Baby Steps

This year my school went 1:1 with iPads. We didn't get a ton of direction beyond basic how to's so it was up to us to determine how to incorporate them into our instruction and student learning. It's taken me over a semester to ponder this and research some ideas but I think I'm ready to take it beyond using the iPads for looking up reference pictures. Having technology to do this has been a wonderful time saver and encouraged students to go beyond the limited selection of resources found in my cabinet of magazines. No longer do students waste class time waiting until they can go home and print off a picture of this or that thing that they really want to draw but need a photography to do so accurately. As long as you stay on top of how long you let them search the internet for inspiration it works wonders. But there had to be more, right?

I also started work with Edmodo, a great way to organize classes and extra curricular groups. It started as a way to communicate with my various clubs and drama casts throughout the year about schedule updates, reminders, etc...Again though there had to be more educational applications out there that I wasn't utilizing yet.

After attending an amazing conference where I learned all about flipped learning, my new favorite thing besides Twitter, I have some ideas that I have started to try out and more that I'm preparing to try out. Step one was to implement digital submissions for completed artwork, an idea I borrowed from the amazing art educators at Byron Center Schools. It's worked wonders for my 3D Sculpture class to allow me to keep up on grading their completed sculptures as students submit two photos of their completed works to Edmodo in the teacher created assignment tab. I still assess the artworks in class but the digital submissions make organizing grading so much easier. It solved the "who's was this sculpture again?" that happens in a class of 30+. For AP Studio Art it has allowed me to keep track of which artwork is for which assignment as they are so much more varied than in my other studio art classes. I had also hoped it would provide the required digital photographs needed for their AP portfolios. Alas the photo quality of the iPad isn't high enough to achieve that but it was still a great implementation.

Next up flipped learning. I'm starting with Art History which begins on April 8th. It is a research based class that focuses on about ten Modern Art movements. In the past students spent class time in the lab researching various art movements and developing a notebook with chapters for each art movement from the information they collected in their searches. Then they applied what they learned about a movement to inspire a work of art they would create in a very limited time frame as so much time was needed to research. The kids loved the application of what they had learned and dreaded research days. However learning had to come before application. How could I fix this so they still learned what I wanted them to know but have the time they craved to work on artwork? The answer seems to be flipped learning. In the most basic definition the lectures can be videotaped and watched outside of the class time allowing for class time to be used for project based learning activities and application of knowledge. There are a ton of ways to flip learning but this is the most common one from what I've learned so far. It seems like a good starting point.

That was how I first decided to get at flipping Art History. I decided I would use Camtasia to create screencasts of my already created Art History PowerPoints with video of me lecturing on each art movement. The students will watch these videos prior to us starting a new movement. Students will take notes and write down five things they learned and at least one question they have. Then in class we'll discuss what we learned and what questions came up in small groups prior to sharing as a whole class. This will allow more time to create artworks and hopefully more artworks than normally included in the class. I have also planned on incorporating various art apps. This aspect is still in the planning stages but I've found some great ones so far that I can't wait to experiment with.

I have made two videos so far and found Camtasia really user friendly. So far so good. I have a lot of work to complete in a short period of time but it's been exciting and invigorating. I can't wait to see what the students think.