Residency - Silverwood Park - Alyssa Baggus - 3 hrs
This week I was at Silverwood to help with the Winter Play Day. The Minnesota Kite Society was running a kite making workshop and kids and their families could participate in a snowman making contest. When I arrived there were already kids flying kites out on the frozen lake as well as a member of the Kite Society flying a kite that was 90 square feet with a 70 ft tail behind it. I worked the kite making station for the majority of the time. Kids would come up and pick out the color that they wanted, then they could choose from many different template options to trace things like cats, unicorns, frogs, or race cars. We help them line up the template on their kite and then let the kids draw and color their kite the way they wanted. After they designed their kites we helped them set up the frame and strings for them to go out and fly them.
I think the kids learned about the basics of color theory through their drawings depending on if they picked out the orange kite or the pink one, they had to choose colors in relation to that show they wouldn’t become muddled. Aside from that I think the kids were obviously learning about physics in how they could make their kite fly as well as patience for working to get their kite in the air. It was so enjoyable to watch the kids get so excited about their drawings and then see their kites take off on the lake. I think one of the most exciting things was seeing so many kids and parents outside playing even though it was 0 degrees outside.
Residency - Minneapolis Community and Technical College - John Johnston - 4 hrs
This week was my first day working at Minneapolis Community and Technical College as a Teacher’s Assistant for Photo 1. The course is structured as roughly 2 hours of Lab and then 2 hours of Lecture afterwards. Today was packed with information because it was the introduction to the wet lab. The class went over all of the steps to the film development process in the lab and all of the things they will need to be successfully doing it themselves next week. That part of teaching photography is always a lot of talking for one day but I don’t think there’s a better way to get students introduced to it. After going over all the steps this week, and hopefully students took decent notes, they should feel relatively confident in the process this coming Wednesday. The second half of class was spent introducing students to ISO. All students should have their own 35mm camera and rolls of film. John went over the difference between film speeds and what people might be interested in purchasing. Although it was a lot of lecturing for the day, I think it’s important to go over everything in detail so students know how their film works. I wonder if having printed examples could be beneficial for students to be able to hold and view the photographs. I think the students learned a lot of information for one day and through experimentation this week and next, all of it will make a lot more sense to them. John has a prepared presentation for examples of photographs and a brief over view of the history of photography that had most of the students engaged and excited about the possibilities. I’m very excited to see how students respond to analog photography and who will fall in love with it and who will grow to hate it.