My school implemented club day last year. When I first began hosting my Animation Club, I went all out and made membership cards, a packet for students to take home and planned a different animation activity each month of the club. I quickly realized that I was causing more stress and headache for myself than was necessary.

The way our school handles club day is really neat. Students sign up for a club they are interested in and the club meets once a month for the fall semester. In January, students can sign up for the same club or they can sign up for a new club for the spring semester. The club days are on the 3rd Monday of the month during 'Cardinal Time'. I like that the clubs are during the school day, because it means every student has the opportunity to participate. I don't like that the clubs are during my only planning period/break of the day, which means I end up teaching 7 classes in a row with no time off....but once I started simplifying my club experience, things got a lot easier for me to facilitate. 

For the first club day of each session, I show the Brain Pop video about animation. There are two....so I usually show the one about traditional animation, as opposed to the one that is mostly CGI. I show several examples of stop motion animation on youtube and I give my students an overview of what to expect the next few months.

Since the club is a mixture of 5th and 6th grade students---and there are 25 of them---I encourage them to sit with a friend or a group that they can work with the entire time. Students have to work in groups to make movies so it is important to sit with people that they feel comfortable working with. We spent a little time with introductions that first day. I played an icebreaker game they had to stand up or sit down after I made a statement. This also helped me get to know the students and helped them quickly learn a few facts about each other. (I posted the game below). 

Finally, the very first club day, we spent the last few minutes creating a list on the board of possible short film topics. I was blown away by the list of ideas my students came up with. 

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When I asked my students this year if they would prefer that I provided an in-depth tutorial each time, where every group would be working on the same thing or if they would rather I just let them make movies, with very little structure. The feedback I received told me they really wanted to just go for it without the in-depth tutorials or if I did show them something, it could be optional.

Last year, during one of our sessions, we watched the animation chef tutorial on how to make a 'furious' character. The were amazing, but we were really RUSHED to get the characters made and the video made in our short 45 minute session. Some groups did not get done and other groups were not interested so they only worked a few minutes and their videos were not great. It was very stressful to prep the materials for them in advance so I was happy when they said they did not want the clubs to be so structured. 

For another session last year, we learned how to make animated ghosts using the DOINK app. Patricia Fuglestad has a great tutorial and I typed up the instructions for my students. The results were great, but the level of engagement wasn't as high because I only have enough iPads for about half of my students and each kid needed quite a bit of screen time alone with the ipad to edit their film, the other kid was just sitting back watching, being bored or getting in to trouble. 

After hosting about 15ish club day sessions, I have finally found a rythm that works pretty well. I have also been asking kids what they like about other clubs and one thing they have said is that they love it when the teacher gives out candy or snacks.

​So for our final session in December, I brought each kid a candy cane. They had to work with their group to animate the candy canes, using either the Lego Movie Maker app (currently unavailable in the app store), Stop Motion app or StickBot app. Then, they had to pop their stop motion film into iMovie to add music, export it to the camera roll and share it with me on Google Drive.....all in about 45 minutes. We did our best and most of the videos made it into my compilation movie. The animations aren't perfect, but they are pretty good and the kids were engaged and happy to eat their candy canes after filming. We watched this example to get warmed up. 

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I have a bunch of random stuff kids can use for movie making.

• Cardboard painted chroma green
• pair of green gloves
• green straws (Starbucks!)
• Small reposition-able action figures
• Stationary plastic toys from (goodwill)
• Butter and cool whip bowls with a groove cut out to use as tripods for the iPad minis
• Wooden nutcrackers from dollar tree (at Christmas)
• Wooden manikins--reposition-able and nice for movies
• Paper, markers and scissors
• Cardboard trifold boards-- I encourage them to set up their movie against wall so that the background does not have a bunch of distracting stuff messing up their movie a cardboard tri-fold is helpful as I don't have a ton of wall space
• Chroma green tape
• Slate boards (old green chalk boards) with modeling clay smooshed to the surface so that figures will stay put
• Chroma Green curtain 

Most of the time at club day, I give my students free range to make whatever type of movie they want. We did talk a little bit about story boarding. The first day of filming, the groups had to discuss their main characters, whether they wanted to use clay, paper or existing toys and whether or not they wanted their films to be green screen or not. I don't require them to create a storyboard each time, but usually the first day of movie making, so they can have a discussion before they start setting everything up. 

Here is the storyboarding template I have them use for movie planning. 
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​Here are a few videos my students have made on my youtube channel. 
Here are some animation videos I show if we have a few extra minutes after making our movies, before it is time for dismissal. 

My club is very popular and I wish I could have more than 25 students in my club but I am limited by the amount of space and I only have 12 iPads so we are maxed out. Follow me on youtube to see a few examples of our films each month!

Last week, a friend posted a link to an article about how technology and kids brains don't mix. I wholeheartedly agree that I spend too much time tethered to my screens. Between my iPhone, iPad, computer and television, it is easy to zone out in tech, instead of being productive. 

This year, I am implementing more Teaching for Artistic Behavior strategies in my art room with regularly scheduled free-choice art center days in our regular rotation between bigger portfolio/whole group projects. 

Since I am rather new to the free choice way of thinking, I did not have very many supply-heavy centers ready when school started. Since I only offer the centers once every-other week, I also cannot change my room too much to accommodate an entire sculpture corner so I have to be creative with what centers I have open and when. Implementing a variety of centers that address the huge variety of learning styles and trying to provide stuff for kids to do that are not 'babyish' and that are still cool to my middle school students was challenging and a little daunting at the beginning of the year. 

​Generally, drawing and 'research' are always open, allowing students to thumb through packets of images, info, and drawing guides. Collage is always open. I also have a 'architecture' center which consists of legos, blocks and marbles (my students love to set up 'marble runs'), and a couple of other rotating manipulative kits that I have. 

Sometimes iPads are an option for centers, and I explained in the beginning that students should use them for setting up green screen movies, stop motion movies, designing video games, and also creating movie trailers and a few suggested apps. My iPads had Google Earth and a couple of other apps that students would just seemingly waste time on, so I ended up taking some of the apps off, in order to encourage them to create something! 

I've been pleasantly surprised that many students would rather create something with wire or popsicle sticks than numbly play an iPad app. The difficult thing about supply-heavy activities in TAB, is that I don't have storage space for large sculptures and many of those things run dry if I don't monitor how much is used on a student-by-student basis. Which is a killer for creative ideas. SO many times, students want to make something with TONS of supplies and I have to limit them in some way because I just don't have enough for everyone to do that. 

The nice thing about having technology in the rotation, is that it uses almost no supplies. The video game design app has a paper template that I keep copies of for students to use, and I have a tub of supplies for green screen movies (green gloves, some cardboard painted green, green straw from starbucks for puppet show movies, and lots of toys for students to practice using in front of the cameras.)

Each class period when centers are open, I spend a little time introducing a new special center, like chalk or stippling with ink, or styrofoam or dice games or artist trading cards. Sometimes the special center reinforces something we are doing in class or relates to seasonal subject matter like fall or halloween. Some students work on WOW pieces like weavings, which take several class periods to finish. Others always go for the special centers. Some want iPads every single time. Others work in teams to set up a marble run or build a tower or use modeling clay with the modeling clay tools. This year, following our weaving unit, I opened weaving and sewing---allowing students the opportunity to use fibers in new ways---awesome and successful centers!

If students finish a project early, iPads are usually never an option for free time activities---the only time they have free choice on the iPads are on Free choice day. On regular art days, if students finish early, I have an activity cart with books, origami paper, collage materials, drawing paper and usually some type of coloring sheet. Occasionally, I will allow a responsible and trustworthy student to look up something to reference online, but I try to limit that, because they typically spend WAY too much time searching. Often, I will find a picture and we will both agree on it, and I will let them look at it---like if they want to see an eagle landing or something specific like that. 

We have used iPads to enhance 2 projects this year. Once, we used them to take a 'selfie' and upload it to google drive so I could print it for each student. The second time we used the iPads, students worked in pairs to enhance their understanding of 1 and 2 point perspective and design a structure using perspective. I gave them links and vides and photos to help explain perspective, after we had practiced as a class in our sketchbooks---some kids just weren't getting it, so I was a little desperate to find different ways to show them how it worked. I also let them look at some visuals of structures, like mansions, tree houses, castles, and other places as inspiration for their structures. I had a bunch of examples on a smore flyer. (More about that lesson later).  It was nice to have TONS of visuals at their fingertips, as I do not have a bunch of prints of those types of images.

The week of Halloween, we had a weird shortened schedule for two of our sessions, so I checked out the chrome book cart from the computer lab and had students take a Kahoot quiz. The quiz is super interactive and it is a great formative assessment tool. Since we were only together for 20-30 minutes, it was nice to play a review game instead of trying to get out supplies and then spend a bunch of time cleaning up. We were productive and it was super fun and engaging. 

Below is a collection of images I have taken throughout the semester. Most of the photos are of 'WOW' pieces, in which students are very proud to show off their work, and they spend multiple art sessions on the project. Other photos are in progress of the centers in action. 

 I decided to survey my students to get their opinions about the technology aspect in our class after reading the article I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Since we have used the technology a little bit this semester, they have experienced it in our class and have been exposed to it as I described above.  Also, I should mention that the biggest majority of my 5th-6th grade students do NOT have a laptop assigned to them, they get about ONE hour of computer lab a week, and they use a classroom computer to take AR tests.

 When students arrive to my class, I always have them fill out a slip---sometimes they draw, sometimes we review, other times I ask them questions. Here is an info graphic with the question on my poll. I took their slipps, counted all the yeses/nos and compiled some of my favorite responses to the 'Why and Why Not.' The results are below. Please take the time to read some of the responses. I was very surprised by what they said. 

In my classroom, QR codes are king.

I love posting the link via QR code, and allowing my students to use iPads to access SOME information on the internet. It is awesome to create a Youtube vide and allow my students to access the digital information.

I just submitted a request to have my smartboard+projector removed. GASP!! It's true. My 'ol smartboard has become a redundancy in my classroom, when my television will sync wirelessly with my computer (reflector app on a mac) or my iPad. I'm not saying I'll never need the projector, I just really don't need the Smartboard anymore. I read an article....(can't remember where I saved it)....that reminded teachers not to use new technology exactly like they used old technology. Replacing the overhead projector with an iPad on a stand isn't really doing anything new with the technology...and I agree with that to some extent....its just hard to imagine delivering some content differently, but I'm working on it. Also, having a television with good speakers is just a million times better than those crappy computer speakers.

I just can't say enough good things about using a Smore flyer to deliver content. I love blogging, so these flyers look enough like a blog to satisfy the layout that I like and still structure the information in an interesting way that is easy for students to understand. Something new that I am trying this year, is providing a QR code that links to a Smore flyer, that provides information that students missed I'm still experimenting with how to use this if students are absent for a portion of the project, that allows them to view the information that was presented in class and instructions on how to catch up. I just introduced this concept to the students this week, I'll get back to you on how successful it is. (And how realistic it is to maintain this plan....perhaps I could have students who finish early take the photos and draft a description for the students who are absent.....still thinking about this whole process...)

I know I've blogged about this before, but I love this stand. Last week, I used it as a tripod to record myself doing a painting demonstration, and I edited the video using iMovie. I felt very techny, and my students thought it was pretty cool...

Often I use it to hold my iPad while I thumb through a presentation or show a video, but its nice that my iPad has a home....instead of being buried under a pile of papers and a stack of art supplies.

Powerpoint is a great presentation software, but sometimes I just want something new and different. Haiku Deck is great, I can create the presentation on my iPad or my computer, and they have a plethora of images to use as the background on every slide, relating to the words on the slide. I've used it several times this year and I really like the clean format of the slides.

Have you heard of emaze? Its a presentation platform online that I tried recently and I am anxious to use for presentations, especially the 'art museum' one. Pretty cool!

Okay so those are the top five that I use regularly. I feel like I haven't shared anything completely NEW or DIFFERENT, but these are the ones I use all the time, that I am most comfortable with and that I feel like I have a good grasp on the success of each one.

This post is part of the blog challenge for teachers on the Teach Thought Blog.

My theme this year is collaboration. I've made it my mission to sharpen my skills of facilitating collaborative projects in my classroom. Generally in art, students are lone wolves. Every choice they make is based purely on whatever they envision. By having them work in teams or pairs or whole-class, they are forced to compromise, problem-solve and they create something really special that couldn't have been done without input from someone else. It has been difficult for me...and my students...to get used to this way of creating. And they cheer when I tell them they get to work alone on a project...but as the year goes on, I have seen a remarkable difference in how they communicate and work together. This is the first project where I have almost totally relied on technology as the media...and I learned a lot about how to facilitate this sort of artwork in my classroom. I hope that this lesson will help you, should you attempt such a project in your classroom. Please leave comments+links if you decide to attempt a version of this!!

Let me also explain that this lesson was entirely inspired by a tutorial by Tricia Fuglestad. (In case you didn't know, Tricia was the 2012 Illinois art teacher of the year, I saw her in NY at the NAEA conference, and I was shocked and inspired by everything she is doing to pave a new technology infused-art-education program for art teachers) I figured if she could teach her kids how to make an alien run, then surely I could teach mine how to make an owl fly....(Vimeo: Tricia’s Do Ink tutorial  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/197102921165378574/ )

I watched her video like a dozen times to figure out how she explained each step of drawing the alien...and I realized that it really helped my students when I drew the owl 4 times in front of them, changing the wings with each drawing using the DO Ink app. They 'got' it a lot faster when I did it this way. My goal wasn't really to demonstrate the perfection of an owl in flight, it was to showcase a very basic animation and to give them chance to try something simple to gain some experience and confidence in the process. Next year (or during summer school), I can do a lot more with this--and it would probably be a whole lot easier with older students: 5th and 6th grade...and if I had BETTER stylus, that would've helped too...the stylus that I have kept falling apart or they just quit working all together.

Also, this project was really challenging because I only have 12 iPad minis...and my 3rd and 4th graders are USED to having their OWN iPad 24/7 in the regular classroom, it was difficult for them to work in teams. They were fighting, and complaining and at one point I got really, really frustrated with my 3rd graders...but the very next day, I did the same lesson with 4th grade and it went off perfectly...so I don't know, it might've just been that particular class/day/time and not this lesson at all to blame. Ha!


WEEK 1
Objectives/GLEs: STRAND I: Product/Performance (1.) Select and apply two-dimensional media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas and solve challenging visual art problems. (not assessed in 3rd Grade) (3.) Communicate ideas about subject matter and themes in artworks created for various purposes. Figure: Create an original artwork of a figure in an action pose  

Procedure:

When students first arrive, have them re-group with a new partner. Record which group has which iPad so that students can get their same iPad back next week.  (I’m also changing the seating chart).

Explain that during ‘free’ time, students have a variety of activities they can do. If it works better for their team to work on the iPad and communicate at the same time, then that is fine…but if one team member (or both) works better alone, they can take turns and the one who is ‘off’ the iPad can use the stations to engage in an art activity while they are waiting for their turn to animate.

Students will also be coming over to a special station to create an alcohol ink tile. They will not be taking it home today because I have to spray it with a sealer…so they need to write their name on the bottom of the tile in sharpie. (Remember: swap with alcohol, drip ink on surface. Use 3 colors).

Today we will be using a STYLUS. Please be careful not to tear the tip of the stylus up….be gentle with it.

Lesson:

1.     Watch the Brainpop video about animation.  http://www.brainpop.com/technology/scienceandindustry/traditionalanimation/ You must have an account to access the video, but it is an awesome way to introduce this project!

2.     Demonstrate how to use the DoInk app on the iPads.

• a.     Using a stylus, open the Do Ink app.
• b.     Click on the Home button. (show them one that I’ve already made so they can get the overall picture of what they are doing).
• c.      Click on drawings. Hit the + paintbrush button.
• d.     Use the drawing tool to draw an owl flying. (Use black brush size 7 is just about the right size)
• e.     Use the handout provided to put the wings, eyes, and beak in various positions on all 4 ‘onion’ skins.  (explain what onion skinning is) Do not ‘fill’ the background. If the color ‘spills’ students did not connect lines to form a solid shape.
• f.      On my iPad, demonstrate how to add the 4th owl in the sequence. Demonstrate how to fill colors, erase, and resize the screen.*I Should have drawn all 4 instead of just the one.....it would've helped those first few classes to 'get' it.
  

Week 2

Objectives/GOAL: Both students need to finish animating the flying owl by completing 4 fully colored single frames. Each frame should show a different pose of the owl.

Then the ‘teams’ will create a composition. This will allow their owls have a path to walk across the screen. Students will collaborate to design the background and finish the flying owl composition.

Lesson:

1.  Watch the Brainpop video about animation.

• a.     http://www.brainpop.com/technology/computersandinternet/digitalanimation/
• b.     You must have an account to access the video, but it is an awesome one to introduce this segment of the lesson.

2.     Demonstrate how to create a new composition. Students who are sharing an iPad can merge their two owls (and resize them) on the composition (use the +gear button, add drawings over top). They will need to save the finished compositions to the camera roll with their names and class code as the title.

• Demonstrate how to create a new drawing using the +paintbrush button, draw a very simple landscape and color it.
• Demonstrate how to create a new COMPOSITION.
•  Click the +gear button.
•   Add the freshly designed background 'landscape'.
•  Show how to resize
• Show how to add the 2 animated owl drawings.
• Demonstrate how to move the owl over to the left, and start a new path across the screen.
• Demonstrate how to make the entire thing about 6-7 seconds long, this will slow down the path considerably.
  
• Demonstrate how to RENAME, and SAVE the composition to the camera roll

Procedure:
  When students finish their composition on the iPad, they should use the Inigma app to scan the QR code that is posted in the room. This code will take them to a Smore flyer online that will lead them through a variety of animation activities. https://www.smore.com/egjp-animation All of the materials needed to create each of the animation activities are on a table in the art room. (I only did this with my 4th graders who were familiar with the inigma+smore apps.


REMINDER: Explain that during ‘free’ time, students have a variety of activities they can do. If it works better for their team to work on the iPad and communicate at the same time, then that is fine…but if one team member (or both) works better alone, they can take turns and the one who is ‘off’ the iPad can use the stations to engage in an art activity while they are waiting for their turn to animate.  Everyone should be working on SOMETHING at all times.

WEEK 3
1. Students needed an additional week to work on animations. Since this happened around Thanksgiving break, we returned from Thanksgiving to start a new project, and reserved this for 'free time'. Several groups just needed a little more time to finish, while others needed a lot more time. And other groups, were completely finished. I did show the iMovie app, and challenge a few ambitions groups to make a 'Movie Trailer' for their owls, which would tell a story...and require more animations to fill up the video segments in the pre-designed trailers. No one has finished a trailer yet...

The first week, I wrote down which groups had which iPads. I took a picture of the seating chart on my iPad and mirrored it on my TV so that students could check the chart to remember which iPad+teammate they had.

**Note: Since I was doing this same project with 6 classes, we DID have trouble with some students 'forgetting' which owl was their original on the iPad. Since groups from every class were using the iPads, it was really hard to personalize the drawing so that no one else would claim it for their own. So like if one boy drew a blue owl, and the boy in the very next class really liked it, and 'couldn't remember which owl was his own' he might just pop that first boys owl into his composition and I would never know.....especially if they made some little change. In the future, I would have each grade do a different subject matter....or I would only do this project with one grade at a time.

Teacher Resources
Here are a couple of links to help navigate the Do Ink app. I watched these to help prepare myself for the lesson.

Download: Do Ink App https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/do-ink-animation-drawing/id364762290?mt=8

Do Ink: How to Animate and Draw http://blog.doink.com/post/45767533769/how-to-animate-and-draw-on-the-ipad-with-doink

Do Ink: Amazing 3rd Grade art http://blog.doink.com/post/21725802601/amazing-third-grade-project-on-doink-ipad-app

Vimeo: Tricia’s Do Ink tutorial (sorry it is linked through my Pinterest because I cannot access Vimeo anymore) http://www.pinterest.com/pin/197102921165378574/ my entire lesson is based on lessons done by Tricia Fuglestad.

 http://drydenart.weebly.com/ for more information on iPads in art education.

Working collaboratively is such an important skill for students. Recently, I had my 2nd-4th graders work with a partner on two large-scale projects back-to-back. Usually, the question is, 'who gets to take it home?'. I had them complete two projects together so that they can make that decision later on down the road, after I have had a chance to display the artwork for a few weeks. (Hopefully there won't be any major battles over who gets what!). 

Students worked together to design icons for ten apps. If found this iPod printable on teachers-pay-teachers, and modified it to say iPad at the top. 

They were to plan out each icon, and then draw it on a 4X4 white square. After outlining with a fine point sharpie, and coloring with markers, they laid the squares out onto a 24X36 black piece of paper, and used a glue stick to adhere. White colored pencils were used to add the iPad home button and other symbols. 

I used recitethis.com to compose a text to my students. I printed this sign in color, and hung it on the board, so that students could refer back to it throughout the lesson. 

They were excited to get a 'text' from me...even though it was just a list of the steps...normally, I write those on the board...but this was a cool way to get the information to them. 

I was amazed at the creativity that some students exhibited in this project. Their 'app' ideas blew me away! There were apps for all sorts of things: towing service, sewing, dentist, homework, and one boy even made an app that would activate his iPad from his phone an allow spider legs to pop out so it could crawl to him. WOW!

If I do this again, I will spend 3 weeks on this project, instead of 2....I allowed time at the end for students to stand up and share some of their best apps with the class and I wish I would've spent a little more time showing them really cool icons, and encouraging them to color the entire square....This would be a great project for older students....mine had some trouble with spelling, but its sort of charming so I don't have too many issues with a few misspelled words. 

Check out the slideshow below for more examples of the finished product!

I'm currently in the midst of a two-project stretch of collaboration. On the first day of art, I told my students to select someone they could work well with, and sit side-by-side. I explained that we would be doing some group projects this year and they needed to find someone who would be a good partner.

After the 'getting to know you' activity from the first week, and painted paper the 2nd week, we were finally finished learning the procedures, and ready to jump right into a brand new unit. 

This year, I really wanted to incorporate min 12 iPad minis right away. So I downloaded a couple of apps and created a gallery of images devoted to our very first project: Grumpy Cat. Students were introduced to this internet sensation via a youtube video of him looking absolutely grump-tastic. 

I explained that I wanted them to work together to design a painting based on his now-famous image. I provided them with an image of the step-by-step drawing (I loaded it into the camera roll on each ipad), and I created a folder on the iPad with a couple of grumpy cat games, and a link to a Flickr Gallery of images that they could view for inspiration. 

As a team, they should both share their ideas....but be willing to compromise....

Students could spend as much time on each activity as they wanted, just as long as they had a sketch by the end of the hour. The boys were especially attached to one of the games: A Grumpy Cat Escape From Mayan Temple. If that was too hard, the easier game was Smiles for Grumpy Cat. (Beware, the GrumpyBom Grumpy Cat photo booth is not appropriate for elementary students.)

My initial intent behind providing the games was to allow them to take turns using the iPad in between drawing and looking at images for inspiration, and also to help get them excited about the new unit. 
*Note: In retrospect, I remember thinking that the games were engaging on a surface level, but they didn't really challenge students to higher levels of thinking...it was frustrating that they weren't 'discovering' anything new...just pushing some buttons around to make a little cat jump and twist over obstacles...it didn't really give them any new art skills...and I was a little frustrated that I had chosen the games that I had. I really want to encourage my students to delve deeper into art concepts, and none of these apps really did that. 

I did like having the flickr gallery available and a screen shot of HOW TO DRAW GRUMPY CAT was on the camera roll for students to use if they wanted...and I didn't waste any copy paper providing these visuals for students. 

WEEK 1
Basic steps of the project:
1. Sketch idea for a new grumpy cat painting. Discuss with your partner. Talk about the design.
2. Transfer drawing to clear acetate using a sharpie. 
3. Enlarge drawing on 24X36 paper using an overhead projector. BIG PAPER!!
4. Color the small drawing on 
 paper, so that you will know what paint colors are needed. If you have a plan, both teammates will know where to put the colors. 

WEEK 2
When it was time to paint, I had students bring their small colorful drawing over to a paint center to 'order' their paint colors. I squirted the colors needed onto a paper plate (as if I was serving them a bit of food, little of this, little of that). I had everyone put on paint shirts, get a paper towel, and their own brushes of various sizes. I also put a water container on each table so that they could rinse their brushes between colors.

Steps for painting: 
1. Paint the background first (even if you are just doing stripes or a pattern).
2. Paint the fur.
3. Save the small details and outlining for next week!

Week 3
1. Finish small details, touch up any drips or mistakes. 
2. Step back from your work to see what you need to fix/finish/improve.
3. Outline things with a small tiny brush or a sharpie. (Eyelashes, teeth, add texture)

We spent the last two art sessions painting. I encouraged them to save small details for the 2nd week of painting. I knew that some teams would finish painting pretty quickly during the 2nd week, so I showed them a couple of new apps. These are apps that I wanted them to try out, so that we can incorporate them into projects later. I even used one of them to explain the final steps of the project. 

You can see my animated 'grumpy cat' on VIMEO HERE. 

The funny movie maker app. 

I encouraged students to take a photo of someone or something in the room and record a short clip of it using their own mouth to make it talk.

I also introduced them to the ColAR App for the first time. They were really impressed!

At the very end of art, students had an opportunity to plan out their own apps for a custom iPad, the 2nd collaborative project of the unit.

Collaborative art is no cake walk. There were plenty of tears and frustrated students who wanted everything THEIR way! But there were also plenty of students who created to most lovely, beautiful, original art that would never have been created if they hadn't worked together in the design. It was very fun to work at such a large scale. The finished products are very stunning. 

Have you ever had elementary students work collaboratively? Any tips on how to help them work together?

My district did something a little different with the technology budget this year and I was fortunate enough to order my 'dream list' of items I would want to implement if I could have anything I wanted. 

One of the things I was most excited about is the Justand Document camera stand. 

Using the Justand iPad Stand I can use the full sized iPad as a document camera!!! 

It allows me the freedom to do anything I would've done with my document camera, wirelessly, and from anywhere in the room (using an appletv, I can sync my ipad to the 55' flatscreen in my classroom). 

○ Display a novel or textbook so students can read along 
○ Demonstrate experiments so that all can see 
○ Film myself reading a book (and add sound effects in iMovie)
○ Demonstrate painting and drawing technique 
○ Model weaving, or clay demonstrations
○ Complete graphic organizers as a group
 ○ Go over assignments and tests
 ○ Show 3D objects ○ Show the construction of graphs
○ Model use of tools: color mixing, 
○ Demonstrate the use of editing marks 
○ Film Common Craft style videos


The Justand website has many more ideas here: iPadDocumentCamera
I am currently using the Stage App as my camera. This app was free and it does SO much:

Sketch, take notes, and add labels over live video
• Record video and audio (feature available as an in-app purchase)
• Dynamically present student work wirelessly using Airplay, or via a wired projector connection
• Store and share labels for later use—great for quizzes or whole-class review
• Annotate, mark-up and save existing photos, images and documents
• Easily switch backgrounds from video to picture to whiteboard/blackboard canvas
• Select from multiple pen colors and widths
• Simple and accessible interface, especially for novice iPad users

What apps do you use in the classroom? Do you have a document camera?