Everyone's an Author!
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| Girl Reading, 1953 |
This past week, we learned about Ebooks.
In our own class we were assigned to (very quickly) experiment with Ebook software (my group of 4 used Book Creator - the same "Cool Tool" I reviewed - simply because I already knew how to use it and we could just get to work.) We had no direction or prompt, except to make a book Between the 4 of us, we had one Spanish teacher, one elementary STEAM teacher, a future intervention specialist, and me - the future art teacher, Well - since we had Spanish and art... we decided to do something with Pablo Picasso.
We started downloading Picasso paintings to my computer. Then, much like in my Book Creator example in which I had accompanied images with blurbs downloaded from Wikipedia (or other websites dedicated to the artists) because it was supposed to be a quick example of the creating process and how to use the app, not a genuine product or actual project, so I didn't need to worry about originality or plagiarism... I started to pull biographical details on Picasso. Then the elementary school teacher - noting that wordy Wikis about art history and biography might be a little heavy-handed for her audience - suggested we do it more like a story - using the paintings as illustrations. So simple! So genius! I loved it. It was fun to peruse Google images, searching for inspiration. You couldn't necessarily plan out a plot - because you only have existing paintings from a single artist. But it was more like a metaphorical scavenger hunt. After we selected a character: the hauntingly sad The Old Guitarist from Picasso's Blue Period - we went looking for a guitar. Found it. (Well, technically the painting is Violins and Grapes... but if you can tell the difference between a cubist rendering of a violin and a guitar, kudos to you!) Then I set the STEAM teacher on a search for an audio clip since you can incorporate that into an Ebook. (She found one, but we ran out of time before I could figure out how to get it to work...) From there, we figured every good musician needs a band and someone remembered that Picasso had a famous painting of 3 musicians - enter Three Musicians. Then we found Girl Before A Mirror - voila! A love interest! Woman with a Book is a painting of the same model, so we decided to use that too. Quickly, we made up a cohesive love story to share with the class - although we didn't quite get to the ending so it was a cliffhanger!
Then the class reconvened to move on. But as I sat there, it honestly bothered me that my 20 minute Ebook was unfinished! It needed a cover - and, more importantly, an ending! So as the professor spoke, (I apologize to Dr Savery who is reading this!) I'm sorry to admit that I stopped listening to pull 2 last pictures (Seated Woman (Marie-Therese) and Lovers) and whipped up a quick happy ending. I needed closure, I guess. And the sad guitarist needed some love in his life...
Here are screenshots of the pages because I still can't figure out how to effectively share Book Creator creations, just so you can see our collaborative masterpiece:
But that inability to just let it go and move on, I think, speaks to the unique appeal of Ebook creation in a classroom setting. It's engaging! It's multi-faceted (tech, writing, audio, visual, etc) and thus appeals to a variety of student interests! It incorporates different standards of learning! It's completely open ended in terms of possible content! I mean, if I put myself into the shoes of an elementary or secondary student... in that short span of time we worked on this, I had to critically look at dozens of famous works of art and evaluate their content (sometimes not an easy feat if you're looking at Cubist works!). I may not have had time to really study any in depth or learn any background - but the shere volume of Picasso's work that I was exposed to in that short period really gave me a sense of the wide range of his style(s) and subject matter - a really nice pre-learning activity, perhaps? Also, in terms of skill building, I had to concoct and write a cohesive story. Hello literary application... And I see the potential for so much more! I can't wait to try this in a classroom some day!
I watched a really interesting presentation by Jon Smith on Ebook creation in a variety of classrooms - from the youngest students all the way up to high school. Special needs and behaviorally challenged to mainstream or even gifted.
We started downloading Picasso paintings to my computer. Then, much like in my Book Creator example in which I had accompanied images with blurbs downloaded from Wikipedia (or other websites dedicated to the artists) because it was supposed to be a quick example of the creating process and how to use the app, not a genuine product or actual project, so I didn't need to worry about originality or plagiarism... I started to pull biographical details on Picasso. Then the elementary school teacher - noting that wordy Wikis about art history and biography might be a little heavy-handed for her audience - suggested we do it more like a story - using the paintings as illustrations. So simple! So genius! I loved it. It was fun to peruse Google images, searching for inspiration. You couldn't necessarily plan out a plot - because you only have existing paintings from a single artist. But it was more like a metaphorical scavenger hunt. After we selected a character: the hauntingly sad The Old Guitarist from Picasso's Blue Period - we went looking for a guitar. Found it. (Well, technically the painting is Violins and Grapes... but if you can tell the difference between a cubist rendering of a violin and a guitar, kudos to you!) Then I set the STEAM teacher on a search for an audio clip since you can incorporate that into an Ebook. (She found one, but we ran out of time before I could figure out how to get it to work...) From there, we figured every good musician needs a band and someone remembered that Picasso had a famous painting of 3 musicians - enter Three Musicians. Then we found Girl Before A Mirror - voila! A love interest! Woman with a Book is a painting of the same model, so we decided to use that too. Quickly, we made up a cohesive love story to share with the class - although we didn't quite get to the ending so it was a cliffhanger!
Then the class reconvened to move on. But as I sat there, it honestly bothered me that my 20 minute Ebook was unfinished! It needed a cover - and, more importantly, an ending! So as the professor spoke, (I apologize to Dr Savery who is reading this!) I'm sorry to admit that I stopped listening to pull 2 last pictures (Seated Woman (Marie-Therese) and Lovers) and whipped up a quick happy ending. I needed closure, I guess. And the sad guitarist needed some love in his life...
Here are screenshots of the pages because I still can't figure out how to effectively share Book Creator creations, just so you can see our collaborative masterpiece:
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| Seated Woman (Marie Therese), 1937 |
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| The Old Guitarist, 1903 |
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| Girl Before A Mirror, 1932 |
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| Violin and Grapes, 1912 |
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| Three Musicians, 1921 |
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| Woman With A Book, 1932 |
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| Lovers, 1919 |
But that inability to just let it go and move on, I think, speaks to the unique appeal of Ebook creation in a classroom setting. It's engaging! It's multi-faceted (tech, writing, audio, visual, etc) and thus appeals to a variety of student interests! It incorporates different standards of learning! It's completely open ended in terms of possible content! I mean, if I put myself into the shoes of an elementary or secondary student... in that short span of time we worked on this, I had to critically look at dozens of famous works of art and evaluate their content (sometimes not an easy feat if you're looking at Cubist works!). I may not have had time to really study any in depth or learn any background - but the shere volume of Picasso's work that I was exposed to in that short period really gave me a sense of the wide range of his style(s) and subject matter - a really nice pre-learning activity, perhaps? Also, in terms of skill building, I had to concoct and write a cohesive story. Hello literary application... And I see the potential for so much more! I can't wait to try this in a classroom some day!
* * *
I watched a really interesting presentation by Jon Smith on Ebook creation in a variety of classrooms - from the youngest students all the way up to high school. Special needs and behaviorally challenged to mainstream or even gifted.
In this really insightful - and often brutally honest and funny - presentation, one particular idea really stood out to me. It occurred to Mr. Smith as he was struggling to inspire his very uninspired and reluctant special needs students to write. Anything! He could not figure out why no matter how he tried to engage them with creative prompts they were adamantly uninterested. After some consideration, he came up with this (I'm paraphrasing here):
3 Reasons Kids Don't Like to Write:
1. Most times these kids spend all this time putting effort into their work for YOU - an audience of ONE.... In this world of social media and sharing, you're not good enough anymore! We need to be doing something more with our work. We cannot be just an audience of one.
2. There's no sense of contribution or purpose to what they are doing. You give them all this work, they give it back for an obligatory grade and that's it!
3. Are they leaving behind some kind of legacy. Are they leaving ANYTHING behind?
3 Reasons Kids Don't Like to Write:
1. Most times these kids spend all this time putting effort into their work for YOU - an audience of ONE.... In this world of social media and sharing, you're not good enough anymore! We need to be doing something more with our work. We cannot be just an audience of one.
2. There's no sense of contribution or purpose to what they are doing. You give them all this work, they give it back for an obligatory grade and that's it!
3. Are they leaving behind some kind of legacy. Are they leaving ANYTHING behind?
For examples of his students' work, here are some of Jon Smith's class ebooks.
As an avid writer myself, it's hard to relate to reluctant students, but obviously they exist! And there are pretty insightful reasons as to why. When Mr. Smith decided to try collaborative creation of Ebooks with his special needs classroom he was originally met with resistance but soon the students were surprisingly participatory. They were active, critical, and creative. I liked how after they came up with a basic story idea he had everyone write and present ideas and be critiqued by their peers and pull the best elements all together to create a cohesive class book. This brings in public speaking skills as well!
You'll see if you watch the video, the Ebook idea has spread like wildfire everywhere Mr Smith goes and it's easy to see why. He's very enthusiastic. With careful supervision (to make sure content is used appropriately and that the process is indeed a learning process), a teacher can really pull students in to a fun project that isn't just for a grade - or an audience of one. It's a legacy of a class creation that they can share with the world and that's exciting for kids! And the teacher too :)
They key to creating anything is ownership - which then leads to greater motivation, effort, critical thinking self-reflection etc. etc. Thanks for finishing the book :-)
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