Summary -from Alison

Summary of “The Impact of Color on Learning.”

In the electronic article, “The Impact of Color on Learning” (2003), from Illinois Design Association in “Perkins & Will”, the author, Kathie Engelbrecht, conducted the studies from colour psychologists, medical and design professionals about colour’s importance in school facility.

According to the article, K. Engelbrecht(2003) basically pointed out that our body has a fundamental analysis and response to certain colours. The author (2003) then indicated the benefits by utilizing colours in school (Engelbrecht). As she mentioned, the benefits are: measuring human alertness, altering moods, cogitative clarity and energy level, relieving eye strain, increasing productivity and accuracy, creating a system of order, “helping to distinguish important and unimportant elements in the environment, and supporting student’s developmental processes” (Engelbrecht, 2003). The writer (2003) further provided the guidelines for using functional colours in academic environments, such as warm and bright colours are employed in preschool and elementary school, cool colours are utilized in upper grade and secondary school, and pale or light green are painted n libraries (Engelbrecht). She briefly introduced the meaning of functional colour which means the colours are utilized for certain purpose more than to focus on the colour’s aesthetic of beauty (Engelbrecht, 2003).

In conclusion, Kathie Engelbrecht (2003) indicated the advantages of using colour in academic environment to support colour’s significance in learning environment, provided brief guidelines as example about how to use colours in school, and introduced concisely the functional colours.

Critique/ Opinion

Although this article was not entertaining, it was attractive to read because its content and structure are valuable to learn.

The article was not bias due to the fact that the author conducted different experts’ opinions to support the importance of colours in academic environments. The writer also supplied concise guidelines as example to use colours. Not only has she provided specific examples about how to use colours and indicated the certain colour towards the certain benefit, the statistic from other expert’s experiment, and citation from famous experts, but also she logically and clearly divided the article into several sections such as “abstract”, “introduction”, “understanding our biological processing”, “introducing colour in schools”, “guidelines for academic environments”, and “summary”. The clear structure of the article enhances the quality of reader’s comprehension.

In addition, in the content of the article, it would be an incomprehensible theory if the author did not provide numerous demonstrations and explanations to alter the structure of the article. However, the author successfully attracted reader’s attention in the abstract by the words “…studies conducted by colour psychologists, medical and design professionals …” to powerfully convince the reader’s identification and to provide the fist superior impression to readers that this article was not a bias.

To sum up, although this article was not entertaining and was not provided any counterarguments, because of the author’s apparent arrangement in the article structure and the high-quality strategies to employ the examples and citations from other experts, she contributes a comprehensible and valuable article to readers. Moreover, because the writer conducted other experts’ researches into one article, it is especially worthy to learn from the author how to cite, utilize, omit and conduct appropriately the abundant points of views about the impact and importance of colour in academic environment. Consequently, both structure and content are worthy to learn.

Summary & Critique of “Color Psychology and Color Therapy”-Alison

Summary of “Color Psychology and Color Therapy”

In the chapter, “Emotional Reactions”, in page 137 to 150 of the book, “Color Psychology and Color Therapy” (1961), the author, Faber Birren, stated that because colour is too obvious to be ignored in our life, it gives people supernatural influence in psychological aspect such as in emotional reactions.

According to the book, F. Birren pointed out that different emotional responsiveness of people will result diverse reaction towards to colours in broad (1961, p.137). Extroverts are more likely warm colours, but introverts tend to prefer cool colours (Birren, 1961, p.138). The author (1961) then explained J.P. Guilford’s opinion about the cause and effect between colours and psychology: colours influence is not only reflected on one organ since light shining in the eyes, it also affects other organs (p.139). As well, Birren (1961) provided counterargument which disagrees that colours affect people because this thought may be from people who dislike certain colours, and so that there is the way they vent their arguments (p.140). However, he mentioned that colour does associate with emotion, and it is divided into two moods: warm colour such as red which offers people lively and exciting feelings, and cold colour such as blue, and violet which present inactive and calming feelings (Bireen, 1961, p.141). Further, he indicated in page 142 that because the relationship between subject himself, object, and outside world, it influences colour reaction, and there seems as no exact accurate results in emotional reaction of colour (Bireen, 1961). Yet, Bireen supplied a wide-ranging experiment about the reactions to colour which seem to be noted in the majority of people (1961, p.142). The experiment taken by hundreds of college students showed that bright colour (lights) makes muscular responses actively (Bireen, 1961, p.142-144). He then mentioned that under warm and cold colour light, the time, length, and weight of object would be looked and felt different (Bireen, 1961, p.146-147). Afterwards, Bireen (1961) said that other human sense such as hearing also associates with colour, eyes, and active (p.147-150).

In conclusion, F. Birren indicated that colour plays essential role in our life, and he mainly reported that colour affects emotional reactions by mentioning colour psychology, rumours from opponents, research in colour psychology, and other human senses related to colour reactions (1961, p.137-150).

Critique/ Opinion

The book was interesting to read because its content and structure are valuable to learn.

The author claimed his opinion in general that colour’s importance in our life and its effect in emotional reaction. Not only has he provided examples, phenomenon about colour reaction, explanation about other writers’ statements, citation and quotation from famous experts, and also his own inference, but also he gave counterarguments in page 140. The high quality and great numbers of supporting sentences have covered up the opposite gossip.

In addition, in the content of the article, it would be a boring theory if the author did not provides numerous examples and descriptions to modify the structure of the article. However, he did not use an interesting tone in order to attract the reader’s attention, the author indicated his own point of view in the introduction and supported his statement by the words “many researchers …” to convince the reader’s identification.

To sum up, because of the author’s strategies in using examples and other appropriate supporting sentences in the article, although he uses a serious tone, he brings a worthy-to-read article. Moreover, the quotation and counterarguments contribute readers with a different point of view about colour psychological aspect in emotional reactions. It is especially worthy to learn from the article in both the structure of his writing and the content about emotional reactions of colours.

Responding to other students’ reading tasks—from Alison

Responding to other students’ reading tasks—from Alison

Date: Sep24, 2007

Instead of looking at the summary that Ibrahim and Jay have posted on their blogs, I decided to write my comments about their oral reports in class.

This time, Ibrahim’s oral report was about “farming and trading”. He mentioned that the author said three main points in the book: “trading in Africa is decreasing”, “should stop cooperation”, and “single channel trading destroys farming and trading” which is the “one of those causes of starvation in Africa”, based on Ibrahim’s statement. He mentioned that what he has read in this chapter does not directly strike into what he wants to write in his research paper. I sensed from his look that he was not quite interested in this chapter, but he explained the three points about starvation that the author stated in the chapter, and he mentioned that he especially agrees with the third point about single channel trading which influences and is one of the causes of starvation in Africa. Critically speaking, Ibrahim spoke logically but did not have enough preparation for his material. It may be because this chapter did not interest him too much.

From my point of view, although the author did not directly strike into the main causes of starvation in Africa, the author did gave a hint which was let Ibrahim understand that one of the causes of starvation is “single channel trading which destroys farming and trading”. Besides, I believe that single channel trading definitely limits the opportunities for farmers to select better business for themselves. In addition, it surely affects farmers to produce their grains and to sell them because farmers may pay enormous amounts of money to trade with the single channel trading after they have made an effort to produce their products. No one likes to do non-profit trading. Therefore, with less profit, farmers may stop farming. Further, the overall economic state of this continent would drop off and final cause the starvation. For this possible chain reaction, I believe that single channel trading does influence the original farming and trading system in the bad way, and starvation results in the final.

Jay’s oral report was about “the nature of loneliness”. He pointed out two main points which the author stated in the book: “Loneliness is a common feature that all living bodies(creatures) shared ”, “…food, sex are the main needs that all living bodies need…, so living bodies prefer to not being isolated… the purpose is surviving.” Jay forgot using examples to support these two points while he was presenting, but we all understood those points without any supporting sentences in his oral report.

According to Jay’s oral report, in my opinion, “loneliness” is a very broad topic. In addition, to be afraid of loneliness or not depends on each person’s innate personality, experience, cultural, the environment where they were raised and so on. There are too many causes that may influence a person to feel lonely. Therefore, it may not be easy to find the specific answer to why some Koreans are afraid of being alone. Despite this point, I am interested in that the author declared and as Jay mentioned: loneliness is a common sensation, and the purpose of surviving is to be not alone. I especially agree that the purpose of surviving is not to be alone. Yet, I also believe that if a person is able to enjoy being alone, s/he could also enjoy to be in a group. Further, s/he could analyze herself/himself more when getting alone. Sometimes, that to question oneself, talk to oneself, and listen to one self’s heart in order to understand more about self is a lot easier when s/he stays alone than being in a group. If s/he does not learn how to be alone, s/he may lose a chance to get to know her/himself more than s/he has known. Without being acquainted with self’s heart, it would be hard to say that they will entirely enjoy being with other people. Hence, as far as I am concerned, although Jay’s topic, “Loneliness”, or “Why Koreans are afraid of loneliness”, is a bit difficult to find out the truly answer, I am interested in knowing the results, and it might also help many other people to reanalyze themselves.

Summary ---from Alison

Summary

Summary of “Setting the Stage for Learning”

In the introduction in page 167 to 169 of the article, “Setting the Stage for Learning” (1977), the author, L. B., Rosenfeld, stated that we can shift the learning efficiency by three ways which are: arranging the setting, controlling the colours that surround us, and planning our body type.

Rosenfeld (1977) indicated that in the colour aspect, the colours of the environment affect achievement and behaviour (p. 169). The author provides several examples of using colours in sport teams. In this example, cool colours can calm and relax aggressive behaviour, and warm colours have the ability to stimulate and encourage achievement (Rosenfeld, 1977, p.169). Most importantly, the author (p.169) mentioned that students in the schools that are painted with colour dynamic principles (such as cheerful colours), have greater achievement than in the schools that are painted in traditional colours or unpainted schools. (Ketcham quoted in Rosenfeld, 1977, p.169)

In conclusion, utilizing colours properly can affect students in positive ways (Rosenfeld, 1977, p.169). Based on Rosenfeld (1977), colour choices usually depend on the person’s age (p.169). The younger students use warmer colours in the classroom, yet for older children, the suggestion is to use cooler colours in their learning environment to avoid distraction. (Thompson quoted in Rosenfeld, 1977, p. 169)
Summary of “Using Color in Presentations”

Base on Business Communication Quarterly, 59:1, in the article, “Using Color in Presentations” (1966, p.90-92), the author, Marie E. Flatley, stated that the color can mislead people’s eyes; however, using the color effectively can improve presentations because of its effect on creating people’s interests and making the presenter’s points clearer. Some of the ways to enhance a presentation’s appearance are: paying attention to the background, text, and color rules, mentioned by M. E. Flatley (1966, p.90-92).

According to M. E. Flatley (1966), the background colors mean the room lighting which depends on the presenter’s location, and the sources of natural light (p.91). In the aspect of color rules, the colors are classified by emotion into three color groups: warm colors such as red which stands for stimulant, cold colors such as blue which represents a soothing feeling, and neutral colors such as green which symbolizes safety, indicated by Flatley (1966, p.91). The text color should contrast with the background color, especially between the title and the background color, suggested Flatley (1966, p.91). In addition, the author (1966) mentioned that limiting the amount of colours avoids confusing the audience’s cognition in the presenter’s message (p.91). To highlight the point one must use it with a high contrast colour (Flatley, 1966, p.92). As the author said (p.92), by using a matching and accurate color in your graph, the information will be explained more efficiently (1966).

In conclusion, although using colour in presentation may confuse the audience, utilizing colour properly and paying attention to the relationship between background, text, and color rules can significantly enhance the quality of presentation (Flatley, 1966, p.90-92).

Summary of “Learning to see creatively”

In the chapter, “Color”, in page 76 to 85 of the book, “Learning to see creatively” (2003), the author, Bryan Peterson, stated that color is certainly noticeable in our life, and people should be acquainted with colors. In addition, he introduced that colors have two main positions which are named primary color and secondary color.

According to Peterson (2003) in page 76, primary color, red, blue, and yellow, cannot be created by other mixing color, has two major sets which are called subtractive color and additive color. However, secondary color, orange, green, and violet, can be produced by mixing any two primary colors, explained by Peterson (2003, p.76). The author, Peterson further mentioned that subtractive color should be especially kept in mind when people work with color (2003, p.76).

To sum up, B. Peterson briefly introduced colors which are placed in two: primary color and secondary color, and he mentioned that primary color is divided into two main sets which are subtractive colors and additive colors(2003, p.76). He then suggested that people should keep subtractive colors in their mind when working with colors (Peterson, 2003, p.76).

Responding to other students' reading tasks-from Alison

Date: Sep17, 2007

As I listened to Ibrahim's reading report and Jay's, I was glad to learn something new from their topics--Ibrahim's topic is “Starvation in Africa”, and Jay’s is “Loneliness”.

In Ibrahim’s report, he firstly pointed out the main problems of Africa followed by the author’s statement. He mentioned that one of the problems is that the population is growing faster than the production of food supply. Then he mentioned the author’s opinion by indicating that the growing population reduces food supply and agricultural industry, and afterward it causes diseases because of food scarcity. Further, based on Ibrahim, the growing population is due to polygamy. He then provided the author’s opinion that technology makes the differences between rich and poor even more dramatic, and it does not actually contribute to the African agriculture. Ibrahim supported his opinion by pointing out that he agrees that the main problem of a rapidly growing population is polygamy.

In my opinion, Ibrahim did not do particularly good or bad in evaluating his material, but he explained some thoughts regarding his topic when we threw questions at him.

From my point of view, I wonder why when I asked Ibrahim why the government of Africa did not want to teach the poor how to use technology to harvest their agricultural products, and Ibrahim stated that “ to educate the poor is capitalism.” I am also curious about what the government of Africa thought, and why technology cannot enhance the agricultural industry, and why the government does not educate poor people to use technology to produce more agricultural products, so that the poor people will not become poorer, and the gap between poor people and rich people could be decreased. Furthermore, technology will probably influence the amount of workers needed. Hence, it is the responsibility of Africa’s government to make backup plans for ordinary people, in case the technology decreases the amount of jobs which would increase poverty.

On the other hand, in Jay’s report, “Loneliness”, he mentioned that almost all the Koreans are afraid of being called “Mr/Ms. Loneliness” because they do not like people to see them as a “boring person” or as “no social activity person”, based on Jay, and he was going to find the reason in his research. Yet, he did not point out whether the phenomenon is a fact from the book or is his own opinion. He did not support his opinion because our discussion ran out of time because of Ibrahim’s report. (I didn’t even have any time to share and give my report to Jay and Ibrahim.) In addition, of course, he has not started doing his research yet, so he is not able to provide details on what he has stated.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, Jay seemed to need more time to evaluate his material because he did not give enough reasons, details or information from his book. From my experience, many of my Korean friends who went to travel alone were very proud of themselves about traveling alone. Therefore, if Koreans are afraid to be called or indicated that they are Mr/Ms. Loneliness, I wonder why many of my Korean friends enjoyed traveling alone. However, I am not Korean, so I may not understand Koreans as much as Jay who was born in Korea.

Summary of pp.88-135 (From Alison)

Summary of pp.88-135

In page 88 to 135 of the book, “Learning to see creatively” (2003), the author, Bryan Peterson, stated that for amateur photographers, to take top-quality photograph is to master the composition and light in photographs.

Peterson indicated that to fill the frame is the most essential and easiest skill in composition of a photograph, but the first step is to figure out what your subject is, and then to focus on your subject until it fills the frame of the viewfinder in your camera (pp.88-89, 2003). The author as well mentioned in page 92 to 97 that the most useful technique to substantially improve the quality in photography is placing the most important elements into nine divided equal sections of a photograph (2003). In addition, Peterson (2003) proposed that the photograph’s emotional tone will be enhanced by mastering the three chief features of the available light: brightness, colour and direction (pp.130). According to the author, the best possible light will be that of the early morning and the early afternoon; yet it still depends on what the subject is and where the location of the subject is (2003, pp.130).

In conclusion, based on B. Peterson (2003) in page 88 to 89, the easiest way for an amateur photographer to take high-quality photographs is to master a photo’s composition and light. After identifying what the subject is, one of the important strategies in composition of taking photographs is to fill the frame with that subject, based on Peterson (2003.pp. 88-89). Moreover, according to the author (2003),the most essential and useful strategy to improve the composition of a photograph is to divide the appearance of a picture into nine equal sections and set the most important part of your subject along the third markers (pp.92-97). The author then stated that by mastering the three chief features of the available light, the photograph’s emotional tone will be enhanced (2003.pp.130-135). Using these strategies will make it easier to create a more compelling composition in arts such as in a photograph (Peterson, 2003, pp.88-135).

Greeting

Hi, folks,

How are you?

I'm Alison and come from Taiwan.

Mountain hiking, swimming and biking and doing other outdoor sports, and watching movie are all my interest.

Alison

I miss the life in Toronto

I haven't visited this blog for an age.

I miss the life while I had been in Toronto;
especially while I was looking at those comments from my friends. :)



Alison