexia.
Reid, G., ed., (1996), Dimensions of dyslexia - Volume 1. Glasgow: Bell & Bain Ltd.
Information wont be that up-to-date but will still be relevant (it was reprinted in 2000 though). Each chapter is written by a expert or group of experts, so there is a lot of information regarding each section. Covers teaching, support, all types of assessments and further education.
Taylor, H., Anselmo, M., Foreman, A., Schatschneider, C. and Angelopoulos, J., (2000), Utility of kindercarten teacher judgements in identifying early learning problems. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 33 (2) 200-210.
In this journal, it is the teacher's view on the child's progress, to predict if they will struggle and how they will be in the future, based on their behaviour and if they are learning at such an early age. The authors do tests on groups of children in kindercarten classes.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Recording the past...
Hazel White's Website
Hazel White explained her experience over the years last Friday in a lecture and it was good to see examples of the work she has done. Her work and ideas have changed a lot in the space of about 10 years, I like how she has developed her work and moved onto different ideas. Her interactive jewellery is really interesting. She spoke about a past story of a relative and I liked the idea of something holding a record of that.
During the summer I joined ancestry.co.uk, after watching Who Do You Think You Are?, as I wanted to find out who was in my family before me. I got quite far back but there was only two people that had made a name for themselves so there was info about them on a couple of sites. Shame I wont be able to hear about any of their lives personally, I only know little snippets my grandparents have told me from what they remember being told. I think jewellery (just a example, could be an electrical piece or something) that holds a record of you personally would be good for future generations wanting to see who was in their family before them - see if they act the same, same views, personality... etc. Most important, their stories.
Hazel White explained her experience over the years last Friday in a lecture and it was good to see examples of the work she has done. Her work and ideas have changed a lot in the space of about 10 years, I like how she has developed her work and moved onto different ideas. Her interactive jewellery is really interesting. She spoke about a past story of a relative and I liked the idea of something holding a record of that.
During the summer I joined ancestry.co.uk, after watching Who Do You Think You Are?, as I wanted to find out who was in my family before me. I got quite far back but there was only two people that had made a name for themselves so there was info about them on a couple of sites. Shame I wont be able to hear about any of their lives personally, I only know little snippets my grandparents have told me from what they remember being told. I think jewellery (just a example, could be an electrical piece or something) that holds a record of you personally would be good for future generations wanting to see who was in their family before them - see if they act the same, same views, personality... etc. Most important, their stories.
Monday, 26 October 2009
A lot to read... sorry!
For Design Studies, we were asked to research into a certain topic extracted from a group brainstorm. Our brainstorm on TV Education is above. We went from children education to adult education, showing the difference between what things you learn from TV. We went into how TV education is actually designed. Other ideas such as computer games and merchandise were also said.
I decided to look into the learning (for children) in general. I could have looked intoit a lot more, writing more for each area, but there are just so many! I went from learning, to my own experience, to truancy, to a recent news report on children going into formal learning later and then finally to homeschooling. I started off with a spider diagram which went into 4 small Mindmaps. Seeing them together I feel a spider diagram is more useful as you can write so much more in the space provided. I maybe should have used colour, but I’ve not quite worked out a best way to do that.
Anyways, researching this has actually been a bit emotional for me… I wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until the summer before I came to university. So throughout my school life it wasn’t noticed. In primary I was put down a lot by teachers as my reading was terribly slow, my writing was so messy and I wasn’t good at structuring my essays (writing is better now, but the other two things still effect me). Apparently I used to “pull a sicky” whenever it came to Language.
In 5th year at High School I asked my English teacher if I could get extra help regarding close reading and he said “no, you get enough teaching as everyone else”. And my sort of art teacher when I was making my portfolio said to me “You won’t get into Art College”. It’s like thanks for the encouragement! I realised my nervousness, worrying too much about everything and generally thinking I’m doing everything wrong was because of the way I was treated in primary school and at high school. It’s subconsciously there, making me get all whelmed up when it came to talking to teachers. Obviously, I’m not as bad as I used to be. University is different, and that’s why I love it. I hated school so much, ever since I first started!! I still get stressed and worry a hell of a lot…
This got me thinking of a way kids could get tested for dyslexia early so they don’t end up like me! There should be a cost effective solution. A few people never actually realise they have it… so if there was a way to test a whole class early in primary school which could also point out people with reading and writing delays that may not be connected to dyslexia so they can get extra help also. There are many forms and levels of dyslexia, obviously some worse than others, but as soon as it has been found out, they can get the help they need. It needs to be simpler and not take a lot of time to do. It cost my family £700 to get me tested as we didn’t know if I’d be able to pass English to get into DoJ. Luckily I did pass because a few teachers noticed I may have a problem so they gave me extra time on my English papers (and on my Product Design paper) I really don’t think I would have been able to pass without that extra 15 mins! I think it’s the cost that puts schools off from testing students and this is why the kids struggle throughout their school life. Basically there needs to be a solution to this problem….
For the other areas I covered, I only researched them... I wasn’t able to come up with ideas to help or improve them. I didn’t mind researching them though. It was a good week’s worth of research. Hopefully I won’t mind doing this when it comes to the dissertation :) And now that I have support for my dyslexia I’m sure it will be fine… bet I’ll still be worrying and stressing! :P
Monday, 19 October 2009
Just some thoughts...
I'm starting to accept that design isn't all about the visual aspect of it. Everything is designed in some way or another. I think I'll come back to this concept of in more detail after I've had a while to ponder over it. It has never really hit me before, but I'm glad it has now.
I was speaking to my grandad who was a research chemist. If you are looking to design something new, you consult what was there before. In his case he would consult books. I think it was Plutonium he mentioned (I do listen but my memory fails me a lot...) was a not-so-new-but-new-enough man-made element (again design!)... he had very little to refer back to, no books had been written about it. So he would have had to rely on experimentation and what people around him had found out. That must have been exciting to work with something new but also tough as you wouldn't know how it reacted or anything.
These days there aren't things that are completely new, you can find out everything about everything if you look for it...
I'm not too sure where I am going with this and its getting late, so I'll leave it there and perhaps think a bit more :)
I was speaking to my grandad who was a research chemist. If you are looking to design something new, you consult what was there before. In his case he would consult books. I think it was Plutonium he mentioned (I do listen but my memory fails me a lot...) was a not-so-new-but-new-enough man-made element (again design!)... he had very little to refer back to, no books had been written about it. So he would have had to rely on experimentation and what people around him had found out. That must have been exciting to work with something new but also tough as you wouldn't know how it reacted or anything.
These days there aren't things that are completely new, you can find out everything about everything if you look for it...
I'm not too sure where I am going with this and its getting late, so I'll leave it there and perhaps think a bit more :)
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