iPAD FRIDAYS!!!

The kids are really getting into iPad Fridays in some of my classes. I wish they all would take what we are doing seriously though. One class is going to get remedial training on appropriate behavior - reteaching....I think I've heard of that concept somewhere. 

My computer lab classes had so much fun taking the iPads outside the other day they asked if we could do it every Friday. I have to think about that one. It does make one wonder though if the non-traditional setting helps promote better discussion.

In my elementary school in Connecticut we had these open areas where you could go read...also cool space pod things in the library you could climb into and sit and read a book. 

Interesting article that includes computer labs and learning in prescribed places as things that should be obsolete in classrooms.

10-things-in-school-that-should-be-obsolete

This past Friday we continued to work on discovering how to use our painting apps. They switched iPads at one point and commented on the other person's artwork in the notes app. They were to state what they see and ask a question.Then they switched back and were to discuss. This had varying degrees of success. I do think training with more specific questions is a necessary prerequisite before going to open-ended. I just imagine though if all the students had their own iPads. They could have a running record of other people's thoughts and it would be so much easier to save work and not overwrite each others work. I know we can use dropbox and Google docs to save work, but I am having a hard enough time training my advanced computer based classes to do this. It is one hurdle I am not ready to take on yet this year. 

I have created shared Google Docs for each app, and next Friday we will begin posting our tips and tricks and thoughts.

One piece of encouragement for those of you thinking about trying to use iPads in the classroom more. It is not near as overwhelming to me anymore. In the beginning I was exhausted after iPad Friday. Now with routines, and better planning the kids are taking on more responsibility for their learning  And that makes this over tasked teacher happy!!!

So my suggestions, go for it! The benefits of students becoming more familiar with the latest technology, increased problem solving skills, visible evidence of thinking, and higher student motivation make it worth it!

On a personal note I am writing up a proposal to present at this year's Project Zero conference here in Memphis at PDS. Wish me luck! And I might be having the work I'm doing in my classroom with visible thinking strategies shared with the TN dept of ed!

Moving along...at a pace I can barely keep up with! Life is good.

Blogging is hard to stay on top of, especially when you are taking 3 doctoral classes (one which requires a research blog), teaching full time, doing service/volunteer work, taking on side jobs in ID&T, and trying to find time to throw the ball for two rambunctious doggies.

But, I really think it's important to share what is going on, so I am trying to make time.

IPad Fridays are in full swing again. I highly recommend getting a feel for your classes before trying to implement iPads. I have had to tailor some planned assignments because the maturity levels of some classes are just not ready, and protocol and following directions are important things for the students to understand before letting them go with the iPads. I feel more comfortable training my students using traditional projects and then easing into the technology once I know they know my expectations and limitations. Next year this will be the path I will use.
Last week Art 2 got to "play" with the painting apps.
“Play is the highest form of research.”~ Albert Einstein
This week  I began with a visible thinking strategy from Project Zero to get my students to begin thinking about how they will go about learning to use these apps. I found that students (and myself) get a new app, play with a little, figure out some quick tricks and then move on to the next thing. I want them to became experts, and in order to do this they need to really investigate their apps. The idea of research in today's Google age is something that needs to be addressed with high schoolers and the THINK PUZZLE EXPLORE routine was just what they needed to start to plan how they would go about finding out about this apps. Below are some examples of their thinking. They worked in groups for about 10 minutes and then got out the iPads and begin learning how to use the apps.

CLASSROOM CONVERSATION CLIPS

It was such a nice day I took Graphic Media classes outside and let them use the iPads to work on their discussion posts in the Google+ Communities.

I loved when one student commented that +ones helped her feel more confident and that she wasn't the only one with the thoughts she posted. The validation one receives from the communities is an important factor in using the Google + Communities, not one that had originally occurred to me.

I find that the students are more apt to think carefully about their postings then if we were just having face to face discussions.

I told them we were having 21st century discussions - every one on their iPads, talking with one another through the Google+ discussion posts, while sitting 3 feet from each other.

Yeah yeah, the lack of real time social interaction, kids don't know how to have in-person communications, blah blah. I actually think their live social scene is fine, it's carrying on a thoughtful discussion in written form is where they lack. We actually talked about how a discussion post is like a real life conversation, sometimes where you begin is not where you end up.

Anyways...back to my real work! Maybe I will actually leave my house this weekend, it could happen!

Today in my Art 2 class I used Creative Test #1 from Philip Carter and Ken Russell’s book Psychometric Testing.

On the board I wrote:                        

Creativity- Do you Have it?

·      Creativity Training

·      Certainty Assessment

·      Creative Thinking Strategies

We talked a few minutes and then made connections to the Creativity Takes Time exercise.

The test is fairly simple, make something recognizable from the 12 shapes and then have a peer evaluate and score for creativity.

For a student in a doctoral program, especially one where she just finished a unit on measurement validity, nothing is simple however.

Potential Issues with Validity:

·      Gave the first class the instruction: “don’t draw 2 of the same thing, for example 2 faces”. Oooops, that suggestion tells them ahead of time what the expectations for creativity are.

Shalley found that when participants were instructed to be creative and given productivity goals the creative results were higher. It seems simply being told to be creative results in more creative behavior.

Shalley, C. E. (1991). Effects Of Productivity Goals, Creativity Goals, And Personal Discretion On Individual Creativity.. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(2), 179-185.

·      ELL, IEP. Hearing impaired, how do students with these types of disabilities or difference skew or not skew results?

·      Noise levels. Class one, super quiet, class two, super noisy. I guess when doing a qualitative study as long as this represents their typical classroom setting the various differences would not effect results since this is the environment they are used to being in. Put them in a computer classroom with headphones, then I could see an issue.

·      Sharing of papers, talking about ideas: collaboration is an essential part of problem-solving but some experts argue that it gets in the way of creative thinking. Steve Wozinak does not believe that anything revolutionary has even been invented by committee.

The amount of time spent on task varied widely, all students were given 30 minutes to complete. This directly speaks to internal motivation, because no rewards of any sort were offered.

Scoring is very subjective in this exercise; I actually am considering having Art 4 kids score them to see of that makes a difference. There were some good discussions during the scoring sessions, but lots of disagreement and difference of opinions.

----This afternoon I had my 4 AP Art kids take the Creative Test and had 5 Art IV students rescore the Art II's test and the AP tests. Initial glance I saw the Art IV's scored much lower than the Art II's as far as what were considered creative answers, and the work of the AP students did not necessarily look more creative. My first thought is  creativity training is essential to an art program, and we don't do enough of it: training, evaluation, assessment, discussion.

I plan on looking at the results a little more thoroughly in the upcoming weeks, but these 3 doctoral classes, and everything else I have on my plate are kicking my butt! Thank goodness Fall Break is next week!

The past few weeks I have seen some classes embrace their Google+ Communities, some treat them like another assignment (albeit fun assignments), and some ignore them except to chat and +1 viral videos.

I decided to ask my Graphic Media classes what they wanted to use their community for. They are the classes that spend the whole period in front of a computer, yet they are also the classes that ignore the community the most. They use Google Drive to upload and share photos, they use Gmail to send me emails and they converse on the Google + chat, but other than post a few viral videos and + 1'ing  some Star Wars photos, the Graphic Media Community is pretty much a wasteland. 

So I posted this question: Many of you are in my other classes where we are using our Communities in various ways. What are some ways you would like to use our Community for THIS class?

I got about 6 responses (out of 18 students) and most wanted to use the community for critiquing of personal photos they upload. To me these responses seem so typical of high schools students and their attitude towards social media. They want to get on the newest & latest site but only to do the same things they did on the old sites. Uploading their own photos and having students comment seems an awfully lot like Instagram, Deviant Art, and even how I see some of my student use Twitter. I do appreciate the teenager need for feedback and approval, and their need to be the center of attention, always & at all times, but I don't want them to just do the same thing with Google+ that they do with all the other social media sites. 
I posted an assignment for them to research photographers. They will use the album feature to upload photos and then ask and answer questions about their chosen photographer and their peers' chosen photographers. Once they become more knowledgeable about historically significant photos, then I will probably have them upload their personal photos for critiques. 
I'm hoping as they spend more time in the community they will come up with new ways to use this social media site instead of the same old same old. Time will tell.

CLASSROOM CONVERSATION CLIPS
I have been looking a lot at intrinsic motivation because of some doctoral work I am in the middle of this semester. This summer I read on creativity and learned that frustration can be a necessary part of the creative process.
A few of my Art 2's almost burst into tears today out of frustration with their painting projects. I know this is part of the process as a young artist moves forward in their artistic growth, as they move past the "good enough" stage, but it is always hard for me to watch their struggles.
Thinking about how intrinsically motivated they are (they have to be to get this frustrated I think) and knowing that this is part of the process of creativity helps, but I still hate to see people cry!

IPad Fridays have morphed into iPads whenever I can snag them from the library! 

The iPad cart doesn’t get much use around here this early in the school year so I have been able to use them throughout the week, not just on Fridays. I can see how positive a classroom set of iPads would be; the curriculum and classroom implications blow my mind!

Anyways….until that mysterious donor decides to grant me a classroom set, I will be very happy to have almost unlimited access, at least for the time being, to the school’s iPad cart.

Yesterday in Art III we worked in Google Docs, on a shared spreadsheet document. The class was developing a rubric for grading their idiom linoleum block prints. They split into 4 groups and each group had a category: print quality, composition, idiom or value, to work with. They were to write the descriptors for the various levels of competency.

There were drawbacks and benefits to working this way.

Benefits

• All groups can see changes instantaneously.
• Encourages feedback across the groups.
• Student monitoring is very easy, I watched the changes to the document occur on my own iPad as I walked around the room.
• Allows for collaboration across class periods. I have a singleton student in another class who, because we are using Google Docs, can collaborate with the other students even though she is in a different class period.

Drawbacks

• Changes are very easy to make – on the whole document. We had a few instances where someone in another group mistakenly deleted some information.
• Typing on iPads is difficult for many students. I am increasingly finding this to be a drawback to this type of technology.

The last technology integration for this project will be for each student to upload a picture of his or her print into our Google+ Community. I am going to have them comment on each other’s work from home as a homework assignment. I will post screenshots once that gets underway!

Google+ Community Update – AP ART

Teachers – Beware! If you use Google+ Communities with your upper level students be sure to comment yourself, often and frequently! My AP Art kids are beginning to use their community to share with each other ideas, images, comments about concentration ideas, but woe to the teacher who does not respond equally and in a timely manner to each and every student’s post! Students really do love feedback, art kids love to talk about their ideas and their work, and this is a great way to encourage discussions outside of the 7-2 school day, but as a teacher you also have to be committed to sharing throughout the day and weekends.

Life got a bit complicated for me this past week or so, and I slacked a bit on my comments. I made my amends though, and I think my high maintenance AP students forgave me!

iPad Friday!!!

The first iPad Friday made me want to run screaming away from technology forever. Bring me back a slide projector and filmstrips please. 

But then today, I interacted via Gmail and Google+ with some students and became so excited about the possibilities; I got all wired up (haha) on technology again. Ah technology, what a bumpy roller coaster ride you are!

I had high hopes for iPad Fridays, and I still do (Must. Maintain. Positive. Attitude). I think once we get the kinks worked out things will be much smoother and productive. The one positive was the students walked out happy and many said it was fun (although I’m not sure how much actual learning took place). The negative was I felt like I had run a marathon and lost by the end of the day.

What worked:

• Using Google forms to create a survey for everyone to fill out.

See the form here:

 Getting Acquainted Form

Students easily understood the majority of the form and worked independently on it so that I was able to help with technical problems. One caveat: model how to copy and paste the URL, NOT the entire website!

• The iPad Usage Agreement form. Students asked good questions and we only had one student break a rule (number 8). The consequence was immediate and definitely hit home the seriousness of these rules.

See the document here:

IPad Usage Agreement

(I got the majority of the form from here: http://www.mrsziemnik.net/apush/ipad-contract-2011-2012/ and tweeked it for my class)

• Using Gmail as a way for students to send me work. I like that I can so quickly respond, interactions seem like they can be a little informal and hopefully I will be able to engage some of my quieter students in deeper thinking.

Screen shot of a student's email to me with their list of 20 ideas for drawing glass objects creatively and my response.

What did not work:

• Making all students create new Gmail accounts. I should have let those with active Gmail accounts use those; it cuts down on the number of accounts that need to be made.
• Using the mail feature on the iPads. Since other classes are using the iPads I just need to stick with app or web based systems, then we don’t need to delete any accounts.
•  Having an open-ended plan for my Advanced Class. They need structure just like all my other classes. I had hoped they could be more involved in creating their Google+ Community, and maybe they can once they become more familiar with the site, but for now I need to give them more specific goals like I did in my other classes.

My goal for the next iPad Friday is to hand out iPads and have 95% of the students engaged within the first 15 minutes of class. I will let you know how that works out!

Classroom Conversation Clips

Why can students within 5 seconds have video posted, chatted with friends, uploaded a photo and “liked” 3 different viral media posts in a social media site they have never used before, yet when you ask them to type in an address in the URL bar they look at you like you are speaking another language??!