Teens Support Web-based Lesson

We celebrated Mother’s day with my mother and my wife today. Much food, cake and strawberries were had with hugs and smiles. My son, the only grandchild, was very sweet. Such a blessing. 

He and his friend from across the street helped me yesterday by posing as students demonstrating how to create a flying animation. It was great to watch how they worked together supporting the common goal that I presented to them. 

The goal was to demonstrate how to  photograph and animate four photographs to create the illusion of a fellow student flying or hovering. This would become two parts of a web-based lesson plan that I created for my Academy of Art University, Technology in Education class project this week. 

The process started last week when we created lesson plans. I had a lot of polishing to do before putting these plans on a web site but the process worked out well. I have five lessons and I created a page for each lesson. I put up an overview for each lesson, a page for each. My focus was on lesson three. For this lesson I link to two videos that I offer as inspiration. Then I created two videos. The videos I created were for demonstration purposes. 

I started these demonstration videos as powerpoint style slide shows. These became the story board and script for the what I did with my actors. I had my son and his friend read directions for this demonstration which I used as a sound track for the slide. I took pictures of the the two of them creating their photos and creating the animation. 

We gave our selves two hours. Everything went quite smoothly. It took an hour to take our pictures out of doors and another twenty  minutes inside. I spent another eight hours editing the audio and video. I’m pleased with the results given the timeline. 

I think we all had fun. I really hope they like it. I would love to work with them on future projects. 

Lesson Planning

My thoughts this past week have gone into imaging how to re-focus my efforts at the Academy of Art University as I approach my fourth semester. I find myself leaning towards developing what I’m able to do for after-school programs as oppose to aiming towards a teaching credential. Updating my stop motion animation curriculum was part of that thinking. It is also the subject of lesson planning and brainstorming I’m doing as part of Technology in Art Education this week. 

My stop motion animation class was focused on ideas about perception. It included building a zoetrope, fantascope, thaumatrope, and camera obscura along with short animation with sound effects, music and titles.  The blended learning version of the class will focus more on the aesthetics of and animation of cycles. Students will work together to create animated cycles that will be combined into a larger animated video set to music. As part of the process student will create digital photos that will be posted to a class blog along with some reflection. 

As this course is for after school program where students may not have computers at home, the online technology component of the course will all be done in class. 

Here is an outline of this curriculum as a blended learning lesson plan

Lesson 1 students will acquire and information about cycles in shape and form as a teacher presented lecture. Among the concepts presented will be the theory of thirds. Students will compose and post a digital photograph that shows an understanding of that concept. This will be the first of several blog posts, one per week for the duration of the class. At some point a sister class could share in the process. 

Lesson 2 students will acquire information about the color wheel and the use of color in the visual arts by way of a teacher presented lecture. The teacher lecture will be supplemented by a short video on the topic. Students will create a color wheel clock, a way of talking about color relationships using the hands of a clock. Students will take photos representing nine color relationships and post them on the weekly blog. 

Lesson 3 Students will acquire information about cycles in nature by way of a teacher lecture. Students will watch several time-lapse photography video representations of nature view as not otherwise possible. Students will brain storm things they would like to make visible by way of time-lapse photography. Students will photograph each other jumping in six different positions to represent themselves spinning. One of these photos for each student will be posted to the class blog. One of each student pair will describe their experience.

Students will acquire information about using simple animation software with a teacher demonstration. Students will string together their jumping photos to animate the effect of them spinning. These will be strung together so that each student is represented in one video. Music will be added. Students will brainstorm how they might use this effect and other effects. Students will post this video. Each student will write about what it felt like for them in this project and post it on the blog.

Lesson 4 students will view a set of art history morphing videos. Students will be instructed on how to create a self portrait. Students will create self portraits over two classes. These self portraits will be shared with classmates. One more class session will be used to created transition portraits, portraits that represent elements of each of a pair of students. One more class session will be used to string these self portraits together in to another class animation. Each step along the way will be posted on the class blog along with self reflection by student pairs. 

Lesson 5 students will be asked to plan an animated cycle using what they have learned and that would represent themselves in one other way. They will have the option of using various media including, clay, felt and beans. The animated cycle will require that it link to itself to be used three to six times and then it would have to link to a transition cycle. Students will think-pair-share to brainstorm ideas. The class as a whole will share their ideas for individual cycles. They will also brainstorm how the transition cycle will work. This lesson could take several classes to render. Progress on this assignment will be documented and posted weekly. The final product will string all students work together. 

The web based technology integrated lesson I will focus on will be lesson 3, animating a set of digital photos. I’m calling it, Capturing a flying student and make them spin, using time-lapse photography to see the unseen. Stay tuned. 

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. 

Internet Safety, Cyber-bullying

There was a long time, while growing up in a relatively safe suburban neighborhood, that I was very careful about walking around the block. This is because a boy about my age who lived there had pushed me around once. To me, he was a bully. This is not my son’s experience. He is more likely to get roughed up on a gaming site online than have this problem in our neighborhood. 

Indigo awareness ribbon for cyber-bullying

The city where I grew up had a down town area that was relatively small. It was very depressed economically and needless to say it was a part of town where you wouldn’t want your kids to go. Between porn shops, pawn shops and the street people, the area was deemed unsafe by my family, so it was an area we avoided. Things have changed. The down town area is now a vital place to go and people’s attitudes have changed. But it is this image from my past that comes to mind when I think of the dark side of the internet. That part of the internet and the virtual world we work to keep kids from experiencing.  

Internet safety, like a part of town you would want to avoid, a place you would not want your kids to go, a place from which they would need protection. Internet safety is not just about places on the intent that may be dangerous but keeping an eye out for threats coming on to your computer and devices from devious sources. This was the topic for week eight AAU Integrating Technology Into Art Education Settings.  As teachers introducing technology into the classroom we need to make sure, not only are our classrooms safe but that the environment within the technology we are introducing is safe as well.

There is so much to be said on this topic of Internet Safety as a parent, I find myself filling with dread and guilt. Did I do enough, am I doing enough? There are so many websites and blogs devoted to the topic. I’m using the focus of this week be the inspiration to find out more. 

Cyber-bullying has not been a direct experience in our family. We do hear stories about difficult experiences from my son’s schools. Girls ganging up on each other using social media. A boy normally thought of as a nice guy posting pictures of a fellow student in an unfortunate situation. 

It is a rather overwhelming topic and there are many websites and blogs devoted to helping victims, parents and the community.  

Kids Safe is a great cyber safety site with lots of information for parents and children. 

I spent some time looking at some bully prevention programs that include reporting apps. It took me a while to realize that these are comprehensive bully programs. The cyber component of the program include an app for reporting bully events or event potentially leading up to a bully event. 

One of these services is called STOPit. STOPit is a service and software application configuration that works in coordination with a participating school. Students download an app to their phone and configure the app know who a trusted adult is for the student. If an incident occurs the student can contact the trusted adult among other things. Another similar service is called Cyber-Bully Hotline. 

These both sound like a good initiative for a school with a large pool of students increasing the possibility of a bully threat cyber or otherwise. It does seem that there is quite bit of overlap between cyber bulling and traditional bullying. 

Another App, Bully Block was designed with bullies in mind for people using Android phones. Different from the apps above, this is a stand alone product. The app is  designed to block specific people’s phone calls and text messages once that person has been identified as a bully. 

Another app I found is called Visr. This is app that monitors a child’s smart phone activity in order to detect in unsafe activity. Their focus is on social media settings and other indicators of insecure exposure for a child’s phone. The app let’s parents know when one of these indicators come up without sharing details that a child might consider spying on them. This seems like a reasonable approach and worth considering. Parent’s taking this kind of responsibility for their child’s social media would take a lot of pressure off schools dealing with the same issues. 

I also spent some time on a website featuring iRules, a Janell Burley Hofmann website. Hofmann writes about parenting and technology for the Huffington Post. A contract she called iRules, written for her 13 year old son to go with his first iPhone was posted on the Post website and went viral. She now has an elaborate website devoted to parenting and cyber issues.  

Here is a beautiful little anti-cyber-bullying video I found on the JanellBurley Hoffmann’s blog

It was posted by a European group called Delete Cyber Bulling. They have their own app that is usable is several countries from the Euopean Union. There are a handful of interesting videos on their site as well. 

The topic of internet safety and cyber-bullying is an important one that needs to be addressed by parents, teachers and students on an on going basis. Cyber space presents new challenges to being good citizens. None the less, being that good citizen is something we want to make sure our students and children have the skills and insight to become.