This week I chose to explore the famous social media platform of Instagram to find tutorials on origami creations. My thought was that this would be an excellent resource to explore as I have seen reels of origami in the past. I began by using the search option, and typed in “origami art”. The results looked promising as many videos and pictures of origami appeared. 

The first reel that I followed was a tutorial on how to make a butterfly which was posted on an account with the handle “kar_dasti_ba_man”. I found that this was an excellent tutorial and straight forward to follow step by step. I would highly recommend if you would like to learn simple origami, that you begin with this as I think that they turn out beautiful and does not require many folds. One thing I really like about the video that I found is that when viewing on my computer, the video could be paused as well as the playback speed could be adjusted to slow down. Because of this, I was able to follow along with the video without falling behind.

Because I enjoyed creating the butterfly, I decided that I should take the opportunity to make the same piece using a different type of paper and compare! For this, I cut out a square piece of newspaper and then began making the folds. I found that the newspaper was a lot thinner than my regular patterned paper that I have been using. Because of this, it was easy to make folds, but I found that the light paper made it difficult for the folds to hold in place. I think because the butterfly is a simple design that the newspaper worked well, but if I were to be making something with more intricate folds, the paper would perhaps rip/tear easily. 

Next, I found a video tutorial on how to make a rose! This piece was posted on an account with the handle “origami_ideas_”. I was excited to try this as I had the perfect red paper to use for it. Again, I was happy with the way that the tutorial was created, and I found I was able to follow along. I definitely had a couple of moments where I was confused on how the creator made the folds because the video was a timelapse (very fast paced), but in the end I was able to produce a finished product. This tutorial I would recommend to individuals who are wanting a little bit of a challenge but not ready to do anything too extreme.

As I continued exploring instagram, I came across a tutorial on creating a flower. This video was interesting as it was an instagram live created by the account handle “orogamialama”. The other two creations were timelapses which I think was used to save time for the length of the video. I was grateful for the saved instagram live as the video was in real time and I was able to follow along with minimal pauses throughout. The creation was a mix of fun and challenge! The tutorial creator spoke a language that I do not know, so her verbal cues did not come in use. However, the video itself was enough to follow along

Lastly, I decided to attempt an intricate crab which was a tutorial posted by the handle “krujok”. The video below is my attempt. This tutorial I would not recommend as it is a timelapse, that does not provide a pause button or playback speed option like the tutorials listed above had. Because of this I was unable to follow along and ended up very confused on how to create the folds. I was unable to produce a finished product.

Review of resource: Instagram has a lot of content, but I found it difficult to find whole tutorials that show how to create something from start to finish. In other words, instagram is more catered towards showcasing finished products as opposed to an educational tool. I found it more difficult to follow the tutorials as most of them were timelapses which was too fast for me as a beginner. During my search I had to filter out a lot of videos that would not work in order to find the ones that I used. Most of the videos I used from instagram were straight forward, but I definitely preferred the website that I used last week titled “paper kawaii”. I would not use instagram as a learning resource on origami within the classroom as I feel that students would perhaps face confusion, like I did when trying to follow videos that are too fast. 

Tech resources used:

• Instagram to find tutorials
• Imovie to create videos of my creations
• YouTube to upload videos of myself

What I learned:

• Instagram has lots of content on origami, but is not necessarily useful for learning the skill
• Newspaper is fragile but thin so it makes good folds
• Instagram is not my preferred way of learning origami
• Origami takes time and patience

My plan and goals moving into next week:

• Explore the platform of TikTok for tutorials
• Explore using magazine paper
• Begin creating more animals (this is something I wanted to get to this week, but was unable to find doable tutorials for my skill level)
• Become more confident with folding skills and perhaps revisit the crab tutorial

Question:

Do readers of this blog have any suggestions on a technology resource that can be used to help me learn the skill of origami? Let me know in the comments below!