The Teaching Palette

There’s an App for That: iPads in the Art Room

Posted on 24. Feb, 2012 by Guest Author in All Posts, Cool+Creative, Educators in Art, Multimedia, Tech Stuff, Technology and Gadgets

The following is a guest post from Suzanne Tiedemann who teaches art at Brunswick Acres School in South Brunswick, New Jersey and Tricia Fuglestad who teaches at Dryden Elementary in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

Tricia:  In late 2010, I wrote a grant to receive an iPad for the art room. I hadn’t any experience with one at the time, but thought that they may have a use in the art room some how and I was curious to explore the possibilities. I imagined that students would publish a collaborative book, record their voice for video, or access the Internet. The iPad 2 hadn’t been announced yet with camera/video so my thoughts were mostly on apps for exploring art and making art.
I asked my building tech assistant to allow me to play with an iPad over winter break.

That’s when it happened. That winter I was completely smitten with the touch- swipe-pinch-zoom-undo-ease of the iPad. I loved the “tweet this”, “email that” simplicity of use.

Portrait created using Brushes app, 6th grade

I started to play with the Brushes app with layers, transparencies, textures, and playback mode and thought…this is transformational!

For years I’ve been trying to do technology based lessons with my elementary art students and found that they needed a great deal of instruction in how to use the tools, where to click, and how to troubleshoot issues. This meant that I was more of a tech teacher than an art teacher during class time.

Since those days my school purchased 100 iPads that travel throughout the school one grade level at a time each month. This means that I have the opportunity to create a digital art lesson with every grade level on the iPads in my K-5 elementary school. I jumped right in with uncertain expectations. I didn’t know how much my students could accomplish, how many issues we might have with network connectivity, and how I would deal with image management.

Some of the things I’ve learned:

• Find a way to project the ipad as you teach (I use Apple TV to wirelessly mirror the iPad through my projector. View my blog post to learn more)
• Learn the vocabulary for the ipads (home button, settings, wifi, share button, swipe, pinch, zoom, undo, double click, tap, shut down, mute, etc.) Manual
• Teach students to respect the iPads as learning devices (not for playing Angry Birds and filling the camera roll with silly pictures)
• Teach what you would have normally, but digitally if you can. Don’t let the ipads disrupt learning, but rather transform. Here are some examples.

Suzanne: Over the past four years, I have been taking steps to acquire touch screen devices for my students to use as art making tools. In 2009, I took photos of my family and friends with my iPhone and created silly portraits of them with bulging eyes and very lopsided features using the app, “FaceMelter”. Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” popped into my mind, and I thought that if I was having this much fun creating images in this style, my students might like it too. I found myself lending my iPhone and iPod Touch to my students. It was both hysterical and inspiring for them to learn about surrealism by creating “Melting Self Portraits” . Their excitement about using the touch screen to create made me look past the possibility that my devices could suffer any casualties. Fortunately, students took great care of my technology. The administration in my district believes in demonstrated practice; therefore, I was determined to prove that my students needed touch screen devices in the art room. At that time, I began uploading student work to their online Artsonia galleries and printed others to display in my school.

Love Bird, Created Using Phantasy App, 2nd Grade

In 2010, I invited my supervisor to observe a lesson where my students were using my iPod Touch to create digital collages using the app Faces iMake. To this day she recalls how amazed she was that first graders were all completely engaged and in awe when trying to watch a demonstration on one tiny iPod Touch. She was equally impressed with how intuitive they were when it was their turn to create digital collages on such a small screen.

Polar Bear, Created Using Percolator app, 3rd Grade

At the end of the 2011 school year, my district acquired iPads through a grant. Select classroom teachers and a couple of specialists, including myself, were invited to be a member of the iPad Pilot Program. I was given one first generation iPad to use with my students. We explored digital storytelling, augmented reality, graphic design, photo and drawing apps and more. Each week, I was required to submit a form to my technology leaders that described how I was infusing the iPad in the art room. It was a super exciting time, but only for a select few. Students wanted to use the iPad, but only having one iPad for 550 students meant that the odds of using the iPad were pretty slim for most.

Some of the things I have learned along the way:

• Publish your students’ digital work online if possible and share the work they are creating with your administrators and technology leaders. Demonstrated practice could possibly go a long way. Read about how the iPad has been infused in the art room B.A. Art/iPads and see my students in action by viewing our B.A. Vimeo iPad Library.
• Download and install Dropbox on your computer, iPads and iPhone. I cannot imagine managing and uploading my students’ digital files without it.
• Talk to your students about your efforts to acquire technology for them. My students seem to appreciate that I include them in on the process. This could possibly be part of the reason why they take proper care of the technology when it arrives for them to use.
• If you do not have a class set, create an iPad station where students can cycle through and take turns using the iPads while others are using traditional tools at their tables.
• If you do not have a class set, provide time for students to work in groups. They enjoy solving problems together and are less frustrated when navigating tools for the first time in apps like “Brushes”.
• Apply for grants when possible and look for opportunities that may help you acquire more iPads and perhaps a class set. Having an iPad station makes it possible to offer basic digital lesson extensions. A class set will allow you to teach digital lessons to an entire class on some days while using traditional tools on other days.

Suzanne Tiedemann and Tricia Fuglestad spent the last year exploring uses for the iPads in the Art room. They presented on their findings at the National Art Education Association on Saturday, March 3, 2012 in NYC.  Fnd their resources on their iPads in Art resource site.

Escape from Thorne Mansion Interactive

Posted on 07. Dec, 2011 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Multimedia, Music+Art, Tech Stuff

As a child I was lucky to live close enough to the Art Institute of Chicago to visit the Thorne Miniature Rooms.  I imagined how different my life would be living during the historical time periods depicted in the extraordinarily detailed 3-dimensional interior designs.  A new interactive game from The Art Institute of Chicago, Escape from Thorne Mansion, allows me to take a virtual leap back into those rooms.

The interactive adventure begins in a 16th century French parlor with a cryptic note explaining details to escape the mansion. Clicking on different areas of the image reveal verbal clues at the bottom of the screen and open doorways to gain entry into the next room.  Your students will enjoy the challenge escaping the labyrinth of rooms using the clues found along the way.

Escape from Thorne Mansion could be easily integrated with a study of linear perspective, composition, or design.  Alternatively, create a literature connection at school or at home incorporating the book, The Sixty-eight Rooms reviewed in an earlier post.

Connecting with Music
Other than the light strum of a harp in the French Anteroom, the Escape from Thorne Mansion interactive missed an opportunity to couple era music with the room design. So, I’ve decided to pick up where the Art Institute of Chicago has left off and pair a few Thorne Room images with sounds from the time (click the widget to the right of the image to listen).

California Hallway, c. 1940

French Boudoir of the Louis XV Period, 1740-60

Japanese Traditional Interior, 1937

The Thorne Miniature Rooms create an amazing opportunity to connect history, literature, and music with art and design.  How else do the Thorne Miniature Rooms connect to your curriculum?

Review: DVD Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion

Posted on 15. Feb, 2011 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Multimedia, Reviews

DVD Name: Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion

Grade levels: 4th grade through adult

Category: Art History, Teaching Resource

If you teach linear perspective, then Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion DVD hosted by Al Roker is a must-have. This video is an updated version of Masters of Illusion from the National Gallery of art containing many of the same images, descriptions and musical accompaniments.   Empire of the Eye: The Magic of Illusion kept the best of the old and introduced new ideas to help explain perspective concepts. My favorite part of the video is the discussion of anamorphic art including The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger.  Use as an introduction, play as students finish perspective drawings, or leave as a sub plan.

Bucket Rating out of 5:

(5) Love it! Need it! Gotta have it now!

Click here to learn more about the bucket rating system or to submit your own review.

Introducing The Teaching Palette Podcast

Posted on 21. May, 2010 by Hillary Andrlik + Theresa McGee in All Posts, Multimedia, Tech Stuff, Technology and Gadgets

All of our video tutorials have been gathered together to create The Teaching Palette Podcast Channel! Now you can subscribe to our educational videos through iTunes and automatically be updated on the latest Palette Podcasts.  Keep up-to-date on the latest art-related videos while on the go and share what you’ve learned with other art educators. Subscribe though iTunes or watch them on the web.

App Review: Hanoch Piven’s Faces iMake

Posted on 04. Apr, 2010 by Hillary Andrlik + Theresa McGee in All Posts, Cool+Creative, Multimedia, Technology and Gadgets

In an earlier post, we interviewed Hanoch Piven, illustrator and children’s book author, about his brand new iPhone app, Faces iMake. The Teaching Palette has been testing Faces iMake for several days and below is our review.

Faces iMake is a collage portrait creator with a clean, user-friendly interface, which makes it great for primary students to navigate.

The catchy music (you can turn off the music in the settings) accompanying the app encourages a happy mood while choosing colors, head shapes and objects for your portrait. A wide range of objects, grouped into different categories — such as food, tools, toys, kitchen, school, buttons, letters — provide the app-using artist a plentiful palette. You can even favorite your favorite objects for quick selection the next time around.

One feature we found helpful was that you can save finished portraits to a storage gallery where they can be assigned to a contact, saved to your iPhone photo album, emailed to a friend, or shared via Facebook. Or you can re-select your saved portrait and continue working on it.

As part of the interface, users can rotate objects after placing them on their portrait and easily layer objects above or below one another.

The only feature that seems like it is missing is the ability to scale objects, but as Piven explains, “It would have been very easy to scale objects up and down, but I wanted to have limitations that are real life limitations.”

The app’s included video art “lessons” are a great way to get started, and they’re presented in a style much like Piven’s own hands-on workshops.

Overall, the Teaching Palette gives Hanoch Piven’s Faces iMake app two thumbs up.  It provides an excellent way to explain assemblage and portraiture as an art form. And it’s a lot of fun to play with.

One disclaimer, Faces iMake unexpectedly quit on two of our iPhones during testing. A simple restart of the iPhones solved the problem. From what we understand, an update is coming soon to prevent this minor glitch altogether.

Watch the demo below to see how this app works.

While many of us still have limited iPod Touch and iPhone access, here are some classroom/student integration suggestions:

1. Use your personal iPod Touch or iPhone and project images under a document camera for the entire class to see. You should definitely check out IEAR (I Education Apps Review) for additional ideas and tips for using Apps in the classroom.
2. Create a list of great iPhone apps for your students to try at home. An earlier post offers some great art app suggestions.
3. Talk to your school administrator, perhaps s/he would be willing to pilot an iPod Touch or (if you’re very lucky) a classroom set. Or try writing a grant.  You never know unless you try!  For a list of grant opportunities, click here.

Educational Digital Content With Kitzu

Posted on 18. Jan, 2010 by Hillary Andrlik in All Posts, Cool+Creative, Multimedia, Reviews, Tech Stuff, Technology and Gadgets

Searching for great images and content for your classroom? Then you’ll want to look through the unbelievable resources at kitZu created by the Orange County Department of Education. The online collection of digital kits covers numerous subject areas such as science, music, mathematics, history, visual art and more. The content includes free educational and copy right friendly media resources that are appropriate for kindergarten through high school ages. At kitZu their goal was to, “provide students with the building blocks necessary to build video and multimedia projects that tell a story and demonstrate learning.” With the great organization of these digital resources you’ll have no problem quickly finding school friendly material for those teachable moments and big multimedia projects. Under the visual arts section I found 41 kits alone. This is an amazing resource for educators so make sure to add it to your bookmarks or Delicious account.

A big thanks to @NMHS_Principal for sharing this resource on twitter.

Kits can include any of the following:

• Animations
• Audio Clips
• Documents
• Illustrations
• Photos
• Video Clips

Examples of some of the visual art topics are located below.

The 30 Best iPhone Apps for Art Teachers

Posted on 03. Aug, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik + Theresa McGee in All Posts, Cool+Creative, Multimedia, Reviews, Tech Stuff, Technology and Gadgets

Since the launch of the iTunes App Store in July 2008, over 1 billion apps have been downloaded for use on the iTouch and iPhone.  Currently, the App Store has 63,000 apps to choose from and it is no surprise that many of the iPhone/iTouch applications have educational value.  Over the last few weeks, we sorted through our favorites to create The Teaching Palette’s Best Apps for Art Teachers, along with some tips and suggested uses.

1. Love Art-Natl Gallery London This is an absolutely beautiful museum app that integrates audio and video presentations based on the collections in the museum.  A great learning tool containing snapshots of a wide range of art history.
2. Brushes Familiar with the New Yorker Cover that was created using an iPhone app?  It was created with the Brushes painting app and tops our list. Easy to use beginning with the very young. Watch a speed portrait here.
3. TypeDrawing Draw with text. This fun app uses a single letter or phrase as the drawing tool. A completely new way of drawing (and thinking about drawing). See some examples in this Flickr pool.
4. TanZen Familiar with Tangrams?  This app combines math and art concepts together.  Move, rotate, and flip shapes to form a larger image. Great for improving spatial intelligence.
5. Art (Lite version) This art history game features five famous artists.  Can you identify which artist created each work of art? Master this app, then upgrade to the paid version of Art. Another nice feature of this app is the option to load images into your photo gallery for use in other applications.
6. Art2Go This app is an engaging and useful presentation of 19th and early 20th century artists and their work using audio commentary. Useful for all grade levels and art backgrounds.
7. Color Splash This is an extremely simple app to use with some amazing effects.  Teach the principle of emphasis by isolating a single image in color while the remainder of the photograph stands in black and white. See how easy this app is to use in this video tutorial.
8. Animoto Near identical to the traditional web-based version, Animoto coordinates your images to the beat of music.  Great for artist presentations or student portfolios. Completed presentations can be downloaded or emailed.
9. FlipBook (Lite version) This is one of the best animation apps available.  Features allow for replication of images and transparency effects to see previous slide. Click here for a guided tour of the app.
10. PixPop Art – This is a challenging and very fun detail detective game. Utilizing fine art, detail images line the right side of the screen while you search for the match. Work in competition mode timing yourself or work at your own pace in Zen mode.

1. 3D gallery Be a curator of your own museum.  Enter this 3-D room and rearrange the paintings or choose your own images from photo gallery.  This would be a great tool to display artwork created throughout the year or to focus on an art time period or genre. Note: There is currently no “save” feature, but if you click your on/off button at the same time as the menu button, you can create a screenshot that saves in photos on the camera roll.
2. Comic Touch (Lite version) Add some humor to art historical images or commentary to student artwork with this single pane comic creator. Save to photo library or email. Upgrade to the paid version of Comic Touch and get interesting special effects and fonts. Watch an intro video here.
3. Life Strips This is a great tool for creating comic strips.  Utilizes a wide variety of comic strip templates and speech bubbles. Add photos and utilize filters to for adding special effects. Even add a Google map!
4. Light Painting Have you ever created a photographic light painting?  While standard flashlights and LED lights work fine, this app offers additional light features otherwise hard to replicate. Use these tips and tricks to get started.
5. Open Culture - Find a nice group of audio and video podcasts from well known art museums in the “ideas and culture” category.  The same category also contains animated New Yorker cartoons.
6. AP Mobile Create a search for “Art” and get the latest news articles from around the world.  Useful app for older students to reflect on culture and current events.
7. Jazz Sculptor Utilize a wide variety of virtual materials and textures to carve a sculpture from a variety of forms.  Rotate image to view at a 360 degree angle.  Nice exercise to understand the subtractive carving process. See the Jazz Sculptor gallery for inspiration.
8. ScuptMaster3D Create three-dimensional art using a variety of colors with this virtual material that appears inspired by Henry Moore.  Great way to introduce and reinforce positive and negative space concepts. View this video tutorial for an overview.
9. Architect Envi Deluxe – This app organizes architecture by building name, architect, or century created.  It is presented in a slide-show format with the option to learn more about the building and save in the camera roll for use/manipulation in other applications.  Yet, the best feature of this app is the option to view each architectural structure in Google Maps.
10. Color Sudoku Forget the numbers – this is Sudoku in color!  Game has a different levels of difficulty and color schemes.

1. Eyetricks This app has a nice collection of optical illusions.  Good for early finishers or as intro to an OP Art unit.
2. Color Wheel -This color wheel uses advanced color theory concepts to reinforce color understanding. Useful interactive app for older students.
3. Brooklyn Museum Tour the collection of art at the Brooklyn Museum.  ”Randomize” is a nice feature to view artwork you might otherwise miss.
4. Symmetry Useful tool for teaching symmetry to younger students. Watch this video for a quick demo.
5. MovieMaker This is a great tool for creating stop-motion animations and time-lapse movies. Since it requires the camera on an iPhone, this app is perhaps most useful as an extension for students who have access to iPhone technology.
6. PotteryWheel While this is certainly not a a replacement for the hands-on wheel throwing experience, this pottery wheel gives the basic idea of the cause and effect.
7. Artist’s Touch This app requires little artistic talent but is useful when teaching about abstract art.  Non-objective to representational- reveal your image using a variety of textures and paint tools. Be sure to watch video tutorial to get started.
8. Google Earth This is a great app to integrate geographic locations of artists or cultures. Watch this video tutorial to get started.
9. Gallery of Painters Contains a large collection of artists that can be searched alphabetically, by century, or nationality. View basic information or link directly to Wikipedia for detail information.  Useful for research.
10. Juxtaposer and Juxtaposer Lite This is a fun tool for teaching about Surrealism. Reinforce juxtaposition  by taking a photo of your classroom and a selecting objects from a second photo to create a Magritte-like composition. Watch this video review to see what this app can do.

Ok . . so now what?  Here are some additional tips and considerations to start using the apps:

• Not all the apps are free, but once purchased, an app can be used on multiple iTouch’s with no additional charge.
• Most schools do not have access to multiple iTouch’s (yet). But even just one iTouch can be used as an extension for an early finisher or projected on a screen for the entire class to view using a document camera.
• Some students may have access to a personal iTouch or even a parent’s iPhone.  Create a recommended app list for these students to try out at home. You could even tie it into an extra credit option.
• Use it yourself to create your own art or brush up on art history.
• Find useful tips, reviews, and connect with other educators using apps in education at IEAR.org

What are your favorite apps for art education?

An Alternative to Adobe: Aviary’s Free Design Tools

Posted on 18. Jul, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik in All Posts, Cool+Creative, In The News, Multimedia, Neat Video, Organization and Preparation, Positive Reinforcement, Reviews, Tech Stuff, Techniques, Technology and Gadgets, Tools and Miscellaneous

If you’re looking for the image editing power of Photoshop or Illustrator without the hefty price tag you may want to consider trying the Aviary Suite.  It’s a free web 2.0 technology with a pro version available for $24.99 a year. Aviary is not only an image editing tool but it’s also a visual social network.

Users maintain a profile, contacts, favorites, access to chat boards, tutorials and more. Images created in the Aviary Suite can be shared with the community or kept private in a user account, and then saved in a variety of formats or downloaded to your computer.

Plus, users can import images from a URL, Aviary Library, Flickr, Picasa or Facebook directly into any of Aviary’s five programs – Phoenix, Falcon, Peacock, Toucan and Raven.

Phoenix does image editing and has tools like layers, masks, effects, undo history, and more. Peacock is what Aviary calls their “visual laboratory”. It features tools like generators, effects and controllers. Toucan is their color swatches and palettes. It features many of the usual color palette tools but what really was interesting to me was their color deficiency preview tool. It allows you to choose from a list of color vision deficiencies and see how someone who is color blind would distinguish your color palette. It would be a great way to teach students how other people see the world. Toucan is a simple tool, but in conjunction with the other programs in the Aviary Suite you can create some amazing images. Raven is their vector editor program and the first of its kind on the web.  It allows you not only to create complex vector art but to carefully scale and create logos, clip-art, large print ready graphics, and t-shirt and clothing designs.

The newest program is an image markup tool called Falcon. It allows you to capture images from your desktop or a web page and edit them in your browser. It is similar to Skitch or Jing but with additional capabilities since it can be used in conjunction with Aviary’s other programs. Just install Talon, a Firefox extension for Aviary, and you can quickly annotate, mark, crop and resize your captured images. Or you can transfer the images to any of the other Aviary programs for more in-depth editing. Falcon would be a great tool to have students critique an image of their own, a classmates or from a pool of stock photos.

If you teach a computer graphics program at a middle or high school and are looking for an exceptional resource or additional tools to extend beyond the classroom lab, Aviary might be a solution for your program.  Students don’t have to stop creating once they leave the lab since they can log on and design anywhere there is an Internet connection.

Below are two videos featuring Aviary’s Raven and Falcon programs.

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

The Art Institute of Chicago Launches Interactive Website

Posted on 27. Jun, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik + Theresa McGee in All Posts, Art Games, Cool+Creative, In The News, Multimedia, Music+Art, Reviews, Tech Stuff

We were excited to view The Art Institute of Chicago’s new Modern Wing at the educator open house. The new edition designed by Renzo Piano makes the Art Institute of Chicago the second largest art museum in the United States. The layout and design of the new galleries that now house the museums 20th and 21st century art collections are impressive but, as educators we were truly amazed by the new Ryan Education Center.

The new eduction space boasts five classrooms, three huge studios, the new Crown Family Education Center and the new David and Marilyn Fatt Vitale Family Orientation Room. Not only are these educational spaces truly state of the art but, have one of the most sought after views in the city as they look onto Millennium Park. The image above was taken on my phone in one of the new studios.

Along with the fantastic educational space , The Art Institute previewed new interactive software and resources featuring pieces from their collections.  This July they lunched that material online in an interactive website for kids called the Curious Corner. The site is geared more towards the elementary age child but, also has resources for educators and parents. Visitors can choose form three different categories of interactive games such as Story Time, Match Up and Play with Art. The Match up section is one of our favorites it lets you match texture, shape or sound. Below is a short clip of some of the interactive games children can explore on the site.

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

Below is a couple of ideas for utilizing the Curious Corner in the classroom.

• Use the “Story Time” games as an introduction to teaching children about the messages, stories and meaning behind many pieces of art.
• Use the “Match Up” sound game as an individual activity for analyzing the parts of a work of art. As a student matches each sound to different area of a piece of art they will notice new details and better understand what is happening in the image.
• Use the Cornell Box section of the “Play with Art” game to have students create a still life that is meaningful to themselves. Print the completed computer still life images and have students use the grid drawing processes to enlarge the image. Choose a media such as colored pencil or chalk for students to add detail to their personal still life drawings.
• Use the “Match Up” game as an introduction or extension activity for concepts like texture and shape.

Share how you could utilize this site in your classroom in the comments section below?

Review: David Hockney: The Illusion of Depth

Posted on 04. Oct, 2008 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Multimedia, Reviews

DVD/Video Name: David Hockney: The Illusion of Depth

Series Name: Behind the Scenes

Grade Level(s): 3rd through 8th

Categories: Art History, Elements and Principles of Art, Teaching Resource

Product Review: If I had only one DVD in my collection, this would be the one. The kids are completely engaged and learn the difference between flat and deep. I use this as an intro to teaching one-point perspective. My other two favorites in this series are Nancy Graves: Balance and Wayne Thiebaud: LIne.

Bucket Rating out of 5:

(5) Love it! Need it! Gotta have it now!

Click here to learn more about the bucket rating system or to submit your own review.