How Art Teacher Blogs Have Changed How I Learn and Teach Visual Art

At the beginning of the year a colleague and myself set a goal for ourselves to meet this school year. We wanted to use a variety of media in our visual arts program. It is easy to fall into the trap of pencil crayon-marker-paper-glue rut, like we had. Boring for us and for the kids.

While we are fortunate to have a Music teacher, we teach our own visual arts. Many teachers in BC have not received training other than a 9 week course during pre-service training and after that we are on our own with the occasional pro-d session. Teachers know how to use the common materials, but I for one didn't know the first thing about watercolour paint or salt dough. I have gotten good ideas from Pro-D sessions, I have used very little in the classroom. Same with the professional books I have bought. Why? I think it is because we either don't have the materials available (what public school stocks watercolor paint and paper? - not mine) or I need more support. The lessons I use most are those that I get from colleagues. I can ask questions (lots if I need to, over the course of many days if needed) and usually the materials are in the school.

Being introduced to blogs and RSS has changed the way I learn about and do visual arts in the classroom. Blogs are interactive which means that I can ask questions about process or materials that I might have - and I do ask questions. With books I can't do this, nor can I with the after Pro-D notes that you often get. An additional bonus of blogs is that they have an archives that I can look though for past lessons and those that use the materials we have on hand.

Now being 2/3 of the way through the school year I have broadened the materials I use in lessons and have had good results. First off, kids love to use materials that they don't often get to use (I don't think my grade level is the only one in the rut). It increases the interest in the lesson and I think the creativity as well. Kids are being encouraged to play with the materials and to problem solve some of the challenges they encounter while using a particular material. Both of which are skills they need in the future.

Secondly, kids who don't do well with the standard crayon-marker-paper-glue do great with some of the other materials. For instance, paint is much faster to use than marker or pencil crayon, so kids who get tired of colouring (and then their colouring gets messy) are less likely to get bored of a particular art project if they can use paint.

Lastly, some of the projects I have used in the past I have used this year but with increased knowledge from reading the blog posts of more experienced art teachers I have tweaked lessons. For instance, I know now that the paper I often had kids pain on was too small. By increasing the paper size, many more kids have experienced success this year.

Below are some of my favourite Art Teacher Blogs. I have also created a bundle of the blogs listed, plus more 10 more, that can be subscribed to if you use google reader.

Deep Space Sparkle

That Artist Woman

Lines, Dots and Doodles

TeachKidsArt

Building My PLN

I have been trying to build my PLN over the past few months. After reading Jeff Utecht's "Reach: Building Communities and Networks for Professional Development" I have been implementing some of his suggestions as to how to build a PLN. Mostly these four:

1) Put a picture of yourself or something that represents you

2) Add your blog address or twitter account to comments.

3) Add to your "About" pages whether Twitter, blogs or other tools

4) Engage in discussion, exchange information

Using these suggestions I have been posting and commenting on Classroom 2.0 and I have been putting more effort into Twitter. I have tweeted trying to drum up some more audience for my class's Storybird stories, retweet and added more people to my 'following' list. In return, I have had some follow me back. Also, I've used Facebook to get some more comments for my student's stories.

Facebook might be my 5th strategy. I think that FB is good for those reluctant to engage in online communities (like me). Using FaceBook as a baby step might be a good forum to 'get your feet wet' in. My FB account includes a mix of friends and colleagues all of whom are supportive of me. I asked for help and I asked for others to comment on my classroom blog and with that success I have been more confident in my attempts to put myself out there. For me it was a good step to becoming a more confident poster/commenter in other forums.

It certainly has been a reach for me. Putting myself out there has not been easy and I've had to force myself to do so. However, I am beginning to see the benefits of doing so. First off, I am seeing benefits for my students. Through my PLN I have encouraged a broader learning community for them. I now have groups of people I can draw upon to view and provide feedback on the work of students. Because of the feedback from others, students are being encouraged to write more and to revise and edit their work more.

Secondly, I am finding blog posts that interest me from people I did not know about on subjects that interest me and in some cases did not know much about, such as reverse instruction.

So, while I find it difficult to reach out I will continue to do so in the future. Now that I have begun actively participating in my PLN and have seen some of the benefits first hand, I feel the need to continue and add to my PLN for my own learning and for that of my students.

Storybird

I have heard of Storybird from a number of sources, so when my class was about to begin writing a story I looked into Storybird further and, for the most part, I liked what I saw.

Advantages:

1) Quick and Easy. Story bird allows teachers to sign up students - no email for student is required. I literally registered myself and students in about 10 minutes. Teachers can set privacy to either keep the stories private so only the class can see them or they can be public and appear on the site. Storybird was easy for students to use and all had success almost immediately. Adding, reordering and deleting pages is done easily and pictures are just dragged and dropped onto the page.

2) Storybird has lots of great artwork from which students can choose to use in their stories. This got student creativity flowing. Not one of them said that they couldn't think of any ideas for their story.

3) Lots of Publishing Options. A copy of the story can be downloaded as a pdf (fee), bought as a book (fee) or embedded on a blog, web page or wiki (for free). I placed published stories on my classroom blog to increase the size of the audience who may view the stories.

4) Great for all abilities. Reluctant writers were asking to write additional stories as was my student who is above grade level. I had kids making Storbirds at home and those who finished the first one during class time asked to write another.

Limitations:

1) Lots of artwork can be a limitation too. If I used Storybird again, I would probably make a limit on the number of characters students could include in their stories. The pictures provide for a lot of choice and as a result the kids chose a lot - too many in some cases and the story became confusing.

2) Unpublished student stories cannot be viewed unless the teacher logs in as the student, as far as I know. I would also like Storybird to include a way for the teacher to monitor student progress on Storybird without having the student publish their work first or without the teacher having to log in as the student to view the unfinished Storybird.

3) Storybird allows for asynchronous writing of stories IF students have email addresses, which mine do not.

View my student's Storybirds on our blog.

What Does it Mean to be Literate in the 21st Century ?

This Century’s graduates are different than those in the past. They are different in the way in which they learn. Prensky, believes that the brains of people who grow up with technology are physically different from those of past generations who did not. As a result they learn differently than past generations. What I know is that how I learnt as a child is not how my daughter is learning, nor my students. Telephones and face to face conversations with other students was the only way to collaborate in my childhood. The major sources I used to find information were books, magazines, newspapers and television. Today, these technologies are being added on to and/or being replaced with google, wikis, instant messenger and email (to name a few students have mentioned to me recently). Students in my room have made Youtube videos, websites, play games and use instant messenger - a lot. Even my four year old has made Photo Booth movies of herself making goofy faces, reading and role playing.

No longer are students passive recipients of a few people’s ideas which are distributed through media. Now students are producers and consumers of media. With this shift it follows that there needs to be a change in the skills that students will need to be literate and a full participant and citizen of the 21st Century. As the Annberg School for communication and Journalism’s New Media article suggests the skills of play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgement, transmedia navigation and networking need to be taught. NCTE notes that these are also the skills employers are seeking.

Technology is not going to go away and as a teacher I think it is my responsibility to help students develop the skills which will allow them to participate fully as citizens of the 21st Century.

The Value of Research

I can honestly say that I underestimated the value of research to my practice at the beginning of this program. It took some time for me to realize that it is important. I started off by using research to support what I was seeing in the classroom and through field studies found that research prior to designing a field study was most valuable. Research allowed me to learn through the experiences of others.

A couple of the most valuable reasons to me for continue to using research in the future are :

1) Research keeps me current with new findings and theory in education. I think keeping current as teachers is important to our practice as it can keep us engaged with the practice of teaching. It prevents teaching from becoming ‘stale’. If we hope students to become lifelong learners than we must expect the same of ourselves.

2) Knowing the whys behind what I do is important to me. At times, research has given me a way to articulate what I have been seeing in my practice. Other times, it leads me to question my assumptions. Research can provide the stimulus for reflection and keeps pedagogy at the centre of my practice.