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??!

Plan, then plan some more, then plan even more. 

I have always felt that I have had a pretty good grip on things such as lesson planning, technology, anticipating problems, multi-tasking and technology integration. 

Well, setting up 100 students to have Gmail accounts that can be used for Google Docs, Google Drive and Google+ Communities will make a person feel oh so less then competent in all of the above, and more. This year’s foray into using Google Docs to assist in the implementation of a variety of creativity culturing activities in all my classes has morphed into a beast. And all we did was set up Gmail accounts!

Let’s take this a step at a time, so those of you interested will learn from my headaches, and as a whole we will not personally fund the rise in Tylenol stock.

Creativity activities take on many forms in my classroom, from critiques promoting higher order thinking to brainstorming activities. We work on creativity visually, verbally and in writing.

Over this past summer I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time investigating creativity, creativity assessment and digital art journals. This investigation led me to the decision to create Google+ Communities with all my classes in order to implement some of these activities. I also plan on using Google Drive and Google Docs for storage, surveys, and digital journals and brainstorming activities. All of these things I think will integrate very nicely into our Google+ Communities, enabling my students thoughts to be shared with their peers both in and outside their classes and with other stakeholders such as parents.

First however, all 100 students needed Gmail accounts. I had a simple plan. Take each class into my computer lab, have them set up a new account using a screen name and password of my choosing, through which they would send me an introductory email, then take them back to my art classroom, and I would simply plop them into the appropriate Google+ circle and Community later that evening using the email they had each send.

I swear I had it all planned, I tested it at home, I had printed, easy to understand instructions, I even anticipated the problem of forgotten passwords by assigning them easy to remember ones. Our Google+ Communities are being used as a school sponsored social network, so there should not be any presumption of privacy anyway.

Immediately I ran into the first snafu. Apparently Google requires most new users (it didn’t when I set up a new account from home though) to authenticate their account using a code sent though text or voice mail. OK, not a problem, we all have cell phones right? Yeah, cell phones with no reception on school grounds, cell phones at home or back in the classroom, cell phone numbers that Google will only allow to be used a few times for different codes. We muddled through class one, my phone number was successfully used 8 times until Google locked me out, and we had enough students with phones with reception to finish the class. As the day progressed though, I had less success with having students be able to receive texts, less students with cell phones (and my number no longer worked), and when some students were able to successfully create an account, more chaos as they discovered the new world of Google+! Yup, I forgot to take into account that my social media savvy students would immediately jump on Google+ and start playing as soon as their emails were activated. And since I was otherwise occupied with the nightmare of activation codes, hilarity quickly ensued. Google+ is pretty timid though, so while nothing of the job-losing variety occurred, I realized that I have got to be 5 steps ahead of these kids, because, man, they are FAST at picking up any type of social media sites.

Now, 24 hours later most of my students have active Gmail accounts and letters have been sent home informing parents of the creation of the Google+ Communities. My work, however, has just begun; all these students need to be added to my circles and then invited to join the appropriate Community. They need to add me, accept my invitation, and not get in too much trouble until those parent letters come back.

Friday begins iPad Fridays. What have I done to myself?!

August 17th, 2013

The first week of school I always hit 'em hard. I like to weed out any slackers, and let all my students know I take my subject and their learning very seriously. The second week, however, is usually spent getting to know my students a little bit more, finding out how much rope I can give them (some classes more so than others this year), learning basics like camera settings and shaking off the drawing cobwebs caused by spending the summer drawing cartoons, or not at all.
There is a lot of talent in all my classes this year, and a lot of personalities. It should prove to be an exciting year.
Next week everyone will sign up for Gmail accounts and on Friday we will begin using the iPads. Stay tuned, it will be exciting to see what creative adventures lie in store for me and my students!

Some student Anime examples.

I'm not big on Anime in my classroom, but this year we are going to work with the
Memphis Comic and Anime convention to help create an animated short.
This afterschool project has many of my frustrated Anime artists
(frustrated because they rarely can draw in this style in school) very excited!

August 7th, 2013

Visible Thinking Strategies Fail

(and how a good teacher turns a negative into a positive) 

I put together the squares that made up a complete artwork from the pieces completed by my Art 2 students during the first two days of classes. I had a great plan to use one of the Visible Thinking Strategies from the Project Zero site called the Explanation Game:

The Explanation Game

Like many good plans however, this one turned into an epic fail, although no one but me probably realized that fact.

I notice that…why is that or why did that happen?

I began by having the students look at the completed put together artwork and then write down something they noticed on a large sheet of paper attached to the wall. (biggest problem, I needed to model more what a “good” observation looks like. “I notice a cow” is probably not as useful an observation for this discussion as say, “I notice that the top corner pieces have more color than the lower corner”)

Then I had the students, one at a time, attempt the “explanation” part of the exercise. They looked at the observations written down on the other sheet of paper and then attempted to explain why that was or why that occurred for one of the “I notice that” statements.

Again, some modeling would've been a good idea here (I’m kinda a Montessori, hands off, let the kids discover the answers and how to get to the answers kinda art teacher, but with VTS, if you want success, you have GOT to model these thinking behaviors). The answers were less than inspiring, with the exception of a few, and I shared these with the classes as good examples of what I was looking for in this exercise. But overall, this was a critical thinking fail.

I am an awesome teacher, however, and I do not let these types of fails get me down! I look instead for what I can take and use in order to turn this fail into a fabulous beginning. I realized that throughout the semester if we talk about what we see and why artists are making these decisions (in my class this is one of the main reasons for me to use this particular VTS), then if I do this same exercise before the Christmas break I should see noticeable improvement not only in the types of observation but in their rationales as to “why” (that’s my theory at least, and I'm sticking with it!).  I'm actually excited to see if I'm right, and it will be a cool way to show student growth for my portfolio. So epic fail or learning opportunity for my classes and myself ? – you decide, and let me know!

Finished artwork made up of all the individual student pieces

.

Classroom Conversation Clips

One of the things I've noticed while working on this blog is that if I am having a hard time putting into words succinctly the exercises or discussions we are having in a class, imagine what it’s like for the students! Especially being in a doctoral program, I can get pretty out there with my connections and expectations. This, not so bad in upper level classes, but for my Art 2’s, they have to be a little more gently introduced to my meandering, heady, brain-hurting way of teaching. It’s effective a lot of the times, but I admit, can also be overwhelming! 

Reflecting upon your teaching practices is, I believe, one of the most important strategies to improving your effectiveness as a teacher. Thanks for letting me use this space as a reflective "confessional" at times! Now, let me go say a few "Hail Mary's"!

Monday August 5th, 2013

Today was the first day back at school with the students for the 2013-2014 school year. After a looooong, fairly depressing in-service week, I was ready to see my students and get into the classroom and do some learning and teaching!  As usual on the first day, there’s no rest in Art Class. All of my classes began a project with the exception of Graphic Media. 

The Graphic Media class used Visible Thinking Strategies

 http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/ 

to explore the idea of: “What makes a Great Photograph a GREAT photograph?” Students chose examples of what they thought were great photos from magazines and posted them onto the wall. Then they discussed and wrote a list of why they thought they were great photos. Once they decided on basic characteristics, the students looked for one more example of a great photo and posted it to the other side of their list. It was interesting to see the obvious difference between the two sides. After discussion, the students came up with the final characteristic: that great photos tell a story.

Great photos before discussion on the left, great photos after discussion on the right.

Students deciding the characteristics of a great photo.

The question I asked myself at the end of the day is: do they REALLY understand what a great photo is? Not yet, but for the first day of school these beginning discussions, the evidence of visible thinking, and the student’s enthusiasm for discovering, as opposed to being taught, the answers, was very encouraging. I look forward to continuing this discussion with the classes throughout the year, as the students revise their ideas of what makes a great photo.

Classroom Conversation Clips:

Some debate cropped up as to whether or not you can take a bad photo and make it great with a program like Instagram. I was very intrigued by the idea and vowed to my students we would try this this year. I have my opinionsbut I'll reserve judgment and let the students tell me the outcome after they explore this concept later in the year.

Overheard in Guidance on the first day of school: “Ms. Lange’s class is not what I expected, we started a project already today, I think I need to change my schedule!” While I'm not saying it’s a great thing that anyone wants to drop my class, I’m amazed at how many students are SHOCKED that we start work on the first day of school. Going over the syllabus is boring. Reviewing discipline rules and consequences is boring. Getting to know you “games” are boring. The best way I've found to keep a classroom full of high school students from getting off task is to keep them ON task, everyday, every minute, with meaningful, engaging assignments, that make them think, hard, from the first minute they walk in my room. So, go ahead, drop my class, in a month when all your friends are showing you the fabulous work they've created, you overhear the interesting discussions my class has prompted, and you see the awards they are winning, you’ll regret that decision, and I'll see you next year when you sign up again for the same class you dropped today.