What I Teach

Want to know a secret?  A deep, dark secret that I've kept off this blog for over a year now?  One that will shock you?

Well, too bad.  I'm going to tell you anyway.

Ready?

Here I go ...

I'm not a part of my school's Art Department.

Yeah, that shocks me, too.  Here's a guy whose screen name on an umptillion of Web 2.0 sites is "The Art Guy," who may or may not have been the first art teacher podcaster (at the time I started I couldn't find another one ... that's far from the case now of course), who isn't even a part of his own school's Art Department.

How'd THAT happen?

It's a bureaucratic issue, to be honest.  I teach in a computer lab in a K-8 Arts Academy.  If it was a high school, I'd be a Computer Graphics teacher.  Unfortunately there is no course number for such a class in middle school, let alone elementary.

Instead, I teach a class called Technology Concepts.  It's a fun class to teach, if you're as geeky as I am, but it's not inherently an art course.  Therefore, I  have no reason (on paper, at least), to be a part of the Art Department.  Instead, I'm a part of the Enrichment Department.

It's not so bad...

I recently was chatting online with a former coworker from a previous school, and she lamented my change of departments.

"I'm so sorry," she said, "You're far too talented to not be teaching art!"

At that point I puffed out my chest and my head swelled with pride - and not just because she said I had talent.

"Oh, I'm still teaching art.  Do you honestly think I could stop teaching art if I tried?"

Of course she could not.

I'm an art teacher. I teach art.

Your definitions may vary, but in my book, ART is anything that involves creativity.  I don't care if it's a painting, story, play, song, dance, or video game.  An ARTIST is anyone who creates art, and an ART TEACHER is anyone who teaches students how to be artists.

I'm a teacher at a Creative & Performing Arts Academy.  Whatever subject is taught by any teacher, they had darned well better be teaching art as well or they don't belong there.

Math is art.

Science is art.

Social studies is art.

Reading/Language Arts is art to the point that the R/LA Department should be part of the Art Department as well!

Conclusion

Does it sting a bit to know I'm not part of a department named for my degree and certification?  Yes, yes it does.  But it doesn't change what I teach.

Art is universal.  Only the styles and media change.

And I'm an art teacher.

Return to Technology Concepts

School starts on Monday.

No, no that's not true.  For me, School started several weeks ago when I came in during the Summer to put my lab back together.  (The custodial staff needed me to break it down so they could move the desks and wax my floors.)

I found out only recently that many of the students I had last year will also be returning.  I met this news with mixed feelings.  First, I had some awesome kids last year.  There was more than one time that I took student work to my principal and said "This is why I need majors."  Seriously, we're an Arts Academy.  We have dance, drama, visual art, chorus, media production, band, AND orchestra majors - why not computer graphics, too?

That may happen in the future, but for now the red tape is in the way.

Unfortunately, for every student who was absolutely thrilled to have my class there was another who was only there because the Guidance dept. needed to give them an elective.

I don't fault students for not being thrilled with technology.  It's my passion, it doesn't have to be everyone's.  I was, however, concerned about credit.  There have been two other occasions where I've had students put in a class after they had already earned credit.  In one case discipline problems were a concern.

But then again, I've been assured that if the students couldn't get credit for taking Technology Concepts a second time the scheduling software wouldn't have let them into my class.

And it's not like I'm teaching all the same lessons again, either.  As technology and my own skill sets evolve, so do the projects I assign.  Granted, some lessons will be repeated - every class starts with students using PowerPoint to introduce themselves to the class - but others were already on the chopping block not because they were old news to the students (I didn't know I'd have returning students yet), but because they were old news to me.

The media we use will still be the same.  Students will still create animations, avatars, wallpapers, posters, and more.  I don't think I'm wrong for repeating those things so long as there's something new about them.  After all, I doubt the chorus majors will be saying "But we sang songs LAST year!"

I just have to keep things interesting, but you know what?

I think I just might be able to do that.

Climbing The Wall

The photo above is the front wall of my school.  On the day I stopped by to interview for my position (one of the best career choices I ever made, in my honest opinion), I saw this wall and thought "If I was a few decades younger, I'd try climbing that."

Indeed, with all of those bricks pushed away from the flat surface, this wall was full of hand holds and toe holds.  Perfect for climbing, except for the concrete and asphalt below you.

No, I never tried to climb that wall.  After a childhood accident where I fell off a porch railing and broke a wrist I decided not to climb things where I could severely hurt myself.  (I did later go cliff diving - repeatedly - but water landings aren't so bad.)

Flash forward to our school's end-of-the-year field day celebration.  A couple enterprising students looked at that wall and had the same thoughts I had - without the "Oh, we could probably really hurt ourselves" thoughts to go with them.

Fortunately these students were far from unsupervised, and stern words and looks managed to stop them before they got more than a couple feet off the ground.

So what does this have to do with education?

Everything.

My experience kept me from climbing that wall, and my experience kept those students from doing the same.  They hadn't yet learned that the benefit of climbing that wall ("Look how high I am!" "Look what I can do!") was overshadowed by the drawback of a potential injury.

Switch gears to a Kindergarten classroom, where the teacher has decided not to let her kids use oil pastels because the benefits of learning a new media do not (in his or her mind) outweigh the drawbacks of potential hard to clean messes.

Switch again to a classroom where students are not allowed to create blogs because the perceived risks (Do I have to list them?) don't outweigh the perceived benefits.

I've seen many teachers, administrators, and parents that thought of climbing a brick wall with no safety gear in the same light as student blogging, cell phones in schools, oil pastels in Kindergarten, or even letting special needs students use scissors.

What's the difference?

The difference is that we as teachers would be fools to ignore taking proper precautions before a learning activity.

I've blogged about this before.

I argue that it's not the same thing if we keep safety in mind.  Let the Kindergarten students use oil pastels after setting out "placemats" (newspaper works fine) and reminding them that when a color is done it goes back in the box.  Let students blog in a moderated setting, perhaps even in a "walled garden" environment where only the students, school employees, and parents can see what's being said.

When a student wants to climb a wall, for goodness' sake give them a helmet, safety line, and something soft to land on.

Then cheer with them when they see how high they can go.

Summer To-Do List

In no particular order, perhaps simultaneously:

• Build up Teachers20.com, hopefully recruiting others so that I don't get that nagging feeling that it's a one-man show any more.


• Spend some more time looking at a pastime of mine through the eyes of an educator.


• Take more photos.


• Leave more footprints (I need to exercise more).


• Get some cleaning done around the house.

And, if there's time, maybe relax a bit.

The Vicious Cycle of New Media

The image is kind of text-heavy. Click to see the full size version.

If anyone's curious, this was about 5 minutes worth of work in Frames.  It took longer because I'm apparently very bad at spelling words correctly.

#MSET Session 4: Digital Game-Based Learning in the Classroom

Presented by Ryan Schaaf of Howard County.

The last time I attended a session on using games in education I was under whelmed, but I think that was more from the presenter than the subject.  I am cautiously optimistic.

• First paper handout I've seen this conference.  Printed PowerPoint slides.


• "Let's start with your Door Prize!  ... I left it at home."  It was cards for a contest for a game called "Legend of Zork."


• In games the teacher is the guide and students learn through exploration.


• "Mirrors how humans think and how the mind works."


• His slides are walls of text.  I don't think it's hurting his presentation too much though.  He's not just reading the slides, and paging through the handout shows that these are just to front-load background information.


• Gaming appeals to multiple intelligences. (Yay, Gardner!)


• "Teaches without its main purpose as teaching."


• Can be used to train in low-risk environments. Military, Aviation, Medical, Financial, and so on.


• Motivation, Instructional Strategy, Closure, Assessment, Review, Reteach.


• Current slide is showing the cover of GTA4 (very violent, not for kids) and the hunting scene from Oregon Trail (with LOTS of dead animals).


• Gaming DOES NOT EQUAL babysitting.  (Same deal with TV, movies, Discovery Education Streaming, etc. - It needs a purpose!)


• "The teacher has to be there to guide and direct."


• Use careful and deliberate search terms to find high quality educational games.


• Showing a sample game on composting from http://bravekidgames.com/


• Lore of the Labyrinth from Thinkport.  I think I've seen this game presented at this conference before.  It teaches math but not in a dry style.


• http://shodor.org/activities/ for High School students.


• Quia - pay to make games but play them for free.  I've toyed with this before.  They have a free trial.


• Thinkfinity.org - Engineering


• Showing data concerning gaming activity.  Students did not just enjoy it, they also spent more time engaged in the lesson.


• "I'm not saying it should always be used, I'm saying it's a good tool and at least as effective as other strategies."

#MSET Session 2: Integration Technology & Art in a Lesson Study

Presented by Roxanne Dean & Linda Jones, both from Baltimore County.

• Honestly, could anyone who knows me expect me to attend any other session?  It's Art! It's Technology! This is what I do.


• Demonstrating Voicethread used to teach a lesson on drawing a human face.


• "At this point they haven't thrown me out." Said RE: How many Voicethread pages she has.


• 5th graders drew self portraits then turned them into contour line drawings and learned about Andy Worhol.


• "Why do you think we need to do this in contour?"


• They reproduced their drawings on the computer.  No scanning or photography?  Would be nice to have the time for that.  In my case I may have to use something like this to digitise student work.


• Showing Art Content Standards.  Yes, this is an art lesson!  It's not just token "Let's color something and say we did art!"


• Showing lots of Pop Art.  Comment about how things that Warhol thought were important are not recognised by today's kids.  Interesting snapshots of the culture at the time.


• So apparently Voicethread lets you record video with your voice.  That could be helpful for students who are ESOL or have certain disabilities.  Seeing someone's lips move as they talk can certainly help to aid comprehension in some cases.  (It helped me in college, especially with some professors who had strong accents.)


• A cow is used to signal clean-up time.  Students expect it and are used to the routine.  Makes me wonder how I might implement a similar strategy - perhaps with a school mascot?


• Students used the paint brush tool in Pixie to redraw their line drawings.


• Copy/paste used to get 4 identical panels, then the panels were colored separately with the paint bucket.  (Watch out for cracks!  The colors will leak through!)


• While this was done with Pixie, I see how this could be done with other art programs.  GIMP, SUMOPaint, TuxPaint, Frames, even!  ... Am I starting to sound like a broken record?


• "Zoho" used to embed art on a site for parents to see progress.


• Showing an example made starting with a photo.  Apparently the photo needs to be "glued" to keep it from fading.  I imagine layer settings could protect it in GIMP/Photoshop/SUMOPaint.


• "Photoshop is a little advanced for 5th grade."  Not if my 3rd graders are making vector graphics in Frames.  Give me a day or two and they can do it.


• A conference is not worthwhile if you don't find something you can take with you and use the next school day.  This presentation is all I need for MSET to be worth it, and it's only the 2nd session!  Can we say this is an awesome conference? Yes we can!