VCAE Website Review

• In your own words, what does Visual Culture mean to you, how would you define it?

Visual Culture is pop culture images and other trending visuals. It incorporates the "now" or the "it" things in culture.

June K McFee video (from 1995, wow!)):

• What are the most important things discussed that are still relevant today in regards to Art Education and Visual Culture?

I don't feel like this video talks about visual culture very much? Most of the video is about her personal life.. so I'm not sure if I'm watching the right video? I guess she talks about the importance of the student as an individual and especially in today's world I feel like visual culture can be different to each student as an individual. If you're trying to connect with a class you need to connect with each kid to truly understand what their visual culture is. She talks about letting students come to their own ideas and not influencing them with her own ideas and that is important as well. 

In the "Zinester: Art of Individualism" video:

• Have you heard of "Zines" before? 

No, never...

• What do you think about the Zine Library?

I think that it's a little strange that they keep up this library that pulls no income? I feel like they need to figure something out to actually make a profit at this. Otherwise I think the library is fun. 

• What do you think of the concept of consumers/producers?

Well in this instance I feel like the consumers and producers are completely mixed together... anyone can make a Zine and anyone can buy a Zine.

• Would you find the creation of a Zine an appropriate topic/project to explore in your classroom?

I think the concept could be really great for a school project HOWEVER I think that if the students were to look into Zines more it could cause problems. A lot of the Zines they took the time to talk about in the video where very inappropriate for school. So I think I would have to take the concept of creating freely and making mistakes and do something else.

In the "Beginning a Lesson" Video:

• What information from this video is of interest to you for your classroom?

I found the statistics rather interesting, although dated at this point. I think its important we remember to be flexible in today's world. 

• Do you find the "Arguments 1-4" valid concepts to explore Visual Culture in the classroom?

Generally, yes. I think any of the arguments could be researched and then recreated by a student to "prove" the arguments. 

• How might you use these in your classroom?

I especially think that argument 2 could be fun to work with. We could look up examples of parody's and then make our own by taking a piece of visual culture from history and making it relevant to today.