The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women - Jean Kilbourne

The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women - Jean Kilbourne

I likely never would have thought to click on this video had it not been part of an assignment for class, but after watching it I would recommend that everyone who has the opportunity watch it for themselves. While the video addresses the topic well, to me it served more as a springboard into the topic. What this video did very well was make me want to learn more, and dig deeper into the subject myself.

The video has many different and impactful things to say, but the portion that dealt with the sexualization of children was the most impactful part of the video for me. There aren’t any reasons to be producing high-heels for babies or padded bras for eight and nine-year-old children. 

Just because you CAN sell something to someone does not mean that you SHOULD. 

As a future teacher and hopefully parent, things like that just amaze me (and not in a good way). While the issues discussed are causing harm to people, they aren’t doing it in easily visible ways. Instead of causing harm directly to someone, trends in media and advertising are slowly chipping away at self-esteem and autonomy.

The issues discussed in the video clip apply to men as well, both directly and indirectly. Men are made to look larger or more masculine instead of thinner or more petite, but the idea is similar. In addition to that, I really liked the point brought up around the six-minute mark of the video. In addition to girls and women measuring themselves against increasingly unrealistic standards, men and boys view of the women in their lives is warped and distorted. This distortion of expectations (both physical and emotional) will potentially cause issues in relationships throughout the course of life.

Breaking Ice

Breaking Ice was a show I had the opportunity to attend for my visual literacy class. We went as a group during our class period because the show addressed topics that are seemingly more and more important every day. The description given on the poster reads, “A show about RACE, SEXUALITY, DISABILITY, GENDER and everything else we’re scared to talk about.”.

The show was built as a series of interactions between people that aren’t really sure how to interact with people that are different from them. Common stereotypes like ‘Asian people are good at math’ were addressed, and I thought it was a really cool platform for someone that actually has to deal with these stereotypes to be able to respond and educate the audience.

Toward the end of the show each actor/actress shared their own “I Am From” poem. The poems followed a simple format. Each line began “I am from”, and then was finished with an important place/location/feeling that built that person into who they are. The audience was then asked to group up and share our own versions of the poem, and that was my favorite part of the show by far. It gave me a chance to learn more about the people that were sitting with me, and also gave me a simple (yet surprisingly effective) tool to look at why I am the person I am.

Hidden Images

A lot of thought goes into a logo. While needing to be clear and easy to read, a logo also has to draw in the eye and grab attention. In addition to this, a good logo is one that is memorable and easily identifiable. The four images above are examples pulled from the website Twenty Two Words, and are just a small selection of many. I highly recommend taking a minute to follow the link and check out some more examples (there are multiple pages, the 'next page' button is a little difficult to find down near the bottom).

How many had you seen before?
How many were new?

A lot of messages/images are hidden in plain sight in logos we see very frequently but probably don't put much extra thought into. For example, we've all seen FedEx trucks driving around at some point in our lives, and most of us have probably never noticed the arrow formed by the "E" and "X" (All thanks to kerning, if you haven't go check out my post explaining what that is!). The designer of the logo, however, deliberately placed the arrow there, likely to symbolize speed or travel.




This is a link to some more popular logos that includes a paragraph or so for each that goes into a little depth about why it looks the way it does. My personal favorite is the old Northwest Airlines logo. It has since been changed, but former pilot Patrick Smith had this to say about it: "... quite simply was a work of genius. It was an 'N'; it was a 'W'; it was a compass pointing toward the northwest."



Can you see all three parts of the circular logo? It wasn't obvious to me at first glance but once I saw it, it instantly became my favorite logo design so far. The logo is simple, yet has layers underneath depending on how much thought you want to put into it. Why they changed this logo, I'll never understand.

Kinetic Typography

Kinetic typography is quite simply the combination of text and movement. The video embedded above is a great example of what kinetic typography is and some of the techniques used.

I'm sure that you've heard "a picture is worth a thousand words" in your life in some form or another. A picture speaks in such a powerful way because the image is presented to us in a more engaging manner than a block of text, and the human brain is able to process images nearly 60,000 times more quickly than text. To describe an image in a way that it could be reproduced based just on your written description could take thousands of words per picture, and sometimes a message needs to be communicated more quickly.

Kinetic typography uses movement and different organizations of letters and spacing to bridge the gap between text and images, making certain words/phrases more powerful through various techniques. Text can be flashed over music, slowly fade in/out, grow larger or darker, or any number of other techniques can be used to try and elicit an emotional response from the audience.

The following links contain the sources I used for background on this post and the video I used:
Images Speak Louder Than Words
General Information
Kinetic Typography Video Examples

Kerning: The Empty Spaces Matter

"In typography kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letter forms, while tracking adjusts spacing uniformly over a range of characters."

Wikipedia: Kerning

     The little empty spaces between letters are important, and you could probably make the case they are almost as important as the letters themselves. I bet you've never even thought about them, and that's okay! Most people probably haven't, but it's something we should try to pay attention to because there is text all around us in the world. The spacing between letters play a large part in our lives and we hardly notice.

Below are two examples of how just a tiny difference in the spacing of letters can lead to some interesting results. The message you are trying to send can be distorted, eliminated, or just cause some laughter (as is the case in the examples below).




Breakfast WHAT? A little more space between the "L" and “I” would have made the name of the cereal easier to read and avoided appearing to contain a very different, less appetizing, word.



Every font has different spacing between letters, especially cursive script fonts. It is necessary for letters to connect and flow correctly, and it helps them look good to the eye. Some combinations of letters and spacing end up appearing a little too similar other letters.

(Images found on digitalsynopsis.com)

"People are not going to approach your design with rulers, trying to see if you spaced everything equally. People are going to look at it and see if they can easily read it, and that's all that's going to matter."

Igor Ovsyannykov

(link to blog homepage, contains creative and design advice)

10 Kerning Tips to Improve Your Typography

Visual Symbols In My Life

     I would be willing to bet almost anyone that they couldn't make it through 24 hours without using some sort of visual symbol to help them in their day. The cues we get from these daily symbols are something we have to learn throughout the course of our lives but they become incredibly important in our day-to-day activities, oftentimes without us even noticing.

(www.publicdomainpictures.net)

     This stock photo is just a set of painted white lines on some cement, yet you likely know what it is without needing much more information. The photo is of a crosswalk, and it's something that most people use nearly every day without thinking about it. White lines painted in this particular pattern has become associated with a safe crossing in most people's minds.

Why do people stop at stoplights and stop signs? Other than the fact that the law mandates that they do, people learn to associate the color red with stopping. The shape and color of a stop sign convey the message well enough that most people would stop even if the word stop was removed from the sign.

     The above image is one that I drew quickly in Microsoft Word (which I opened by clicking an icon, without reading any text). Lining things up using a touch-pad on a laptop is frustrating, but for this blog post all the lines are straight enough. I use this symbol on a daily basis when I am trying to get to class. Sometimes there are words on the sign, but oftentimes it is just a gray sign with a couple of black line segments organized like my drawing above. With or without words on the sign, this symbol is enough to let me know the stairs I am looking for are nearby.

How To Build a Personal Learning Network (Video)

Embedded above is a video I found on TeacherTube covering the subject of personal learning networks. This video is just an example of the MANY that can be found on this website and accessed by other educators for free! Some videos are better than others, but there is no shortage of useful videos! Borrowing videos and printable lesson plans throughout the school year is a good way to keep the classroom fresh and exciting, and it gives students access to different viewpoints that they might not have been exposed to if you had designed everything that the class did throughout the year.

My Personal Learning Network

Embedded above is a concept map illustrating my current personal learning network (PLN). It is still a work in progress and will grow throughout this semester, and through my career as an educator. Links are included on the concept map for all online sources, including podcasts and helpful Twitter and Pinterest pages. Later on I will post a picture of a rough draft/pre-map that I created at the beginning of the semester. The difference between the two is already surprising to me, and continues to get larger and larger as I find new resources. If your computer is not able to view the embedded content, here is the external link: Sean's PLN Concept Map (link will open in a new window, no sign-in required). Below are ten of the resources I found, with a short description and a screenshot of each.

@edutopia

This resource is a Twitter account that tweets about a variety of things relating to education. The posts range from studies on seating charts to fun graphics you can print and hang in your classroom. There are also suggested accounts to follow listed, and many of the linked pages are helpful sources for continuing learning as well.










@teachthought

The goal of TeachThought is to help teachers continue their education throughout their careers. They want to innovate and improve upon the education system by improving teachers. The account tweets links to helpful podcasts, new ways to teach science experiments, and classroom management strategies. The entire focus is to better educate teachers and encourage them to incorporate technology into the classroom.

Classroom Bridges
Classroom bridges is a website aimed at helping teachers connect with other classrooms. The two teachers both fill out their search criteria and wait for a match. Once the teachers have been matched they exchange contact information (email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and design their connected classroom activities.





blogger.com
Blogger.com is free website where you can create blogs discussing any subject you would like. You are also able to access any blogs set to public viewing, and this enables you to connect with other people in areas you are interested in.
This is a helpful tool in any field to learn from others.

#edchat Radio
#edchat Radio is a podcast that goes along with the following resource on the list. This podcast is once a week, and the subject matter varies week to week. The topics for discussion are drawn from the most talked about things on #edchat on Twitter that week.







#thirdchat

#thirdchat is a tag on Twitter that connects you to other people discussing third grade. The discussions can range from interesting projects a class has done to suggestions about how to teach a difficult subject. Along with this group for third grade, there are other groups such as #edchat (general group for educators) and #fourthchat (fourth grade).







Pinterest.com

Along with all the fun crafts and foods that Pinterest will show you how to make, there are also a ton of educational boards on the site as well. Other educators share interesting graphics, activity ideas, community projects, and more. This is an excellent resource to stay connected with other educators and share ideas.







@edudemic


Edudemic is a resource that I found after creating my Twitter profile. I was initially interested because their 'about me' section reads "Connecting Education and Technolgy". The posts are informative and cover a wide range of topics while still being interesting and enjoyable to read.

TeacherTube.com
Teacher Tube is a website with many different types of educational content. On this website you can find study guides, lessons taught through videos, photos, and more. The content is user created so evaluation of anything used from the site is important.

edpuzzle.com

Ed Puzzle is a website that allows teachers to create and share educational and instructional videos. One of the many cool features of this site is the ability to add pauses and questions to the videos to check student's understanding of the topic as they go along.





(Edit: Updated PLN)
(Edit: Answered questions about each source)

Why Use Twitter as a Source of Continuing Education?

1. Twitter fits into your schedule whenever YOU have time, which is incredibly convenient for an educator who always has something new to be working on. Free moments are scarce, and the simplicity and length of many tweets allows you to take advantage of those moments.

2. Allows you to meet other people that share the same interests or views as you, and engage with others that may challenge your beliefs. There are more Twitter accounts in existence than most people can even imagine. While that can cause confusion and make it more difficult to find reliable sources; with just a little bit of an evaluation of the accounts you look at, it won't take much time at all to find a few good sources of information.

3. Hashtags are an incredibly convenient way to organize the thoughts of many people on a certain topic. For example, when I log into my Twitter account, I can search "#edchat" and see what people are talking about regarding education in real time. I can even search for more specific grade levels and subject areas if I would like.

4. Twitter is ever changing and updating, and this allows its users to communicate and collaborate in real time. Surveys of groups of people can be done live, and input from millions of people is just a click away. Because of the ever changing nature of the website, information is shared quickly and with a large audience. This also allows Twitter to be used to stay up to date on new/changing professional standards and requirements.

You can visit my Twitter by clicking HERE or by 

clicking the link on the right side of the page.