8:00 SLT

Keynote speaker: Bryn Oh

Bryn Oh: An artist’s perspective on creating in a virtual space

Bryn Oh’s talk will focus on the unique traits which a virtual space has that differentiates itself over traditional art mediums such as painting and cinema. specifically Bryn will talk on the historical techniques which artists use to achieve viewer immersion, and then compare them to the creative process using the virtual medium.

10:00 SLT

Lana Skender

Encouraging Creative Thinking by Reinterpreting works of art

Making new ideas is a result of creative thinking as a specific mental activity .Although it has been identified with artistic talent for a long time it is equally represented as among scientists as among artists. Contemporary theories of creativity have proved that creativity is not only an artistic gift but it can be developed and improved by implementation of structured methodology that encourages lateral thinking recognizable by idea generation and creating new concepts. Creative thinking is the main art process starter from the first faze of cognitive idea development to the material workmanship. Different artistic procedures such as construction, deconstruction, redefinition, reinterpretation, can be impulsive to the students’ creative thinking development. These procedures implementation into the Visual arts teaching activities enriche the works of art reception by transforming the very artistic ideas, which students use to test the creativity possibilities , using the works of art or the process as a template. Today generations of digital natives are familiar to using digital technology in works of art reinterpretations due to simplicity of realization and feeling close to digital habitat. Transformation of material ideas into only visual interpretation neglects making component of works of art but leaves more space for creative context mutation and critical reflexion.

12:00 SLT

Sandrine Han

From creating ecosystem in virtual world to discuss how to foster creativity in art education

This research is an international collaborating project using the method of participatory observational case study. In this research, high school students from Vancouver, BC and Phoenix, AZ worked in the virtual world of VCER. Students from two areas constructed their own ecosystem in the VCER and the researcher compared, contrasted, and discussed the similarities and differences of the ecosystem and the visual components in the virtual environments, specifically from creativity perspective. The research finding shows the less structure students has, fewer number of students working in a group, and fewer reusable virtual resources students have elevated students creativity. The age of the students and the setting of these two research cites might influence student creative thinking, and these will also be discussed in the presentation.

2:00 SLT

Mary Stokrocki

Eco Guardians vs. The Stingers in Swirling Dust Devils

This action research focuses on Arizonan students building ecological installations on the Opensim, using a gamification approach, including avatars, simulation goals, building rules, and pre and post questionnaires. Eight volunteer students simulated their Sonoran desert by building 3-D creatures, a nest, and writing short popup reflections about the creatures. Since this was the third year study of this same context, new building results occurred, such as canyon creations made with bulldozer tool, spinning animations, and transparency features. Major questions pursued were: What did you learn about building? What did you learn about ecology? What relates in an ecosystem? Who is watching whom? Their final story evolved as the eco-guardians kept a watch over the scorpion stingers, all of which were floating and enveloped by dust devils. When students are guided to create their own simulations and reflect on them with exciting popup notecards, surprising accidental results occur.