The Ultimate Takeaway; No better place to be!

I talked to three AAU Fine Art Sculpture Department faculty this past week. I wanted to hear their perspective on helping students with problem solving. 

Academy of Art University Fine Art Sculpture Cannery Campus 

All three let out a big sigh as if to say, well yes Jim that is what it is all about isn’t it? All three said in different ways, “It is about one on one conversations, it’s about being accessible to student’s, it’s about being there as students work to figure these things out.” 

Problem Solving is the topic I chose to explore in a short three minute video that I created as an Academy of Art University, Technology in Education class project this week. 

One faculty member talked about an expression that starts off a bit like a joke. “You know about the two artists who jumped out of an airplane? One who did a lot of planning before he jumped and the other who just jumped. That is what planning for an art project can be like. There are artists who take a lot of time to prepare and think ahead and there are others who just jump right in.” 

Two faculty encouraged me to follow them as they talked to students. “You have two weeks to finish this sculpture you are working on, what are your plans?” I used this opportunity to ask students about their inspirations. Processing and sharing student’s ideas was beyond the scope of this project but you can see more than one student in my video talking about their work which adds a delightful element to the piece. 

I decided to not make this a demonstration video. I wanted this to be more about inspiration featuring a particular concept. While problem solving is a rather broad topic I think it worked for this purpose. I was able to bring some basic exposure to some ideas behind problem solving while at the same time show images of sculpture being fabricated. I intentionally brought AAU in as a backdrop for the action on the screen to give it grounding in a real place with real students. 

Here is the video I put together called The Ultimate Takeaway. 

This video is intended for art students as an inspirational pick-me-up. I imagine it being shown in a school or after school program for middle school students, high school students and up. It could be used in a college level class as well. The point is for students to consider the importance of the difficult side of the artistic process. Problem solving is part of the artistic process not often discussed. This can make it an isolating experience without a good mentor or teacher. The video does not replace a teacher or mentor but may bring some appreciation for the process from the perspective of life long learning.

I imagine half way through a semester, when students are grappling with the results of early decisions with a layer more to make, this would be a good short video to show. It would be accompanied with discussion. Students would be encouraged to talk about their immediate process related to problem solving. They would further be asked to imagine how this process might help their thinking for future projects and future learning situations. 

As I worked on this video I felt steeped in the problem solving experience. So many decisions to make. So many possible disappointments to tread near. Talking to faculty and students about their work and about my project helped ground me in the process. It leaves me feeling that while I many not have arrived, I can breath knowing at least I’m on the path. I don’t think there is a better place to be.  

Between a Rock and a Hard Place; towards the Universal Takeaway.

I loved the first film class I took in high school. It was substitute for an english class which suited me just fine. We learned the basics, scripting, story boarding, filming and editing, titles and credits. During that time I made a small handful of eight millimeter classics; “Football Folly” an animated drive around on your butt in the park chasing a slo-mo monster feature, “Because It’s There”, a spiritual quest equating the climbing of a mountain with long distance running, and “Wasted” an anti-Vietnam War very short mini drama. I’m still working on a film from that time that needed a digital boost. A clip from that effort I call Conversation Bite. 

Sweeping into this weeks project for the Academy of Art University, Technology in Education class project, I was full of confidence but now find myself stuck between a rock and hard place. The project is create a storyboard for a short video and I’m finding myself struggling. Well, if that is what the process requires so let me share a little here. 

At first I thought about doing a “how to video”, how to build a felt doll puppet for stop motion animation. But I asked myself, is that the best use of video in the classroom. Doing a demonstration? Maybe so, but do I have time. Other ideas about using video were presented class included using  a video project to enhance students sense of perception and another was to build some interest and concern  for an idea or concept.

Wouldn’t it be great, I thought to myself, to produce this short five minute video about the Fine Art Sculpture Department (FASCU) at the Academy of Art where I am already taking pictures of many of their classes. I spoke to Margaret Keelan, the associate director for the department who was very enthused about the idea. I asked for some concepts that I might focus on that would feature the departments work. She encouraged me to look at problem solving, a thread that runs through the entire department. She gave me a short quote about problem solving being the universal take.  I was off and running. 

Seok-Don Choi

The internet is packed with information about problem solving as a domain of math. I did find some research created by the Guggenheim that supported the ideas Margaret was talking about. The Guggenheim was looking to support their art education work in the schools with some research that showed improved skills development for students with art education integrated into their work. As part of that study they defended problem solving with six skills they felt they could observe and measure and they found positive results with three of these skills. With these ideas I started mapping out a script and storyboard. 

I started by laying these ideas out just as I found them.

Narrator: The Guggenheim identified six skills to most accurately define problem solving. They did this to assess the universal nature of their art education. These are Imagining, Experimentation, Flexibility, Resource Recognition, Ends and Aims and Self-reflection. They found that three of these skills improved students abilities in other areas so let’s focus on those. They are Flexibility, Connection to Ends and Aims and Resource Recognition. 

I am trying to tie these ideas to the students in FASCU using short quote from Margaret Keenlan along with photographs and video of students working. Without being too apologetic it seems my effort leaves some unanswered questions and need for further development. 

Who is the audience for this?

What is the connection to FASCU?

Will photographs and video of students work really convey the idea of problem solving?
What are the limits to which I can use these images?

With time running short I am sharing what I have which feels rough. This coming week I will continue to struggle with answering these questions, solving these problems while finalizing a version in order to have something to show by the end of the week. 

I’d be happy to get your questions or ideas about this project or my process. 

Theater of the Mind; The Sound of Clothes Dropping

My wife and I cleared out our closet this past weekend. This was a rare moment when we felt the strength to fill two big garbage bags with older cloths and take them out of the house. The two bags filled our trunk as we drove them to the nearest clothing donation box. I lifted the first bag up and into a large levered door. When the bag dropped it made a beautiful thud with deep a metallic ring to it. After dropping and listening to the second bag drop I thought wouldn’t this be a nice noise for my Theater of the Mind Podcast. 

Creating a podcast is the project for this week, week 10 in AAU Integrating Technology Into Art Education Settings. Last week I created a plan for this podcast, designed to encourage the creation radio dramas in the classroom. This week I implemented the first episode of this series that I am calling Theater of the Mind, an open classroom of Radio Drama.  

Collecting audio clips was fun. I took my digital recorder outside and recorded the wind. I had a recording of crows from the past. I found a recording of a train passing. I used these sounds as examples of what could be added to a radio drama to bring it to life. 

I narrated the podcast initially from my small digital recorder and uploaded it to the Apple software Garageband. In Garageband I could easily cut up this audio so just the best clips remained. My narration was rather dry so I added a few words here and there and some laughing recorded right in Garageband. Unfortunately the audio quality was different for these different recordings. With more time I would re-record my voice. 

The starting place for this podcast was really the audio drama Mars is Heaven. I downloaded a copy of this radio play both as audio and text files. I used only the beginning few seconds of the recording, the announcer counting down of a rocket launch.  From the text I took a few lines from three characters. I read these lines as a way of showing how one actor can play more than one part in a radio drama. 

The deep clattering noise I found in the clothing bin. I used that sound along with clicking our emergency brake to demonstrate sounds you can collect and for the sound of a rocket blasting off. Keep your ears open, there are good sounds all around us. 

Count Down to Theater of the Mind Podcast

X minus five, four, three, two, one...

Amazing Stories

It was a year ago that I was invited to attend STEAM Infusion, a curriculum writing retreat offered by the Richmond Art Center. What a privilege it was to participate with about fourteen other artists. We spent six days over three weekends to focus on creating curriculum. Each of us focused on designing a class with core elements of Science, Technology Engineering Art and Math for the RAC Art in the Community Program. This focused effort gave me the opportunity to create a Stop Motion Animation class that I give once this past fall and hope to do again this coming fall. 

One objective I had for the start the class was to remind students that their imagination was a big place we could explore and that we didn’t need cameras to see what was there. With that in mind I tried to introduce radio drama on the first day of class. Needless to say it's a good idea that still needs work. Maybe a podcast would help.  

Preparing a plan for a podcast was theme for week 9 in AAU Integrating Technology Into Art Education Settings. With this in mind I started developing a podcast devoted to learning about radio drama. 

In my first effort to learn about radio drama I found several old time radio websites. My favorite was a list of Digital Eel radio shows.  From that list I picked a radio drama called Mars Is Heaven, from 1955. I liked if for several reasons. There are fun special effects right at the beginning of the drama. I wanted students to hear some of these fun noises right up front. 

It was also fun to find the script text for this radio drama at Generic Radio Workshop along with a long list of other scripts and related resources. 

The story has a crew of astronauts who are landing on Mars. The drama takes place in a future relative to1955. They are landing on Mars in 1987. The crew is landing on an unknown planet with the possibility of aliens ready to shoot them down out of the sky if it was daylight. There was no rover mission data to reflect on. Also a sign of the times is all the noises are ship noises. These are all ideas for discussion that come up in the first few minutes of the drama. 

Mars Excursion Module

I spend a little time in this podcast talking about what radio drama is and a little of it’s history. For this podcast I offer an overview as to what is necessary to create a radio drama with the idea that I can get into specific elements in future podcasts. Really all you need is a script, some actors, a microphone and recording device, sound effects and music. 

I discovered several sites with recorded radio dramas and others with radio drama scripts. These range from old time favorites to new, recently written and performed scripts. Some of these sites are specially for teachers and students. One example is Raven Radio Theater. Here you will find scripts and general instructions on how to create a radio drama. 

FAP radio show

There are also many sites devoted to royalty free music. My favorite is CC Mixer. They feature a wide variety of very talented music and production artists. The site easy to sort through and is very clear about various levels licensing for each music file. Sorting through music like this is quite fun for me. For this reason I considered music exploration as another podcast topic. 

As I proceed with creating this first podcast I am looking for further insight about how I might integrate radio drama into my stop motion class. I hope I can offerer one or more episodes as a point of inspiration for that class.