Ted Talk Thoughts

On Friday we watched a Ted Talk about the school system today and how it needs to be changed.
Here is the link to the video if you'd like to watch it:
http://youtu.be/Ni75vIE4vdk
Being on an iPad, I can't be sure that that link works. If not, I can try and link it again I suppose.
Alright, on to my thoughts.
I agree wholeheartedly with this video.
With my technology I am able to teach myself whatever it is I want to learn. And I have been. I use the Internet to find myself tutorials on art and music and all sorts of things. I'm achieving a lot from what I learn online, and I still haven't even reached what I can, I believe. I feel like Im still just grasping how much I can learn using the technology I own. I still have things to explore and discover about learning from the Internet.
In all honesty, I feel like about everything I am taught through lectures I can find online and learn there. And exactly as Will Richardson said in the video, why go to school when I can learn everything from the comfort of home?
The one thing that I find beneficial from going to school to learn is discussion. I get more viewpoints from my peers which help me to understand what I'm learning.
However, with the new systems of lecturing that are being developed in some places, the only thing that happens is the teacher talking. And again, why come listen to my teacher talk when I can go online and find a lecture or a video or an article on what I want to learn?
And another thing, what are we being taught in school? As far as I see it we learn pretty much what is expected to be on the test. That's all. At least in most classes.
Have you ever gotten one of those essay outlines? The ones with lines where you put your introduction and analysis and conclusion? That's the problem. There's no personality in that. They want you to follow a format. Essays are being judged based on how well they fit that format. It's all just a big contest to see who can do better on tests. And what do we learn from that? Nothing. There are subjects that I literally forget the day after the test. It's all memorization. Just learn it and then forget it. It's not as useful as it seems once the test is over.
My point is, I agree with what was said in the video. The school system needs to change. Soon.
I've always been a fan of vlogging and ranting on camera, so I was actually thinking about doing a sort of rant for my YouTube channel on this topic. Learning from technology. I've made rants before but now I feel like through the use of my technology I've gathered enough info to make an interesting video.
I may or may not link it if I make one. Well see.
That's all for now.

Manga style progress

Just a quick update on my manga reading.
I have a ton of pictures of manga for myself to review soon. I've been reading and snapping pictures of anything I catch.
What I've found is that since I've started practicing my art and looking at the art of others, I've been focusing on that while reading. I made comments this weekend to my sister like 'I don't like the plot but the art is amazing' and 'the proportions are bugging me'. I don't usually do that, but it's become habit recently.
So the point is I've been learning, and I just need to combine the pictures into posts.
I'll report back on it soon.
The following pictures are the manga that I have been reading so far.

New manga alert!

Here is a new manga that I'll be reading.
I'll most likely do some analysis on the style of manga as I go along. So far I'm only on the beginning of it.

Drawing Links Reviewed

In case you aren't sure what I'm talking about, here are the links to the sites that I found for drawing tutorials:

http://www.graphicmania.net/35-tutorials-about-how-to-draw-anime/
http://www.graphicmania.net/how-to-draw-anime-complete-guide/
http://www.graphicmania.net/the-big-guide-to-drawing-manga/
http://www.animecubed.com/howtodraw/
http://drawsketch.about.com/od/cartooning/Drawing_Cartoons_Comics_Manga_and_Anime.htm

I will now be going to each link and exploring the contents. I will then see if any of the links that I found seem to be useless to me or any of them stand out.

Beginning with the first link; it's a list of tutorials on the topic of anime and manga. All of the tutorials seem to be made by different artists online, so while it does look like I could use it some of them will go unused. 

The second link looks a bit more useful; it has multiple examples of anime characters to look at and styles to try. 

The third is full of more helpful tutorials. One thing that I noticed was the few on the actual paneling and background of manga, which could help in the long-run.

One thing I noticed about the fourth link is that the tutorials there have skill levels on them. Whether or not that will benefit me will most likely become clear as soon as I begin using the site.

The fifth and final link is on about.com. While doing my last study I would have ruled it out as unreliable, but with drawing and art really anything is valuable. Instead of needing to see if facts are true, you can simply try and decide if you like it.

Overall I plan on doing at least one more blog post per link, because all of them require more research and time.

That's it for now.

~Shannon