Personal Learning Environment

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My personal learning environment is a list. I am constantly organizing what I know into lists, so i figured this was appropriate. My background is in piano performance, so I described my personal learning environment using music symbols.

One of my biggest influences is social media, namely Facebook. Social media is Forte, because it is the loudest source of knowledge in my life. I am constantly scrolling through posts, reading articles, and watching videos on social media.

School is described as a half note, because it takes up half of my life. Whether I’m in class, doing homework, or physically just on campus, waiting for my next activity, I am constantly absorbing knowledge at school.

My faith is very important to me. I attend church every Sunday and usually do a small group bible study during the week. I make an effort to read my Bible everyday (even though I often fall short of that goal). I symbolized my faith as a Grand Staff, because it is the framework upon which everything else stands. Without God, there would be nothing else.

Though some people use movies and TV to turn their brains off and relax, I find that I am most engaged while watching movies. I hang on to every word and memorize movies quickly. I get excited about really good, witty writing and take special interest in acting techniques, though I have no formal training in the subject. I marked TV/movies with a Staccato, because articulation is what makes the notes pop. They come off the page with articulation, and that’s what makes music fun.

One of my favorite ways to learn is by simply listening. The older I get, the more I realize how much I DON’T know. So, why would I waste time by talking about my own opinions? I’ve learned so much by just listening to my peers, friends, family, coworkers, etc. You can learn a whole lot more by listening than you can by talking. Listening helps me connect with the people around me, so I depicted it with a slur connecting two notes.

One of my weakest areas of learning is by reading books or watching the news. I am a slow reader, and if I’m turning on the TV, I want to be entertained, not stressed out with current events! I labeled this area with a Piano dynamic, because it speaks the most softly in my personal learning environment.

My “instruments” of choice, if you will, are my iPhone and my computer. I spend so much of my life looking at those two screens. These are the instruments in which almost all of the above learning takes place. That is why they are represented with a whole note. They take up the whole measure.

Lexicons – Week 6

Strategic Planning – The process making goals of creating steps to execute your vision, and then assessing whether you achieved those goals.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – Resources that allow you to analyze your relationships with your customers.

Medium – The form in which your product is experience. This includes reading it in a newspaper, seeing it on billboard, watching it on TV, hearing it on the radio, experiencing someone perform it, etc.

Social Impact/Consequence – The result your project has on the community, both negative and positive.

Narcissism – The idea of being excessively self-focused. We discussed that simply having a social media account implies a degree of narcissism of the user. While the purpose of social media may have started out that way*, it has evolved into something much more complex as a means of communication. While it can certainly still cater to narcissism, it has numerous other outward-looking functions.

*Based on my concrete knowledge of the origin of Facebook from the movie The Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg stole the concept of Facebook from the Winkelvoss twins, which lead to a series of court battles over who gets the credit. Facebook really took off when he added the relationship status feature. This is was a big deal for initial users. So, yes. Facebook’s inception is laced with narcissism. But now my church has a group called the “Blessing Board” that facilitates benevolent serving and giving. Does owning a social media account make you inherently a little narcissistic? You tell me.

Lexicons – Week 5

Distributed Cognition & Collaborative Intelligence – The idea that learning and knowledge are collective, not independent.

Informal Learning – The kind of learning that doesn’t happen in a typical school format of desks and lectures. Hands-on experience and conversation are examples of informal learning.

White Space – The unused space on a printed object, one that is not filled by graphics or text. White space can be a good thing, if it prevents cluttering and allows the viewer to find the focal point faster. However, too much white space can be boring.

Focal Point – The main feature of your design. This is where you want viewers to focus their attention. Your focal point should be immediately recognizable.

Collateral – Any tangible product on which you can print your brand’s logo. This could be anything from business cards and envelopes to wine glasses and tote bags.

Kate Spade

Kate Spade is a popular designer known for her accessories and fashion. The brand launched as exclusively Kate Spade Handbags in 1993. Since then, the brand has expanded to every corner of the fashion world, including a clothing line, glasses, notebooks, and phone cases. The classic spade image is taken from her last name. The keeping her name all lowercase brings a playful balance to the classy, modern, serif font. Keeping New York in all caps adds an air of formality and high society. The simplicity of the logo makes it easy to apply to different color backgrounds.

Betsey Johnson

Betsey Johnson is a designer famous for her outrageous and ultra-girly fashion and accessories. Her fashion line was launched in 1978 and has been  standing out in department stores ever since. All of her products are either hot pink, leopard print, furry, bejeweled, or have hearts and bows on them. Sometimes, a single product can be all of these at once. Betsey Johnson’s quirky signature (sometimes including the smooch) is fitting for this brand. It is unapologetically unrefined. The two “N”s in her last name are distinctly mismatched. The smooch provides a much needed pop of color, however, the glare of light is unnecessary. It would be better matte.

Icicle Creek Center for the Arts

Icicle Creek is a nonprofit arts center in the middle of charming Leavenworth, Washington.  Leavenworth is a small Bavarian style tourist town in the middle of the Cascade Mountains. Reminiscent of the Alps, the mountains and rivers are defining features of the Leavenworth landscape. In fact, Icicle Creek itself runs right through the campus. This is artfully and simply portrayed in Icicle Creek’s logo. The green mountains and blue rivers flow seamlessly together. However, if the logo needed to be grayscale, the image would be equally effective. The campus was built in 1995, so the modern logo fits the modern architecture of the buildings. The word “icicle” can be tricky to read because the “i”s and the “L” can look similar in lowercase. I applaud the choice to go all caps, and keeping the “C”s wide enough to create sufficient visual separation between all of the straight vertical letters. The entire title of the organization is fairly long, so I like the fact the name (Icicle Creek) is distinctly bigger than the description (Center for the Arts).