FINAL REFLECTION

The artwork my students produce encompasses a lot more than just a finished piece of art displayed in the hallways of our school or around the community. This course has taught me how to utilize all the new technological tools that are available in today’s digital society, to reach a more diverse global community and to communicate and share what is it my students are learning within the four walls of my small art room.

These new tools such as software packages, wikis, blogs, and digital stories allow my students and I an opportunity to store and share what we do. Our local community as well as our new global digital community can now see how we actually use higher order thinking to solve problems in art while learning what the state requires, use technology to communicate important messages, and store valuable resources, photos and information to share.

As a teacher, I have benefitted from this as well. I have created a much larger professional learning community through art teacher blogs and collaborative art projects with other teachers. My comfort using technology has increased tremendously and I can pass this along to my students with confidence and ease. Many teachers in my own school have no idea what I do in my studio classes and my graphic arts class. Technology opens my art room door wider so people can really identify what our learning process is. We just don’t create pretty pictures; art today is so much more.

Beginning a lesson with a sound game plan provides a solid foundation on which to set goals, take action to create, monitor progress, and evaluate what was learned. My students have become more self-directed and see the value in becoming an active force in their day-to-day learning. They develop a sense of pride when they see a piece of art published online and realize that they can have a greater impact on society. Their writing and communication skills increase as well and students can see a greater cross-curricular connection now.

Parents have also become better connected to their students learning through the integration of technology. They can leave comments on a blog or share their child’s artwork with family and friends. Communication is opened and this helps support learning at home.

I am excited to delve deeper into these new tools next year. Experimenting with technology in my classes has helped me to develop a better framework to utilize all these new tools to enhance my students learning while expanding their learning community. I valued all student input this year, and seeing first hand how they handle technology has allowed me to make the necessary adjustments in my curriculum to help support my GAME plans for next year.

Next week, I am participating in Innovative Design in Education professional development through my school where I am redesigning my lessons with the help of a consultant, to incorporate technology and 21^st Century skills. This class has given me valuable knowledge and a lot of new tools that I can now implement within my current lessons to enhance learning for both my students and myself.  

Monitoring my GAME plan Progress

Monitoring my GAME plan Progress

With my school year coming to a fast end, I am trying to experiment with my GAME plan with the students in my eighth grade graphic design class.  The logo tutorial website options I offered for them to explore last week gave them an opportunity to explore a variety of professional designers step-by-step thought process when creating a logo design.  This valuable online resource allowed them to visually break down the design process and see how another designer works through to problem solve an effective logo design.

I have begun to build up a professional community of designers, educators, and artists that agreed to partner up with my students and offer feedback on their designs. So far I have procured an art director at Harper Collins Publisher in New York, an independent freelance artist, a design firm in Florida, and three art educators. Three of my former students also offered to join in on the partnership to offer feedback from someone who is closer to their age and skills. 

My two current design classes have started to develop questions to be integrated into a project critique sheet that will be used to help communicate and store interaction between artist and partner. I have been leaving the questions posted on our GoogleDocs site, and I have asked each student to contribute.  This site is displayed on the SmartBoard in the beginning of class for all to review. Some students add on to an existing question or post something new. I will take the summer to review all the input and produce a clear critique sheet that can be used next year.

My students have a huge end of the year project due right now so they have not collected as many resources as I would like them to.  I have more experience in finding these design resources, so I will assist more by uploading these to the site so they may use their limited time to explore the sites instead of spending hours searching.  

Many of my students wished they had an opportunity this year to interact with a professional but are still excited to help set up the Game plan so next year’s students can benefit from this interaction.  I told them to send me their email so they can link up to the site next year to see how our plan has developed.  The ISTE NET Performance indicator for teachers (2008) conveys that an educator should promote digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology.  I am already proud to know that my students have an interest in seeing how the GAME plan we began in a short time this year will turn out and that they would like to be a part of the critique process as well.  Our shared vision for integrating technology and utilizing outside professionals to enhance our design process is beginning to take form and it will be an ongoing learning experience for all.

References:

ITSE International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). Retrieved on May, 27, 2012 from: http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers.aspx

Carrying out my GAME Plan

This week I did some investigation online and discovered ways to help carry out my game plan of helping to inspire student learning and creativity.  My main goal is to guide them better through the process of developing their ideas, implementing what they learned, and utilizing experts to help evaluate their design decisions. I found many resources while exploring online that will help my students think creatively and utilize the experience of an outside professional to assist them in analyzing and evaluating their creative process.  An article by Cono Fusco (2012) explains to students why picking out the right design may need outside opinions. 

I gave them the link to explore and they have to make the choice of whom they might want to choose to collaborate with. I am currently collecting emails from designer friends of mine who are willing to look at my student’s art and offer their professional opinion. I am also having my student help develop the plan by having them write out a list of critique questions that their digital partner can answer.

I recently with the help of my technology teacher, set up a GoogleDocs site where I can post resources, links, and credible sources that my students have easy access to and can cite properly so they may continue to be responsible digital citizens. The next step is to have the students collect any resources they found and cited and have them uploaded to the site. It is going to be a learning experience for the whole class and I am anxious to see how much we can get accomplished before the first week in June.  A class blog describing my students experiences is something I would like to use to help showcase how each learner perceived our GAME plan, but I do not know if I can implement this in the time frame I have this year. I feel interacting with professionals and outside community members is more beneficial and will help my students become more engaged in the project.

Universal Design for learning framework suggests that teachers utilize instructional strategies that allow individual students greater access to active learning, not just passive information (Cennamo, Ross, Ertmer, 2009). By involving my students in exploring relevant websites, communicating and collaborating digitally with professionals, I am helping them to successfully carry out my GAME plan to inspire creativity and keep them engaged while becoming responsible digital citizens. The more I explore, the more digital information and tools I learn about and can share with my students. The GAME plan becomes a win-win situation for both of us.

Resources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

         Fusco, Cono. (2012). Picking the right logo may need outside opinions. LogoMojo. Retrieved on May, 16, 2012 from: http://www.logomojo.com/logo-design/picking-the-right-logo-design

Developing my personal GAME plan

Developing My Personal GAME plan

After reviewing the five ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators for Teachers

(NETS-T)(International Society for Technology in Education, 2008), I have set some new goals for strengthening how I am going to implement and model these indicators for more effective use of technology and better student engagement.

To facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity, I would like to utilize technology to allow my students more collaborative interaction with each other and also with virtual experts and students.  We explore real-life issues in my class so I would like to involve more input from the outside community during the creative process as well as the final end product.  I am a graphic designer by degree, so I am always sharing my experiences with my class and teaching them how to think outside the box. My students can send their designs to an expert or another design class for another viewpoint in assessing their work.  Recording interaction through a blog or a print-out of correspondences can easily monitor this task. Students can share their feedback with the class so others may learn from their experience.

Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2009) stated that the best way to determine the match of technology to your instruction is to do it yourself. The third indicator, modeling digital-age work and learning, gives me the opportunity to do just that. In order for me to feel comfortable teaching something, I have to have first hand knowledge and experience in it.  By experiencing it, I can better assess where in my curriculum this new technology would benefit my class the most.  Once I teach a new form of technology, I can quickly jot down observations and comments so I can evaluate and make adjustments.  Once students are shown how to navigate new technologies, they can apply it and extend their learning through exploring and experimenting with these new tools.

Promoting and modeling digital citizenship in my classes helps me bring the real world into my small art room and helps my students become more responsible for their actions.  Everyone signs an acceptable use policy in regards to Internet use and safety.  They are aware of their responsibilities in my class and what is expected of them in school applies to how they are to be in society. One of my goals to is make citing sources become an everyday habit. Many times students forget to cite and forget where they got their information from. I would like to set up a collaborative class database so websites can be saved and images can be archived for future use. Students have their own folders on the hard drive so one database would benefit all students.  Collaborative databases support a shared process of knowledge building (2009). All students would have a social and ethical responsibility to the group to make sure the information they post is properly cited. All learners will benefit by sharing information and working together to promote a safe and appropriate environment to store valuable information.

Resources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx.

BLOG- A FINAL REFLECTION

My personal theory of learning will continue to change throughout the rest of my coursework and my teaching career. Teaching in this digital age, I have already adapted to utilizing more current technology to engage my students in more than just learning art facts and creating a drawing, painting or sculpture to take home to mom and dad. Looking back on my original thoughts from November, I can see I still have the same goal of providing positive learning experiences and enhancing my lessons using digital technology. I still believe behaviorism and confidence building play a huge role in keeping students engaged and caring about what they produce. Artists are still constructivists at heart because we build upon our knowledge to create a piece of art.

Dr. Wolfe made me more aware of how a brain makes cognitive connections and stores learned knowledge. Technology in my art room is integrated as an instructional tool to help strengthen the connection between words and images. I now research the web for videos, museum tours, and interactive sights to include on their activity sheets where students can explore new ways to learn about the topic at hand and build upon their learning and strengthen the synapses before they create their final artwork. I even challenge my students to find other web-based activities that they can share with the class and this gives them a real sense of ownership and pride in discovering.

What has changed in my teaching practice is the amount of cooperative learning that takes place on a regular basis using technology. I noticed the level of engagement in my students definitely increases when I allow them to work in small social learning groups to research an artist or project objective. Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007) suggested using informal groups for short, impromptu activities. Students gather information faster and are able to share and combine information in an easy to store blog or wiki. Multiple websites can be explored at the same time and information combined to create a more thorough concept map. A sense of a stronger classroom community is born when we create an online gallery of art. Students are communicating more with each other since I have been including more collaborative problem solving. GoogleDocs is an essential technological tool that allows us to share files in a safe place. Interpersonal skills are developing and students are beginning to trust and respect each other’s opinions.

Voice Thread is the one digital slide tool that I want to use in every class. This new form of technology is a wonderful interactive way to express your opinion and promote interaction using your voice, written word, or drawing over a slide. Critiquing using this tool allows a student a choice in how they want to respond when commenting on their art or the artwork of a fellow student. Students are excited to see the feedback and read what their peers have to say.  An online slide gallery can be produced where a student is required to analyze art for use of project objectives.

The second technological tool I would like to incorporate more into my lessons are Web quests, which are inquiry-orientated activities that allow students to work together to learn about a project’s objective. Pitler et al., (2007) stated that Web quests provide a goal to channel student energies and help clarify a teacher’s objective. Students can focus on using information rather than spend unnecessary time finding it.  I am currently researching such sites as WebQuest Taskonomy http/: webquest.sdsu.edu: taskonomy.html, where I viewed a taxonomy of the twelve most common types of tasks I may want to integrate into the research part of my activity sheet.

My strategy for integrating technology successfully into my learning theories and instructional strategies is to become proficient at a few, hone my skills and build my technology library with what works best for my particular classroom environment. I have to become comfortable using these new technology skills so I can model their use, guide students when they are exploring, and allow for group and independent practice to help attain mastery. The more comfortable I become with technology, the easier it becomes to integrate it into my content, and expand upon its uses in my art room.

References

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Connectivism,Cooperative Learning and Social Learning in Practice

For those of you that have teenagers, you know they are very social beings and my classroom environment reflects this. In my middle school art room, students are grouped 4 to each large table and there are various stations around room where the students can work away from the larger groups. Seating arrangement allows for different strengths of artists to work together towards a common goal and practice social skills and cooperative negotiation skills. I observe on a daily basis how the communication and group dynamics are working and I try to teach students how to work together to break down tasks so they can easily understand what is expected of them.

Cooperative learning gives my students an opportunity to respond as a group to what they see or read and also perceive differences in opinions. Students develop interactive communication and organizing skills, creative skills, cultural awareness, and use these to make informed decisions concerning their objective as a group and individuals. Technology involving cooperative learning allows students to communicate digitally as well as face-to-face anywhere, anytime, and connect to a much larger network. Pitler, Hubell, Kuhn, and Malenoski (2007) stated that technology helps us realize the hopes of schools as places that serve students anytime, anywhere, and facilitate their growth into lifelong learners.

Learning theories such as constructivism, socialism, and connectivism can be used in conjunction with technology to create a larger network of meaningful learning. The web has become much more than an electronic reference book, it’s a thriving medium for collaboration in business, education, and our personal lives (2007, pg.144).  A class website, blog, or wiki are great communicative technological tools to socialize and share and edit information and ideas. I am looking forward to experimenting with WebQuests, which are inquiry based activities where students can work together to solve a problem and focus on using that acquired information rather than searching for it.

I teach a graphic arts class on Mac computers and through this weeks readings, I found out about iWeb, a site where we can create and build blogs and websites with photos, podcasts and post online. These will be new technological strategies that can be incorporated to increase social networking and collaboration in my curriculum. Social bookmarking sites such as http://del.icio.us can organize and share our favorite websites, music, and even books.  Middle school students have many different interests and personalities so connecting socially and educationally through digital and traditional means, students are facilitating powerful collaborative connections that will enhance their learning experiences.

There is no more sitting behind a single desk anymore. It’s time to transform our traditional classrooms with cooperative and technology infused strategies. Visual arts helps develop such skills needed for the 21stcentury workplace such as critical thinking; problem solving; teamwork, and appreciating different cultures. Technology makes this happen globally so welcome to the 21^st century and start the transformation.

Resources:

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

I found a website with some handy hints:
Let's Cooperate! Teachers Share Tips For Cooperative Learning

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr287.shtml


My URL for my voice thread is 

http://voicethread.com/share/2497365/

Constructivism in Practice

After reading this week’s resources in our book, Using Technologies with Classroom Instruction that Works, I now see how generating and testing hypotheses belongs in an art room as much as a science room. My students identify and analyze similarities and differences in a particular art style, problem solve with composition and placement, experiment with materials, and synthesize to make decisions on final art application using this learned knowledge.  I don’t use spreadsheets or graphs in my curriculum but I do see the usefulness of having data readily available to interpret through these strategies.  Students can recognize patterns and see graphically how things compare.

Web resources provide a bounty of information for students to interpret so a lesson should incorporate appropriate technology to help guide students towards using their critical thinking skills to investigate possible solutions to their design problems. Students can share and compare and help construct their knowledge base together. On-line organizers and combined with data collection tools can help students gather more information in one place to lead to further hypotheses and more questioning of information connected to the essential question. Technology such as explorelearning.com allows students to see outcomes of their hypotheses in a virtual situation. 

Pitler, Hubbel, Kuhn, & Malenoski (2007, p.219) stated that a teacher who incorporates technology greatly expands the pool of resources, means of instructional presentation and support, and modes of product creation available to students, and thus is better equipped to meet varying student needs. Using technology enhances and reinforces the lesson by supporting constructionism and the underlying task of using a first hand experience to build upon learning, present an outcome, and articulate the choices made.  My job is to present a focus, get students involved in the construction of the project so that they we both can make assimilations and adjustments in our choices and achieve a balance in our building experiences. I want to teach them to question me as much as I question them, and to constantly think about the outcome of the decisions we make in the learning process.

       

      References:

       

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.