My Creative Routine

I don't really seem to have a routine to anything anymore.  My life is a bit of half-organized chaos.  I can say, however, that a few things have always remained constant to any creative process I use.  - I need a beverage, music or the television, visual references, and I prefer to work at night.  
I have always been a night owl and still prefer to work on projects at night - although, just trying to stay awake long enough to begin/finish something seems to be my latest set back.
I also have to have background noise.  I like to work on projects with music playing or a tv show.- Old episodes of Seinfeld or anything else that I can occasionally glance at.  I tend to feel more comfortable when my husband is home too.  I don't want him hanging out around my easel, but I do like it when he is around.(My workspace is in the basement which seems so far removed from my kids at night.)  If a project will fit on the kitchen table, it tends to end up there temporarily.  My "studio" is in the spare bedroom and I share this space with a shelf full of kids art supplies, my sewing machine and a guest bed (which is usually covered in fabric and supplies)  I am terrible about tossing things here and there as I work ... and my kids seem to have picked up the habit.  My creative space is often entwined with my 5 year old's creative mess.  I don't mind the creative clutter as long as I can find what I need and eventually get it put back so that I can find my supplies when I need them.
I am not really a "make it up as you go" kind of artist.  I usually have something to reference or some type of planning done before i begin projects.  Even if it is just a few swatches of color and an old postcard.  I tend to gather ideas and then get to the creating.  
I also always have something to drink. - usually coffee or wine.  Depends on my mood and what day of the week it is.  Coffee is a constant in my life that I just can't live without.  Even in my decaf days with the baby, I just love the smell and warmth of a cup of coffee.
I am in need of quiet and solitude but I can't seem to sit still if I do get a rare moment of quiet and calm.  I am inherently a high-energy multi-tasker.  It would be a stretch for me to create in quiet without music or a cup of coffee.

iLove Macs

This is a quick video showing one of the many children with disabilities who are using iPads as assistive technology.    iPods and iPads are great in that they have many applications available that are similar to those of assistive technology that costs thousands of dollars.  They are, of course, touch sensitive and may not be appropriate for all children.  There is also not a super tough, drop-worthy anti-destructive case for the iPad yet.  If students can benefit from the use of a WMD in the classroom and it fits into the students IEP, there may be cause to allow the student to use the device at school.  Something to think about when working with older students with special needs in the art room.

Week 9: Total Immersion?

“You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you are doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle.” -George Lucas
     Second life and avatars in the classroom? I am not usually the type to shy away from a challenge, but I have to admit - this is definitely a giant hurdle.  I understand the attraction kids have to games and I am beginning to notice the multitude of options for technology integration in the classroom... but I will most likely put parameters on the social networking and virtual gaming inclusion in my art curriculum. 
     Several years ago (before smartboards, youtube and data projectors) I would have begun an elementary lesson on seascapes/ ocean with "sounds of the ocean" music in the cd player, stacks of themed library books at each table, and art posters displayed on a bulletin board.   Fast forward to today ... I would also be able to show clips from streamed videos of underwater scenes and crashing waves, images from google searches and the kids could scan their paintings and use them as images in digital collages... voice threads...as writing prompts.. or as backdrops for an animated cartoon.  If I wanted to take it a step further, we could post the paintings on the class blog and start a class critique or even visit virtual galleries to view famous paintings related to our theme.  

• The limitations:

The possibilities are endless with technology integration, however, I have to take a small step back and consider how much time I want to spend implementing some of these ideas in the art room.  Touring a virtual museum, for example, could be implemented fairly easily with proper access to the site and a data projector.  Immersive social networking opportunities that are authentic to the art curriculum, on the other hand,  will take proper planning, practice and monitoring on the part of the teacher.  I feel that a limitation to the application of virtual gaming and immersive social networking is TIME.  To some teachers, this will not be a limitation.... they are already immersed in this world.  To other teachers, this may hinder our forging ahead into new online worlds.  I love my job and I love teaching art - especially the hands-on, experimental, messy kind of art that involves paint, clay and glue.  I also enjoy sharing the world of art with kids by tapping into their interests. However, at some point, the teacher's work day must end and life away from teaching begins.  Total immersion for the students would mean total immersion for the teacher as well.  Can I count a virtual club toward career ladder?  Do I stretch my night a few minutes longer to check in on a social environment that I set up for the kids?  

• The possibilities:  

Learning should be fun.  Games are great way to jumpstart a lesson, reward the kids for outstanding behavior, or to teach and review a concept.  There are many sites with kid friendly, educational art games.  I have been using games, such as "Leonardo's Adventures", for years.  However, time is often limited in the classroom and games might need to be added to a class website for the kids to try at home.  My old class website (not updated since the fall of 2009) is yet to be unpublished and can be found here: www.fairviewart.weebly.com  Weebly is one of many free and easy to use web hosting sites. (It also has a blogging/ commenting feature that I did not enable based on the advice of the IT staff.)  Bookmarking or linking educational and fun sites could be an easy way to extend learning beyond the school day.  
Letting the kids create games centered around concepts is another great idea.  Many applications can be used to create games and animated cartoons that teach topics. Many suggestions, such as Alice.org, were given in the readings.  I visited  the Getty's "Whyville" virtual networking site and found it very interesting.  It looks very young, but if you visit the south beach and notice the teen style dialogues, you will see that it is definitely geared toward 9-15 year old kids.  I also downloaded the "Scratch" software created by MIT for kids to create animations that can be shared and remixed on their website.  
     Each teacher is going to have their own comfort level, and with proper planning and practice, will be able to immerse their students in an exciting technology savvy art education world.  For me, this means having the interest to research and try some of these technology applications and social worlds as a starting point.  From there, I plan to implement some of these ideas one step at a time. 

Pac-Mondrian game.  Fun!!

Art TECHIE Resources

I thought I would share this blog with my fellow classmates.  The tab "108 Web tools and Resources" is a convenient go to list of many of the sites we have visited throughout this class. - I will be adding it to my bookmarks along with Melissa's amazing techno-savvy site.

http://artjunction.org/blog/

Week 8: Digital Imaging Media in the Classroom

Art teachers are visual, art students learn visually, and kids love to take pictures!  For all of these reasons, digital imaging has a place in today’s art room. Ohler (2009) explains, “it is clear that many of the skills needed to command the new media collage would, by today’s standards, fit best into the art curriculum, where concepts of color, form, and collage are part of the everyday narrative“ (p.11)

So how do we begin?  Just as with any art lesson, projects that involve digital images and online sharing should be well prepared, clearly outlined and evaluated. 

As I have discussed in previous posts, lessons in digital etiquette are very important to give our students the tools needed to successfully and safely publish images online.  Copyright issues can also be covered in lessons about digital etiquette.  These types of lessons need not only be the art teacher’s responsibility.  Brooks-Young states, “Several states now require that educators teach online safety lessons annually” (p.80, 2010). Classroom teachers, media specialists and school counselors may wish to address these topics in their curriculum.  It would be wise to collaborate with teachers about teaching digital etiquette lessons.  The lessons could be taught in homerooms or the media center and subsequently reviewed in the art room. This would allow for more hands-on time in the art room.

            If projects are to be posted online, they should be teacher-led, structured assignments.  The teacher will need to mediate the material and set the privacy goals.  It will be important to check the district copyright, posting and viewing policies as they pertain to digital media (Brooks-Young, 2010).  Teachers will also need to make sure that they have permission before posting student photos, videos and images.  This can be handled through the general permission that parents may sign during registration as well as through individual permission slips and notes containing information about class blogs or websites.   It may be important to prepare for lessons by checking with the IT staff to increase teacher storage space, create a temporary class share drive, and unblock any imaging or editing sites that will be needed for the lesson. 

               Students love to take pictures and video.  Photos are a great way to document student’s lives, artwork and school field trips.  Digital cameras, cell phone cameras and Flip cameras are all relatively simple tools to use to create a collection of images (Brooks-Young, 2010).  Teachers will need to provide direct instruction to students on how to use the tools, how to upload and the specific criteria required for the project.  One method to devise digital media lessons is to use the “four D’s”: define, design, do and debrief (Churches, Crockett, & Jukes, 2010). 

            There are many ways that teachers can use pictures and video in the art room.  A few ideas of how to implement digital media in the elementary art room:

·      Create a cd cover:  The students would create a fictitious band and a cd cover for the band.  Photographs or drawings can be use in a digital collage for the cd cover.  Possible applications to use are photoshop, a blank powerpoint slide and other free online photo-editing sites.

·      Ambitious teachers can lead a student multi-media club.  The club could be responsible for creating the school’s morning announcements via video which would be viewed once a week by all classrooms.

·      Older students could create alphabet books for younger students- digital collages or voice threads.

·      Students can  create slideshows to document field trips and other school activities such as the school art show.

·      Teachers can create and embed video and picture tutorials in class websites.

I used one of many free online slideshow websites to create this slideshow of my family at Halloween and the CPS Super hero day.  I set the privacy to keep it from being published publicly through the site.  One drawback of a free site such as this is the advertising that comes with the slideshow.

 

Works Cited

Brooks-Young, S. (2010). Teaching with the tools kids really use. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Churches, A., Crockett, L., & Jukes, I. (2010). The Digital Diet: Today's Digital Tools in Small Bytes. 21st Century Fluency Project.

Ohler, J. (2009). Orchestrating the Media Collage. Educational Leadership , 66 (6), 9-13.

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The Photoshop Blues: Portrait Collage

I spent way more hours than I would like to admit (at the expense of my reflections) trying to navigate photoshop!