Is There an App for that Brushstroke?

In deference to the safety of the museum’s collection, painting in the Art Institute has traditionally been restricted to a limited number of students and professionals. But thanks to creative uses of mobile devices, the museum has been able to extend that artistic experience to a wider audience without spilling a drop of paint. In a recent Teen Studio Workshop on Experimental Painting, museum education staff—using an iPad app that simulates painting techniques—provided teens with a digital canvas and virtual brushes and paints. Inspired by artworks like Gerhard Richter’s Ice (1-4) shown below, participants “squeezed” virtual paint onto their simulated canvases, blended and smudged colors with a palette knife, and built up layers and textures, all through touching or dragging their fingers over iPad screens.

Museum lecturers also use iPads as virtual portfolios to show images that supplement understanding of artworks discussed on public gallery talks. Digital images on the iPads permit the audience to view sculpture from different angles, and to explore related works from the collection not on display, or comparative artworks from other museums or collections. The speaker below, for instance, shows the image of an ancient coffin to help convey the original purpose of the Egyptian funerary objects in the cases behind him. Lecturers use them to zoom in on minute details, some not detectable to the naked eye, and the highly visible backlit screen gives iPads an advantage over their paper analogues.

Lecturers have even begun to incorporate audio and video into their tours. During a gallery talk, for example, visitors might listen to the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and compare it to the abstract compositions of Vasily Kandinsky; or they might compare movement, rhythm, mood, or repetition in an artwork to that found in an example of jazz or classical music. A lecturer might invite visitors to explore Richmond Barthé’s bronze sculpture The Boxer and watch an archival video showing the artists process and sculptural techniques in his studio. Most recently, children were introduced to the illustration exhibition Animals around the World: Picture Books by Steve Jenkins in the Ryan Education Center both literally and virtually. First, students looked closely at the dynamic paper collages combined with amazing facts about inhabitants of the animal kingdom. Then an educator showed videos on an iPad of the animals in their habitats, enabling some of our youngest audiences to see examples of where an artist drew inspiration for his work.

Mobile technology is increasingly demonstrating its potential to connect museum audiences of all ages with the artists and their works and to provide opportunities for creative experiences through dynamic interaction with the collection. Stay tuned for more ways in which the Art Institute of Chicago will engage 21st century visitors with mobile and touch-screen technology, bringing them closer to the collection in new and exciting ways.

—Carolina K., Education Technology Manager, Digital Information and Access

May is here (yay!) and we have an amazing giveaway for you . . . a free online class from The Art of Education!  Here are some of the class details:

The winner (chosen at random among lesson plans submitted during May) gets to choose the Summer AOE Class of their choice for FREE- Up to a $300 dollar value! (graduate credit is an additional cost).

The classes are taught by art teacher Jessica Balsley who set out to make professional development actually relevant and meaningful to art teachers. Although Jessica resides in Iowa, you won’t need a road trip to participate, all of the professional development classes are online and on your own time.  Jessica tells us that people have actually taken her classes while traveling across country, in a desert, and while sitting in a hospital room!  You can also add on graduate credit to help move along salary schedules or elective credits for a masters program or teaching certificate renewal.

We’re looking forward to some more great ideas from our readers this month.  Submission guidelines to be entered for a chance to win a free AOE class are listed below:

The deadline for submitting your lesson(s):

1. May Giveaway – 5/31/12
2. June Giveaway – 6/30/12
3. Or submit them all at once to be automatically entered into both remaining drawings.

Lesson plan should include:

• NAME
• Lesson Title
• Grade Level(s)
• Image of Student Artwork (Separate from lesson plan &  jpeg format)
• Website Links **optional**
• Tips for Success (i.e., classroom management, step-by-step, additional images, etc.) **optional**

Some exciting news from the box is the Prang Power program that helps teachers earn free supplies! The Prang Power program allows schools to earn points by turning in the UPC Codes from any Dixon Ticonderoga product. The points can then be used to “purchase” valuable everyday school supplies that teachers need for the classroom.

Now lets be clear on the characteristics of this type of student.

Excessive Question Asker Characteristics 

This student…

1. asks a lot of questions about every step of a project. Even if there are written & drawn reminders easily accessible. They have to talk to you (the teacher) about each step again before they can move forward.
2. asks a lot of questions even though they are bright and (most of the time) understand the concepts without extended explanation.
3. is most likely not disrespectful or disruptive to the class. They know the art room procedures and can work effectively within the environment.

Of course no two students are the same so there are lots of variations in what you might observe from the excessive question asker in your art room.

Solution

A colleague shared the idea of using a ticket system to help regulate students who are prone to excessive questioning. It’s pretty simple. The student gives the teacher one ticket and then can ask one question. When their tickets are gone for the class period they can’t ask you anymore questions about the project.

Now this could sound harsh or absolute but it helps force students to look at other information resources in the art room. So instead of taking the easy way out of coming to the teacher or looking for constant adult confirmation they will need to seek alternatives. You will notice that they pick up their heads and look at the board. They will survey the students working around them to compare their progress. They will ask classmates questions. These are all great strategies for kids to keep in the classroom loop. Plus they learn to discern which questions are really worth their time to ask.

I typically start with three question tickets per class. You can adjust the amount of tickets per class up or down to fit your students educational needs. The goal is to eventually wean the student off the ticket system. As students improve and learn to prioritize their questions you can decrease the amount of tickets per class.

Below is a PDF of printable Question Tickets that you can use in your art room. Just print, cut and laminate to reuse over and over.

Click here to download: Question Tickets

As a funny end note, I once had a student ask, “Mrs. Andrlik can I ask you a question about the question tickets?”  At that point they had no tickets left and half a class period to go. It’s so hard for some students at the start. I just laughed and let them ask their question even without a ticket.

Don’t miss out on your chance to win a free online art class from The Art of Education! Just submit your lesson by May 31st and you’ll be entered to win. Click here for more details.

Evernote

My “must have” cloud application is Evernote.  I keep a running list of supplies needed, track students who need to complete artwork, and use images to organize and plan for future lessons.  The video below shows how I have used the Evernote desktop application to sort out and sync all the details of my teaching life.

iCal and Google Calendar

Since I have hundreds of students and lots of classes to track, keeping a planning calendar is essential to my sanity.   Instead of using one calendar, I create a separate calendar for each grade level as well as one for school events that can be viewed individually or all together.  Like Evernote, a “cloud” calendar travels wherever you are, viewable from any computer or mobile device.

Here is an example of my iCal calendar.

Another great option is Google Calendar.  Here is an example:

While I don’t exactly teach painting or ceramics in “The Cloud”, my schedules, lesson plans, and “to do” lists certainly do live online.  As a result, I am a more organized and thorough teacher ready to get my hands dirty with art supplies.

How do you use the cloud? What works best for you?

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.

Get Your Room in Order

Get those paper towels in the right place!  Motivation at its best from Katie Moris at Adventures of an Art Teacher.

Short on counter space?  Then maximize your wall space with these home-made magnetic containers.  This would be great for art teachers on a cart too! Image source: Laissezfaire blog.

De-clutter your desk and get your paperwork in order.  I love how this is labeled. Check out the makeover from the Venspired blog.

Every good art room needs a broom and dust pan – especially one that  is named “Dusty”!  This great idea comes from Theresa Gillespie at Splats, Scraps and Glue Blobs.

If you teach elementary, kids are always making pictures for you.  But what do you do with them all?  By adding them to a clipboard, you can display the most recent and still be able to look through pictures from the past. Idea from Clean & Scentsible blog.

Create a Classroom that Works

Just a subtle hint for your students (and their teachers) from Mrs. Hansen’s Art Room.

Bring peaceful thoughts to your classroom as students enter or leave.  Image source Jankwilson on Flickr.

“I need help” flip charts.  Easy to make yourself or you can buy them here.

This video explains how to get a handle on the noise level in your classroom using plastic cups.

Sometimes you just need to say it plain and simple – keep order in your class by hanging a Peacemakers and Peacebreaker chart.  This great idea came from Mrs. Lee’s Kindergarten class (though this would certainly apply at all age levels)

Teach with Visuals

I love this word wall Art With Mr. E created for his classroom using index cards with magnets on the back.

Help your students understand what careful artwork looks like with this craftsmanship rubric from art teacher Kathleen O’Malley at her blog, Art Moments.

Make the Most of Your Minutes

From a blog that brings organization to a whole new level, Jessica Balsey at The Art of Education shares how she has art questions ready when there are a few extra minutes left in class.

Looking for more ideas and visuals? Check out our classroom management section.

Below is The Artist preview, but you can view all four full length short films at Sotheby’s website by clicking here.

(Trouble viewing this video? Click here.)

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?

Congratulations to all the amazing art education blogs that made it to the Edublog finals!  Let’s show our support and put art education at the top!  It only takes 2 seconds to vote so be sure to do so in each category, EVERYDAY! Based on the extremely close vote tallies from last year . . . every vote counts!

• Best group blog – The Teaching Palette
• Best ed tech / resource sharing blog 2011 - The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet
• Best teacher blog 2011 - Brunswick Acres Art Blog
• Best educational use of a wiki 2011- Fugleflicks
• Best use of audio/visual/podcast – Dryden Art
• Best class blog – Art of Apex High School
• Best new blog – Dryden Art by Tricia Fuglestad
• Best educational use of a social network 2011 - Art Education 2.0
• Best twitter hashtag 2011 - #artsed
• Best free web tool – Artsonia