Blended Learning - Finding a Balance

A Blended Approach to Learning... 

Not as Hard To Swallow as I'd Feared

This being my very first semester of school after a 7 year hiatus from college, a lot has changed. Grad school is a whole different ball game in itself... the mindset is just different. Plus, there's the fact that "being a student" is not my only job this time.  Now I'm a bank teller and mommy. It's a balancing act to be sure.  A real exercise in tightrope walking - without a net. Hey, speaking of "net"... internet... technology... what a segue, right!?

The thing I've noticed has changed the most in my seven year absence from higher learning is the integration of technology. 

In undergrad, I had a laptop... but I don't remember ever taking it to class.  Papers were submitted in hard copy form - and I had a terrible relationship with every printer on that campus, I swear! Quizzes and tests were on paper too, and you were lucky to get open note/book. The professor's PowerPoints were not available to view at my leisure - you'd better take good notes in class! I remember making horribly hurried sketches of Renaissance paintings next to their titles and descriptions in my notebook just to try to remember this Madonna and Child is different from that Madonna and Child (and that one... and that one...) 

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And do you even know how many renditions of the Assumption there are!? After class I'd have to find images of each piece of art online and print out good-sized thumbnails to glue onto note cards with the descriptions on the back (while everything was fresh in my mind) so I'd have them to study for tests. Thank goodness eventually artists branched out from religious imagery - if only for variety's sake! 

Had those art history classes been part of a Blended Learning curriculum, my chicken-scratch sketches would have been unnecessary.  I could look at the professor's PowerPoint lecture, viewing the paintings at my own pace. The Online Learning Consortium defines  Blended learning courses are classes where usually 30%-70% of the instruction is delivered online.  The rest of the class interaction takes place online. The degree to which online coursework replaces traditional varies greatly by class, discipline, and learning objectives.  

In an article on Converge, David Haglund, principal of the Riverside Virtual School 

"Allowing students to pursue learning experiences that are relevant to them -- including traditional seat-based environments and digital learning opportunities -- is the best strategy. The same thing with adults, frankly. I don't want every teacher to be teaching in a virtual environment because not every teacher has the interest or skills to support that type of an instructional environment.... 

...Students who need more flexibility in their schedules, want real world learning situations or need a confidence boost are well suited for blended learning"

I've expressed before that I am not a huge technology fan.  I fear I was born in the wrong generation.  So when I realized how much of grad school would take place online I was very intimidated. Although I usually do express myself verbally through writing than speaking aloud, aside from constant printer issues, I had no problem with hard-copy assignments.  I actually enjoy writing essays. In case you haven't noticed if you've read these blogs, I am particularly verbose in written form. :)  But submitting written projects via internet doesn't bother me - nor does accessing readings or quizzes.  

My hesitation lay in the fact that I didn't think the collaborative or discussion elements would be as effective online. I feared that I would basically be wandering aimlessly in the cyber-wilderness without much direction.  I value interaction with the professor... insightful conversation and collaboration with my peers.  My sister-in-law is getting her nurse practitioner Masters entirely online right now (aside from the clinical experience)  Although it is convenient that she can work on coursework around her bizarre hospital schedule - and all the clinicals - she often feels like she is learning in a vacuum with sporadic virtual interaction with all these anonymous classmates she's never met.

I have yet to take a course completely online. Of the three classes I am taking this semester, my Psychology class has been all face-to-face (but the lectures, readings, and rubrics are available online.  The quizzes were also online, which I loved.).  The other two take a blended learning approach.  In the two truly blended classes, I must say that in one it has been extremely helpful, in the other it has been confusing. In this Instructional Technologies class I am required to blog away on my reflections on classroom content combined with other videos and readings made available online, experiment and report on different technological "Cool Tools" - apps and programs that could be incorporated into my own teaching, and keep track of my Major Project progress, and (the horror!) "Tweeting". It hasn't been as bad as I'd feared. The course content is so well organized and easy to follow that it doesn't interfere with any learning, in fact if facilitates it. I think that blended learning might be most appropriate when teaching a class about technologies that help us learn!  As Stacey Hawthorn says in our topic video, "You are learning your own way... just in a structured environment." 

My other class, a Literacy course... well... I'm so confused.  The environment is not well "structured." The professor - who is very nice and knowledgeable - inherited the course from someone else and pretty much kept the same online content.  But it is so disorganized - especially whenever she incorporates her own assignments. Some assignments are in 2 different places, sometimes required discussion forums aren't accessible at the right time, dates are incorrect, the syllabus changes, there are articles everywhere but it's unclear which assignment they are for. It can be very frustrating!  The professor has a very laissez-faire attitude towards it all, although sometimes she seems frustrated with Springboard as well - "We'll get through it together" seems to be her general attitude.  I don't want to figure this out with you - I can't help but think - I want you to have this figured out so I can just find what I need to learn!

Stacey says that mindset is the most important factor for successful blended learning instructors: What are your core values and beliefs and how does that line up with your instruction?  Can you embrace and accommodate change, are you flexible... Are you familiar with the technology?  That right there would be what I would struggle with as a Blended Learning instructor... that whole familiarity with technology.  I'm getting there, but I guarantee any third grader could teach me a thing (or seven) about iPads.  

I doubt I'll ever do a full-blown Blended art class - it would be very hard to instruct without being able to get my hands on students' projects as they work and help them address their issues.  I can't mold clay virtually.  I can't show them how to blend on their acrylic painting.  However, art history content - as I speculated about above - now that I could see as a great environment for experimenting with this whole techy-teaching experience.  We shall see...

Assessing Art Assessments... Abolish Standardization!!

Abolish Standardization! 

a note: Dr. Savery, I tried about 17 times to play this week's topic video by Scott Kinkoph's about PearDeck & EduCanon formative assessment technologies... and it froze every time.  Sooo, I'm just going to read and watch all the other stuff and write a general reflection on Assessments, okay? Good.  

Red Vineyard at Arles, Pushkin Museum in Moscow

Did Van Gogh - arguably one of the greatest artists in history - ever have to fill in bubbles with a Number 2 pencil and get put into "percentiles" of comparisons with his peers? Well, no - he also died alone, depressed, and having sold only one painting in his entire life... Still, all of his remaining 900+ paintings sold and many have become some of the most famous, most coveted works of art the world has ever seen! And what, really, is success? Is it monetary gain? Fame and recognition?  Must those things occur during one's lifetime? Oh, now you have this art lover perching precariously at the edge of a rabbit-hole we don't have the time to go down...

The point I'm trying to make is that so many things are not measurable. Creative individuals often struggle with the typical, standardized assessment models. I've been observing a middle school art teacher for my Ed. Psych class.  She gave me copies of the Akron Public Schools' Eighth Grade Fine Arts DAP.  Several parts are pretty benign - applying vocabulary, identifying "focal points".  OK, fair enough.  Then comes a page with 4 small black and white thumbnails of famous art works: 

Clockwise from top left:
A) Pablo Picasso, Mother and Child, 1921
B) Bernardo Martorrell, Saint George Killing the Dragon, 1438
C) Georgia O'Keefe, Sky Above Clouds IV, 1965
D) Constantine Brancusi, Leda, 1920

Ok, a good variety. Sculpture, realism, abstraction, narrative... Now, according to the 8th grade DAP, which one "Has the ability to capture the spirit and essence of life?"  A, B, C, or D. Oh - or C and D?  What?  I've had almost 15 years of art education and I'm not sure how to answer this.  It all depends on what you consider the "spirit and essence of life" I suppose. How about "Which one has solidity of forms in the painting"?  Ok,so not the sculpture... I'm all for interpreting art - but apparently there must be a "right answer" here otherwise how do they grade it?  

Blech. Assessment. I am not even a teacher officially yet but I can already tell you that Assessment is most likely going to be my least favorite part of teaching.  Why, you ask...?  Because art is largely subjective... and most formal "Assessments" are not.  The words "Standardized Test" makes me shiver in my clay-dust covered, paint-splattered shoes. Yes, it is important to take stock of student's progress - where they started, how they got to where they eventually end up at the conclusion of their project or class experience. The problem is that you can not "standardize" art!  Great art movements are based on rejecting the current standards of their time and approaching things differently!

The teacher's face in the third panel pretty much sums it up for me.   I once saw a snarky coffee mug that read "Why are teachers told to differentiate their instruction but to standardize their tests?" The thing I never liked about standardized tests was that , besides the grade, you never received any feedback. If I get a 78% on a math test but never see the graded test itself, I have no idea what I did wrong.  How can I work on my shortcomings?  That's not OK. 

Anyways, back to evaluating kids. And art. 

So in the creative subjects, do teacher grade on? What do we assess? Talent? Effort? Time? Following Directions? What if a painting took Johnny two weeks to complete with a lot of diligent hard work... and that same assignment took Suzy two hours? But Suzy's is better.  It is technically better, the design is stronger and the composition more complete. Who gets the better grade.  Is is product or process that matters most?  Time or talent? 

You can't change your natural talent.  You can change your attitude, your effort, your mindset. You could dedicate every waking hour to learning to paint with watercolors but if you have no natural gift for art, your work will most likely never live up to your hopeful expectations.  I will never be a ballet dancer.  I don't have the figure, the grace, the flexibility, or the tutu.  I especially don't have the talent. I can watch dance, I enjoy dance. But I will never be a ballet dancer. 

Art is about creativity and free thinking.  It is about self expression and using different parts of your brain. It is about getting your hands messy and opening your eyes to the beauty around you (or the problems, if protest/critical art is your thing!  No judgement!)  For some art is therapy.  For others it is self expression. For others it is an elective you take because you think it will be an easy "A".

Can I be honest here and get a little hippy-dippy for a moment?  I just want to teach art - I don't want to grade it!  But, sadly, to be a teacher in the American education system most likely means I must evaluate and measure the success of my student's effort. Although I do like Alfie Kohn's summary of case studies regarding grades:

"As for the researchers, Collectively, they make it clear that students who are graded tend to differ from those who aren’t in three basic ways. They’re more likely to lose interest in the learning itself. They’re more likely to prefer the easiest possible task. And they’re more likely to think in a superficial fashion as well as to forget what they were taught." 

Ok, so there was my rant and indignant art-teacher rhetoric on the subject of assessment. I will admit that there has to be some way to assess learning in the creative fields - the land of "there is no right or wrong answer" If it comes down to definition,here's a handy little chart from Edudemic.

So I suppose there are Formative Assessments and Summative Assessments.A completed art project - with a thorough critique because I believe analyzing, writing, and talking about art is just as important as making it - is pretty much a Summative Assessment I could tolerate. Or the solo art show most undergrads have to put on to graduate.  Those are important. But things like this ridiculous DAP!? Heck no! There is no standardized art test, no matter what the bureaucrats say. 

But I suppose I don't object as much to the idea of Formative Assessments.  In-process evidence of learning. It could be as simple as stopping a student who is laboring over a drawing and not making any good progress (perhaps even over-working it and mucking it up) and having them stand a good 5 or 6 feet away (the distance from which people usually look at art) and really examine their piece.  Things look different when you're not right on top of them!  Short reflective writings could be helpful.  For an undergrad Independent Study in painting I was required to keep a journal every day that I painted. What went well, what went wrong, what I plan on doing next, what I was thinking of, where I drew my inspiration... I probably wouldn't go that far with middle or even high school students, but I could see the merit in writing a short mid-project reflection or (gasp!) assessment.

OK, I'm sold. Sort of.  I will wave my protest signs against standardized learning until the bitter end.  But I am open to embracing ways of assessing individual progress and evidence of learning.  I think those could actually be helpful rather than daunting for students. And, as a teacher, I am here to help my students learn. And create :)

Major Project - Playing Catch-Up, Mommy Style: The Birthday Party

Photoshop

Playing Catch-Up, Mommy Style: 

The Birthday Party

  

So, it's been a little while since there was any sort of progress on my Major Project of learning Adobe Suite.  I admit it, it hasn't been on the top of my list lately.  You see, recently my daughter and I have reached the milestone of the "big girl bed" - right after watching her do an impressive yoga move to get one foot completely over the railing of her crib and smiling at me in a crazed future bungee-jumper sort of way.  That was it... thank goodness Papa (my Dad) is an accomplished carpenter and could whip up a toddler-bed conversion rail to transform her crib into a bed (they are supposedly available to buy and match her crib exactly, but Babies R Us never has it in stock!).  So Papa looked at the picture online and over the weekend made a perfect one.  Awesome.  Except... now my little chimpanzee has the freedom to climb in and out of her bed unassisted.  During the day she repeatedly goes back and snuggles with her stuffed animal menagerie for short periods of time - not napping, just relaxing for a moment.  At night... at, oh say, BEDTIME which until now has been a relatively uneventful 7:30 to 8:00 ritual... that bed becomes a lava-filled volcano of doom into which I spend an hour or two trying to coax my unwilling sacrifice.  She's thirsty. She wants another story.  She wants mommy to lie with her (i.e. contort myself into a nearly impossible yoga move of my own to accommodate her and said menagerie). She needs to reorganize her shoes. Look! The bed's a trampoline! One night she got up and disassembled the humidifier I had going because her nose is stuffy. I kid you not, on Wednesday at 9:37 I was exasperatedly watching her wolf down an impressive serving of meatloaf since she couldn't sleep because she was hungry.  I tried explaining that some day, probably when she has a toddler of her own, she will beg for the privilege of going to sleep.  She was unimpressed. And after consuming half her weight in leftover meatloaf she wanted to go play in her playhouse.  NO!!  So, the past 2 weeks, when I should have been working on homework after her bedtime, I have been negotiating with a tiny terrorist instead. 

I was able, however, to do a project that was slightly unrelated to my ultimate "mock bakery/party planning business" that I've been using her Wizard of Oz 1st birthday photos for.  I have been playing with my images on Photoshop for several hours, but don't have any finished products yet.  This week, however, I made her invitations for her 2nd birthday - which will be a "Chapter 2" storybook theme. The girl loves to read... so why not include all of her favorite characters?  I guess it is inadvertently related to my project, I mean I am planning a party. Although I'm sure I broke some sort of Creative Commons regulations by utilizing unlicensed characters (but I'm not making any profit off these things, I'm just throwing a party - spending money, actually!)  Still, this project involved cutting figures out of backgrounds, arranging text, resizing images and organizing them into a pleasing design... all basic components that I would be teaching an introductory graphic design course. Here's the front and back of my finished product - with identifying info blocked out, of course.

This took my a few hours - since I wasn't specifically doing this with the Project in mind, I forgot to time myself.  But I'd say 3 or 4 total between writing the amazing poem, finding and altering all the images and composing the two sides.  I didn't "record" the process either. But here's a step by step breakdown of what it took.  

1) I did the poem first and tried to incorporate as many books as I could think of - for the sake of proper citation I used Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Bill Martin Jr., Green Eggs and Ham and Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss, Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendack, Madeline by Ludwig Bemelman, The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, Curious George by H A Ray, and Little Critter by Mercer Mayer.

2) I chose a Papyrus font and made separate text boxes for each line of the poem so I could easily manipulate them.

3) I found images of all the characters/books referenced. I used JPEGS.  Sometimes it was hard if there weren't any images of the character alone on a white background, just within the cover or page illustrations, so I had to carefully erase the backgrounds... which in the case of furry Critters or the detailed Engine that Could was a big pain but good practice I guess.  I learned that the higher the resolution of the image the easier it was to manipulate because if I zoomed in too far on a poor quality image it became almost too pixellated to identify or work with! Eventually I had each character on a transparent background so I could place them close enough to text without blocking some. 

4) Each character went on it's own layer, again, for ease of manipulation.  I arranged them around the text, paying careful attention to spacing, composition and keeping balance and harmony within the whole image. 

5) When I had started the invite I had intended it to be one sided, with a short poem and then all the necessary party info.  But as usual, I got carried away with the creativity aspect and was (gasp!) enjoying myself working with the computer. So the poem went long and required it's own side.  Luckily, I remembered my graphic artist friend who has access to all sorts of cool printing stuff could easily hook me up with a small amount of my fabulous invitations at little or no cost. 

6) So I started on the front, using the same font and characters I made a short little snippet phrase, a Chapter 2 heading, and incorporated the Where, When, and RSVP info. I had fun manipulating the text, making some vertical, some horizontal.  Doing my best to keep the text justified (evenly spaced in length) within their boxes, I applied the artistic "rule" of 3s and 4s (compositions look best if ajor elements are repeated 3 or 4 times) and made 3 text boxes (4 if you include the Chapter 2).  It's funny how even in graphic design, all the stuff I learned as a painter comes back to me naturally.  I didn't really do this stuff on purpose, looking back they were subconscious decisions. I'm going to have to remember if I'm ever teaching that these principles of design will not be inherent knowledge for most students and I'll have to tailor my lessons accordingly. 

7) I emailed both rendered (flattened and not-easily-changed but ready-to-print) JPGS and the unrendered PSD files to my friend (in case he needed to alter something or incorporate a bleed line (the space to be left blank on a printed design to accommodate a printer offset and cutting).  Within a few days I had my creations in hand.  It was then I noticed I had completely forgotten to include a time on the invitation.  I'm attributing this to exhaustion.   

8) So, out came the Sharpie and I hand-wrote in my best Papyrus imitation "2pm" on 30 invitations. Fun stuff. I guess I learned the necessity of good proofreading - although to be fair, I looked at it, my mom looked at it, and my printer looked at it... no one caught it!  Still, it pays to be more careful. 

So that's it.  My unintentional learning experience that stemmed from a real-life need.  Love it when things work out like that.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I actually have the opportunity to crawl into my own lava-free "big girl" bed and get some sleep because the chimpanzee is napping. I'm gonna need it... tonight the battle begins anew... 

Cool Tool #5:The BIG Possibilities of SpiderScribe... not so Itsy-Bitsy!

I've never used any sort of digital concept mapping tool... but for being my introductory experiment into such things, I am thoroughly impressed with SpiderScribe!  It is online mapping and brainstorming tool which teachers and students (or whoever needs to organize their thought process a little) can connect and easily share ideas with notes, files, maps, calendar events, and more. 

This is the initial demo screen that comes up.
You can manipulate it pretty easily and play around
before diving in to design a mind map of your own.

I did have some trouble getting the introductory video on the website to play, but I believe that's more a problem with my new laptop (that I know nothing about) than with the site! Nonetheless, I found an independent instructional video that helped.  Although I really only had to watch the first few minutes and then play around with it on my own.  EdShelf demo

My daughter's second birthday is coming up, and overly-excited-about-party-throwing-mom that I am, I decided to brainstorm for her shindig.  Not really classroom oriented, but the theory and practice will easily translate. Trust me. So I started out by just plopping in random text boxes with all the children's books I'm thinking about utilizing. Brainstorming, if you will.  I easily pulled in an image of the invitation that I'd already created - using my new-found Photoshop skills (woot-woot! Major Project application!). Then I started creating headings - like "Cupcakes" and "Food". I quickly figured out how to color-code my text boxes according to the headings.  One thing that I did wish that I could do that I wasn't able to would be to pull in web links directly... as in the recipes for specific cupcakes that I'd found online.  So that's a negative that could perhaps be addressed by SpiderScribe in the future.  I suppose I could have saved the recipes as documents and blah blah blah but that seemed like too much work for a small experiment.

The actual mapping tools are super easy to use - even young children could easily handle this program. Creating and dragging text boxes, then connecting them with arrows was so simple. And fun! They could pull in images, documents, and maps with ease.  It would be nice to be able to directly link online content - links to applicable websites, etc. but regardless, I could totally see using this in a classroom.  I read some other reviews about the ease of sharing content (it's very easy) and mind maps can also be converted to PDFs in a snap and then printed. Putting it up on the projector or Smartboard so that a class could map out vocabulary - color coding words into categories or by level comprehension... assign groups and roles for projects... create study guides... graphic organizers.  The possibilities kind of seem endless!  I could see making an interactive art history project where I pull in several images of famous paintings and then as a class we drag them under headings to organize them by artist or style, etc. I love this program!!  

PROS: 

1) SOOOO easy

2) Fun and inviting for even very young learners

3) Easy to bring in other files, images, maps

4) A ton of classroom applications

5) Simple to share and collaborate with

CONS

1) Unable to link web content

2) You have to pay to use it past the trial period. 

Seriously, guys, I'm kind of sad that I have to cancel my subscription (I don't have a ton of use for this at the moment...other than for this assignment.) But I wish I did!  It's great! So I will totally keep this program in mind as I enter in to the teaching profession. 

Tree House Adventures... aka Learning Spaces

It's been a little while since I've been able to relate this journey-to-becoming-a-teacher blog to my adventures as a Mommy.  But yay - I've got one!  So this week we are talking about learning spaces. And it's funny because just literally last week I had an epiphany when I went to pick up my little one up from daycare. She actually attends the childcare center on my college campus - yet another connection between weekly topic and real life - since I will be evaluating UA's learning spaces shortly... Anyways - when I got there, there were about 12 kids in the classroom. My daughter was running amok with 7 others among the "centers" (i.e. play kitchen, dolls, legos, crafts, etc) under the playful supervision of 2 assistant teachers.  They were learning and exploring on their own. And having a great time doing it.

The other 4 kids were up in Ms. M's "tree house"  You see, the classroom has this very cool loft - it looks like a sort of tree house, complete with a wooden tree - there's a hidden staircase to climb up behind the tree. At the top is a little table, 4 tiny chairs and 1 slightly bigger one on a platform that overlooks the entire classroom. The wall that protects the children from falling over the edge is tall enough so that if they are sitting at "Ms. M's table" - Ms. M. being the head teacher - they can't see over it and be distracted by whatever havoc their classmates are wreaking. Ms. M, however, from her higher chair and taller stature can keep a watchful eye on the organized chaos beneath her. At the table, isolated enough so they can focus (not an easy task for excited 2 and 3 year olds!), Ms. M. works on skills with them and notes their progress - as in fine motor skills. She makes discreet notes (Every day in my daughter's cubby there's a daily "report card" that tells me how much she ate, what she did, if there were any problems, and gives me ideas on school/home connections to the day's theme... in addition I get an email every day she's there that tells me about the daily book, activities, etc. and there is always a little photo collage. My daughter loves to see the pictures later and point out her friends by name.)

For example, one day several months ago, I went in and the kids were threading pieces of pipe cleaners through the holes drilled in the lids of closed plastic jars. A seemingly simple task - but you could definitely see how the younger students struggled. My little girl - not yet 2 and the youngest member of the class by several months - was getting frustrated. It was hard to just sit and watch, but the group was small enough that Ms. M. could gently guide each child in their learning. She helped my daughter until the skill was mastered. Then with a hug and a "great job!" Ms. M. sent her down the tree with her other 3 classmates. 4 new kids clamored up the stairs while Ms. M. popped her head over the railing and chatted with the assistant teachers while giving "the look" to a little boy who was trying to forcibly relieve another student of his toy car.  The would-be grand theft auto was averted and the boy looked elsewhere for a toy. At the time I didn't think about the very deliberate setup Ms. M. had going... I was more focused on my daughter and the joy of watching her learn. But last week (with a few more weeks of teacher education under my belt) I was suddenly very conscious of this learning space.  

Ms. M's loft serves both the teacher(s) and students.  At 21 months to 3 years old, these children are at pretty much the earliest levels of social interaction and learning. Watching them interact as a whole group of 12 really does bring to mind herding cats... very active cats... with the attention spans of gerbils... and finger paint....

The tree house not only provides Ms. M. with the ability to interact on a slightly smaller scale with her tiny learners - away from 2/3 of the class and all of the other "centers" full of plastic distractions and, yes, finger paint. It gives her a bird's eye view of her room and her paint-covered gerbil-cats. For more focused work she is able to create a focused space - a special space in which the children seem to know they are learning something, rather than just playing (which is still learning, but you know the difference!) as they do on the main floor. The tree house allows for quiet collaboration and genuine moments of learning. I think that's what the designers of spaces like these, below, had in mind:




This concept is not just for tiny learners, but bigger ones too, I'm seeing. When I was in school, both elementary/secondary and even undergrad (at 2 different small Liberal Arts colleges) the norm was the neat rows of desks facing forward.  

Occasionally - in art or science classes, mostly - we would sit at larger tables, but much instruction still took place at the front of the room. It never bothered me... I didn't really know any other possibilities. I do remember it being a pain in the butt to "get into groups" while we noisily dragged heavy desks with loud screeches across the linoleum. Seeing a space like the one it that video, where children were free to maneuver furniture to suit their needs and comfort in a bright, open space seemed heavenly, as far as classrooms go!  While high schoolers may not need so much low-lying benches and the like... to have easily maneuverable furniture and semi-private spaces in which to collaborate seems like a very helpful set up to this almost-teacher.

Since I commute half an hour to campus - and often am working varying hours at my day job before evening classes - sometimes I have a little time to kill between the bank and class. So I usually end up in the library. I like it there - there is a variety of learning spaces...on one end, there is a very necessary caffiene-supplier (aka Starbucks) with cafe type seating. Groups can usually be seen here conversing socially and working on projects. Elsewhere, then there are a ton of computers for public use, as well as numerous configurations of chairs, couches, booths, tables, quiet nooks, private classrooms laden with varying degrees of technology...  Until this past class where Dr. Savery told us how he'd been a part of the design and remodel of the learning spaces on that part of campus, I had no idea that so many different options were in that one space!  Heck, whenever I work on group projects with my 2 friends for another class, we meet in a secluded corner of the library basement where the chairs are comfy, slightly rocking chairs.  I just don't work very often in the apparently vast range of learning spaces on the other floors.  Although now I am curious!  I will definitely pay more attention and explore a little next week.

Just because we've "always" done something one way - i.e. military-precision aligned desks sitting at attention in the classroom facing a teacher at a chalk board does not mean it's the right way. I do remember taking a distance-learning course as a high school junior with UA. It was a psychology class. At the time - 2002, I guess - it was pretty state of the art.  My school did not have a distance learning lab (a room with a camera that connected me to a real life classroom full of college students and a professor that I - and the other few high schoolers in my class - could interact with as if we were in the same room) so I drove to a nearby larger high school that had one.  

The world is changing. Education is changing. Technology is changing at an alarming rate (sometimes). Heck, even kids are changing!  If we only use what we know.... and don't try new things - learn something new ourselves as educators - how do we expect today's students to learn effectively in their roles?  Online learning is a HUGE thing these days. There's no denying it.  It has become a valid - and in many ways preferable (cost effective, resource rich, mobile, unrestrained by time, etc) way to learn.  

Like it or not, we will have to embrace technology - like the Google Apps for Education.  I witnessed that being used for collaborations and teacher-student communication at many levels while doing some field observation at an inner city Akron high school this semester.  It was weird for me... but the kids used the technology fluidly - easily taking pre-tests, submitting essays, creating pamphlets and slide shows for group presentations... I was amazed. It really did enhance the educational experience (as long as the laptops were being used for school stuff - I saw a few kids playing games or checking social media, I'm not gonna lie.  Still, the GAFE....that's the kind of stuff I want to be comfortable using. I mean, tree houses are great. My pre, pre-schooler has very little use for "a set of communication and collaboration tools that includes gMail, Drive, Classroom, and much more."  She's not even 2. She doesn't need to email her teacher.  Plus, her fingers are often sticky... so no one wants her touching their tablet or laptop. Still, her teacher does email me. I get those daily "Reflection" picture collages that I love so much.  I hate that I can't be home with my baby - she's very young to be in "school".  But seeing photos of her having fun, and learning, and making friends... reading about what she's doing and suggestions to talk about at home... it makes me feel like an active participant in her education.  That's what technology and effective learning spaces in general make us... parents, teachers, and students alike... active participants.  

Monkeying Around with PicMonkey... Cool Tool #4 (It's Awesome!)

After doing a little research on PicMonkey, I've found that it has some pretty rabid fans. Essentially, it's a photo editing and graphic creating program.  It's very easy and user friendly. There is a desktop program as well as the mobile app.  I'm using the desktop one but the app looks just as good - maybe with a little less functions but still pretty darn powerful! Like Canva, it's sort of like Photoshop without all the bells and whistles. But you can do A LOT with what is available.  Let me just say that I am going bananas over PicMonkey!  Here's what it can do: 

• Basic Editing - cropping, resizing, rotating. Plus sharpening or adding color.
• Retouching - fix any blemishes or other facial "imperfections" easily
• Effects - a variety of gorgeous effects that use a variety of color saturation, selective focus, tones, etc to truly make your photos stand out
• Text - add text boxes and manipulate text effects like drop shadows
• Overlays - add more visual elements (almost like digital "stickers") with everything from arrows to doodles to facial features (ie a mustache)
• Frames - obviously, different edge effects for your photo
• Textures - add visual texture like woven tapestry or parchment
• Themes - mostly festive or seasonal compilations of effects and elements that fit within a theme (like "birthday" or "comic book")
• Templates - pre-made setups for posters, diagrams, invitations, etc. that you add your photo(s) into and manipulate to personalize (only available with upgrade versions)

As far as actually editing the photos (rather than creating a graphic or meme, like i did on my Canva review) the possibilities are seemingly endless. I literally just signed up for Adobe student subscription for my Major Project but am kind of regretting it (although to use the best features on PicMonkey, you'll need a paid subscription as well.  I "signed up" for a 7 day trial but will probably cancel because I don't need to pay for Adobe and PicMonkey but I need the Adobe stuff for my project!)  So anyways PicMonkey's paid upgrades- Premium and Supremium - allow you to use more editing features as well as photo storage and interfacing your mobile and desktop account. 

Premium: $7.99/month (3.99/month if billed annual lump sum) 

Supremium: $8.99/month

So besides having to give up my credit card info to sign up for a trial - I like pretty much everything else about this program. There are a TON of premade facial/skin retouching filters! Seriously... there's one called "eyebrow pencil" and even "weight loss" and "whisker grower." Huh. I can see why some photographers who are more interested in taking pictures than retouching them would prefer this program to something more complicated (but more flexible) like Photoshop. Especially with it's mobile app capability. I want to play around on this for personal experimentation... but as far as applications in education, well... beautifying models isn't necessarily a high priority project so we'll move on.

PicMonkey could be used for a variety of projects... posters, brochures, advertisements, memes, albums - there are lots of possibilities!  A teacher could incorporate any number of them into her curriculum. 

So, let's experiment, shall we? I just got hired by my neighbors to paint a tropical under-the-sea mural in their house... so I've got fish on the brain.  So, since these photos are pretty dynamic, let's experiment with PicMonkey.  I'll use this one that I found on Pintrest (it attributed to wallpaperup.com... gotta 'share' properly, after all). 

This is the original

This is my very quickly and easily done masterpiece!

This did not take me long at all.  I skipped the numerous colorization filters (like sepia, etc) since the bright colors are kind of the appeal for under-the-sea imagery.  But I easily amped up the colors, did some lens focus effects, added light burst and bubbles, text... easy peasy!

OK, so I couldn't resist and decided to try some of the retouching options. Woah... You could take a bare-faced subject and give her a full face of makeup in minutes!! Look, I've got white teeth, a slight tan, bright eyes and I lost a few pounds.  Seriously, this took all of 5 minutes. I really do like this program!!:

So, relating this to education.  Well, obviously I could see utilizing this program in a graphic arts class to teach photo editing - although if the point were to teach how to edit photos, it would probably be best to use a from-scratch program rather than a bunch of preset filters... But if I were just teaching the very basic principals of photo editing - especially to younger students, this could be a very useful program. It is easy, rather flexible, and allows for structured creativity without being intimidating. I suppose it could be used in any creative setting - i.e. creating a poster for science class or a playbill for English... It's fun! Students would have a great time experimenting with PicMonkey's capabilities... as long as teacher keeps it educational then I can see this being an asset to any content area. Two thumbs up!

PROS:

1. SUPER easy to use - a total novice could be comfortable within minutes
2. Tools that do specific things are labeled as such (i.e. instead of "dodge" and "burn" as in Photoshop to brighten eyes... just use the "Brighten Eyes filter...)
3. Tons of possible projects with so many design options and additions.

CONS:
1. Could use more text effects
2. You have to pay for the best stuff

Everyone's an Author!: Ebooks - Classroom Applications (Present and Future)

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Everyone's an Author!

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:

Seated Woman (Marie Therese), 1937

The Old Guitarist, 1903

Girl Before A Mirror, 1932

Violin and Grapes, 1912

Three Musicians, 1921

Woman With A Book, 1932

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? 

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 :)