From traditional art classes to distance learning!

While attending art school waaaaaaaay back in the last century, computers and online learning were a thing never imagined by myself. My classes were held in a large, light, and airy studio. The smell of turpentine permeated the room. Students stood or sat, intent on portraying the gestures of the model in front of them. Learning to draw and paint in the creative physical environment provided motivation and inspiration. Interaction and critiques with my fellow students and teacher were integral to my learning experience.

Well, time certainly has flowed quickly by since those halcyon days. For a number of years, I've been searching for a local drawing class that could help me achieve a fresh and more expedient way of executing my detailed colored pencil work. Finding a class that suited my specific needs and one that also meshed with my busy schedule was impossible. Then, an "aha moment." Why not try an online course? Bingo!

I'm currently enrolled in an online class titled "Building Color that Works," offered by colored pencil expert, Bet Borgenson. The purpose of this class is to learn color-layering techniques that afford the artist more speed in completion of a piece and yet retain a high level of quality. So far, I've completed lesson #1 and am working on lesson #2. I'm very pleased with the teacher's knowledgeable and constructive feedback.

Once I learn how to post pictures, I'll periodically throw a sample or two up here so you folks can see my progress. I'm excited that my very first experience with a distance learning class is proving to be as inspiring and motivating as being in that art studio so many years ago.

Comments

Scratch - OWAU discussion 10/28

Aloha kākou, I while back, I learned about this product from a presentation at the eSchool conference. The speaker was so excited about Scratch and was having so much fun demonstrating it that my mind began racing immediately. "I could use it in `Ike Hawai`i courses and I bet I could use it to develop tons of activities for the A`o Makua `ōlelo Hawai`i courses". Then, reality set in as I returned to work intending to try it out after I finished my "next" task. Well, you know how that goes. 7 months later, I finally took a stab at it out of necessity of course. I really wanted some type of activity to teach my students about different Kapu in old Hawai`i without having them just read a list of them. So, what it Sratch? Simply put, it's a developer's tool (a very inexpereinced developer like myself). It allows you to create activities and games using "coding" that is in a drag and drop format. The codes are pre-written & range from phrases like ...

E pule kakou . . .

Aloha all, I was trying to think so hard of a "techie" tip and finally gave up. I even googled "tips and tricks" for various programs and then thought "I can't blog about something I don't actually use!" Then, as I was sitting in my Papa Makua class, doing all kinds of protocal and thought about how we keep looking for a short pule to do to open our meetings. I had `A`ali`i write a pule in Hawaiian. He was worried about the grammar and structure of it so I asked Kelly C. to kökua by editing and doing an audio recording so you can hear the pronunciation. Hope it's helpful :) E ho`omalu käkou E kö mäkou makua i loko o ka lani Mahalo no nä pömaika`i a pau. Mahalo no ke ali`i lokomaika`i o Pauahi a me këia kula nei. E `olu`olu, e kia`i iä mäkou i ke alahele küpono me ka lökahi. Ke nonoi ha`aha`a nei mäkou i ka inoa o Iesu Cristo `Ämene `Unuhi (translation): Let us pray Our Father in heaven Thank you for all the many blessings. Thank you for the gen...

3/19 Owau: FaceBook CourseFeed & Blackboard

Initially when I first joined FaceBook, it was because I wanted to see what the hype was all about since many of our learners seem to be hooked onto this social networking site. After I set up an account, I didn't do much until my friends from high school, college and even my own family (including my dad) started inviting me to be their "friend" to network together. It was only until recently that I realized why our students would probably prefer logging into Facebook first before even thinking about opening up Blackboard to begin their online course. Once your network of friends is set up, it's definitly an easy way to keep updated on what's going on at a distance. I really haven't done much in Facebook besides the basics, but I thought it would be interesting for us to look at the CourseFeed interface ( http://apps.facebook.com/coursefeed ) that was developed. CourseFeed is a free Blackboard Building Block and Facebook app that alerts students in Faceboook w...

Kamehameha Schools Distance Learning (KSDL) Owau

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