- For those who don't know, I was hospitalized the week of the showcase with a bleeding ulcer and severe anemia. It was considered to be acute and potentially life threatening. I am slowly recovering now, but still kind of weak and my brain isn't quite back to normal just yet.Please forgive any typos, missing words or sentences that make NO sense (just drop me an email @ webbox@robinart.com if you see any), I will spellcheck but one of the symptoms of anemia is cloudy thinking.
- Thanks to everyone who helped me with my project. Certainly, I couldn't have done it without the artists, but I also want to thank my classmates who gave me such great feedback, Mary Miller for setting up my project at the showcase, and the instructors for their patient & understanding.
Part of flexible learning strategies is also time-planning and managing. Again, traditional instructional settings place the responsibility almost exclusively into the hands of the instructor. Learners are expected to follow the rhythm of instruction, practice, and evaluation, that is provided by the educational "authority" who is in charge. If this external guidance is taken away, it is likely that many learners will not be able to carry out adequate time planning and management on the spot. The multiple requirements of the Studio courses contribute to the difficulty of the task. There is not a definite line of events and only a few marked points on the time line indicate where certain requirements are due. This, of course, allows more flexibility for the individual learner, but also requires a much higher skill level in terms of planning and managing time and resources. (Fiedler, 1999).
Actually, I think time management is one of the key components of the studio experience (actually, of any self learning experience). Without good time management skills, a studio project can quickly turn into a nightmare of all nighters. Even with judicious use of time, breaking the project up into smaller, more manageable pieces, most projects will still provide some unexpected challenges (and inherent in those challenges are opportunities for creative solutions). I definitely hit a major challenge with SPARC. Not only was video capture time intensive, but so was video editing, complicated with additional challenges of bandwidth and web storage space. All of which was a challenge to overcome: How to get the maximum impact and most interesting content with the best use of time?
What this required was a redirection of resources (me, webspace, content) and my choice was to allow artists to contribute their thoughts via email instead of soley relying on video. What I gained from tweaking my initial plan a little is a much richer and more well rounded website, more artist participation, and hopefully, a more interesting project.
What I've learned about the studio experience is that it is just one big project with really only one deadline (because if you've been doing the work all along then all there is to do at the dress rehearsal is show where you are in the process). Dividing the project up into manageable parts is essential (see previous statement). The other parts of the studio project are just part of project planning for any project: have a vision, know your scope, develop a plan, layout a basic framework, and remain flexible and creative. Being flexible and creative would seem to be essential and a natural part of the process (and for those who want to stick to their plan regardless of its success, I imagine that they either find a way to make the plan work regardless of how much work is involved, settle for something which is less successful, or get frustrated and abandon their plan at some point,which leaves space for a revised plan).
Building in extra time for tweaking or revision or polishing up is a necessity in order to succeed in studio. I can honestly say that I was finished with my project by the end of November, which was my saving point. Otherwise, I would have been in the hospital with an unfinished project hanging over my head. The remaining time was to be spent reshooting some video (replacing the ones with poor audio), adding additional content (I still have some artists responses that even came in after the 8th), tweaking metadata and doing a final accessibility check (to ensure that any last minute changes hadn't impacted the accessibility).
Anyhow, I really enjoy the studio experience and if I could just take all of the IDD classes as studio, I would probably be a happy camper. ;)
Reference:
Fiedler, Sebastian (1999). The Studio Experience: Challenges and Opportunities for Self-Organized Learning. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia, Department of Instructional Technology
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