Message from Alex

Learning Tasks

For your Personal Learning Journal

Refer to the intended learning outcomes in the module information at the url below (I have replicated them as well)  http://cppd.onlineuk.org/Modules/art.htm  Bear this in mind over the next couple of weeks and stay focus during your reflections as you attempt to integrate your experience with the outcomes below. So start by reflecting on the skills workshop that you had attended on the 5^th  June.

·       Work with a variety of art and image making materials and therapeutic techniques in encouraging creative and self-affirming expression of individuals and groups.

·       Incorporate image making and art-based assessments in complementing their existing assessment methods in understanding client’s emotional, cognitive, and developmental needs and concerns.

·       Consider therapeutic structures and techniques in art and image making that is going to be relevant to individuals and groups in allowing expression and exploration of personal psychological material.

·       Appreciate forms, shapes, colours and metaphors 

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - LEARNING REQUIRES YOUR PARTICIPATION – I note that the participation during the last module has been really fantastic. Some of you are really ‘active’ and self-directed learners willing to share so much of yourself in your journal and contributing to your peers’ journals as well. The significant learning is so evident when that can be achieved and I would keep encouraging you to do that. Learning requires an element of risks, but without risks neither change nor transformation can ever be achieved. Do pay regular visits to your group members Personal Learning Journals and offer your feedback comments on their entries - words of encouragement, reflective prompts, your own views/opinions, links to resources, questions,  etc. Without this kind of interaction there is no value to be gain from learning in a group.  You have to maintain regular entries in your Personal Learning Journal, learning requires risks in making your thoughts and feelings visible, such self-disclosure and constructive feedback from colleagues are essential for ‘real’ learning. I suggest that as a guideline; make at least a minimum of an entry a week besides contributing to your members PLJ.

I encourage you in experimenting with embedding a variety of mutli-media add-ons in your blog, creativity includes finding new ways of playing, in this case, the digital environment, in expressing yourself. Many of your have shown evidence of that in your blogs, thus hopefully, this will be a source of inspiration for you and remember to learn from each other, this is after all your action learning set.

Initial Tasks

I invite you to create a least one piece of art or image using any of the different media each week, I have mentioned this earlier in my previous posting. This will give you more hands on experience with the various media. I am asking you to post them up on your blog together with your comments and reflections. Use a digital camera, scanner or mobile phone camera to capture your work. Just work intuitively as there is no specific theme or topic. Date it and give a title. This will be helpful when you look back at what you have produced when patterns or themes can be seen to emerge.

For the first online tutorial, I would like each of you to produce a simple pencil drawing on paper (A4). You can have an eraser with you. The task is to Draw a Person. Bring this in digital form preferably posted in your blog or if your blog is not ready onto a picture repository like Flickr or Facebook etc some where it can be accessible online with an url. We will be looking at one of the most common form of image making that is found in most visual art, the body.

That’s enough for now. We will start gently in our warm-up before gathering speed. I look forward to speaking to you all on Wednesday.

Best wishes


Alex