In 2015, I was feeling my way through the whole middle school process. Most kids enjoyed looking at optical illusions and I knew I wanted to create an optical illusion unit for the first time. I was also trying to figure out a good way to incorporate a LITTLE bit of technology into the project. 

So I created a SMORE flyer with tons of step-by-steps and guides on how to make optical illusions that I had collected around the internet, mostly via pinterest. The idea was that students could 'explore' and narrow it down to one that they were interested in making.

In theory, this made tons of sense. But in reality, most kids picked the one that looked 'easiest'. And then wanted to play on the iPads as soon as they were finished. I've phased out using technology as much in this way....because it just didn't yield the best results and I felt like I was trying to control them a little too much, which I was. Also, I only had a dozen ipads so kids still had to have OTHER visuals, books and some printed step-by-steps in order to have access to enough materials for each kids to use. 

Day 1-3
Introduce the idea of optical illusions. Look at examples. Scan QR code which takes you to the smore flyer 
Sketch idea on white drawing #80 paper in pencil. Use 9X12 or 12X12 depending on design. Color with markers, colored pencil or crayon. Use willow chalk to add light shading on marker. 

Supplies
 pencils
rulers/circle templates
erasers
9X12 and 12X12 paper #80
markers
colored pencils
willow vine charcoal

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!

Oh Dot Day. 

I love explaining to my students that we are celebrating a made up day. Just for the fun of it. 

For this made up day, I made up a contest. Students would design a dot, color with markers ON dot day, we would vote for a favorite design in each class. I hung up each of the dots and let them vote. 

No they could not vote for their down dot. Duh. And next time, I think instead of counting the votes, I will draw at random so that maybe the most popular kid won't win, but a dot that deserves it because of effort. I dunno, what do you think? 

I was actually trying to figure out how to incorporate a little technology into the year, and I wanted to do that by introducing a new app: Quiver. Quiver used to be a different company, so I was browsing to see what they have added now that they have expanded. Under the 'education' tab for teachers, the animal cell is AMAZING. Here is a link to the dot day page. I mirrored my iPad with my apple TV and demonstrated how to use the app, it is super easy. 

Basically students can color their dot, hover over the top of it and then boom, their dot comes alive. It is more than just a coloring sheet. It is a coloring sheet, a contest and augmented reality all rolled into one dot!! (Prizes were a little lame---a sketchbook, from my collection of extras I've hoarded in years past OR a 'golden pencil'. I seriously save all the tiny pencils that are too small for the sharpener and spray paint them gold. Easy cheap prize that kids feel happy to get). 

These boys realized they could take a picture of their face, and have it show up on the dot if they held the iPad just right. So clever and great collaboration!! 

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.

Have you used a green screen? Any tips or tricks?

This post is part of the Teach Thought reflective blogging challenge for teachers.

I've had a great run as a K-4 art teacher, but this year, I'm moving up to our 5th and 6th grade middle school position. I'm excited that all of my students will be able to read....I think it will be a game changer for expectations and learning, since I spent most of my days breaking down basic procedures, this will be a whole new way of experiencing teaching and education.

Part of the move means setting up the new space to make it conducive to learning. I've used the new classroom before, during summer school, and I'm sure I imagined what I would change to make the room better....so I finally had the opportunity to get in there this summer. Luckily, the timing was right and I was able to do several amazing things to improve the room.

In this post, I will show you the BEFORE photos of the room. These were taken during summer school. For the record, the class in the pictures was exceptionally small and did a good job of staying on task so I used them as my 'models'. Future classes in my new job will be MUCH bigger, up to 32 or 33 at times.

I had a lot of time to visualize the room before my furniture/books/supplies were moved on July 7th. I knew that some new tables were to be donated to replace the ones in the photos above, so I could reconfigure the layout a bit. I also knew I was bringing in my own, smaller teacher-desk and having some custom cabinets installed by the district.

So I used a really cool program called Floor Planner to map out the room. It was fun to create this 3-d map of the room before moving everything...it also helped me realize that I have more stuff (since I am moving 2 classrooms worth of stuff), than I needed for this room. It gives you a 2-d representation of the space, as well as a 3-d view to help with positioning and everything.

This classroom also has a storage closet, I'm really excited to have a place to put all the stuff that doesn't need to be visible, but needs to be available. The decor was pretty sparse...one optical illusion mural in the corner, a couple of posters, but not much else.

A lot of elementary teachers I have worked with, feel like every surface should be covered with something. Every visible wall space should be useable in some way, covered with posters, charts, classroom management materials, inspirational quotes. I'm working with a lot of white walls, what do you think? Is an elementary classroom with lots of stuff on the walls 'too busy' or is it necessary? Do you think too much stuff can be a distraction or do you think it helps with the creative process? Is it inspirational or a distraction?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!!
I'll post the AFTER pictures soon!!

Or you could stop by during open house Monday 5:30-7:00 and see for yourself. We will have a collaborative mural going, so you can even do a little painting while you are there.

Okay, so I KNOW that handmade cards are very, very special. I have a whole scrapbook of cards that have been made by friends and students. I cherish handmade things.

However, I really wanted to do one more big technology project this semester with my 2nd-4th grade students. I found this free app, Red Stamp and decided to use it for Mother's Day cards.

With the digital age, most parents don't have many printed photos of their children, no one prints cell phone selfies.

Another big TECH feature of this project, is that I used Reflector on iMac to make a screen cast of my iPad. I recorded myself using the app via Quicktime, uploaded the video into iMovie, and added a narration. Once I was happy with my narration, I added some music, put in a few titles and transitions and exported the movie to Youtube. I've been 'flipping' all week, using the video to demonstrate how to use the app, which allows me to work more one-on-one with the students and I have a QR code displayed for easy access if anyone forgets how to do the project, they can re-watch the video.

Here is the link to my video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80bI0Kr1_94

Now my students who are gone on a field trip can preview the movie before their art-make-up-session and come in for a QUICK little work session and the instructional input can be done before they get here. Perfect solution for trying to squeeze them in before Mother's Day so they don't miss out on this project.
 
To finish, I uploaded the cards to Dropbox, imported them onto my laptop and printed them in color. I also mounted them on construction paper and laminated them. The cards could also be emailed to parents, but I think these will be very special keepsakes for years to come!

(Sorry for the bad pic, I wanted to share the idea but keep my students anonymous. I'm posting a couple of ones I designed as examples too, but the student-made ones are much better!)

For an interactive version, click here or on the picture above. If you click on it, you can zoom in to read the information.

Recently, I shared a mind map of Web 2.0 tools.

Today, I want to share a mind map of Mobile Tools.

I really wanted to try out a new site: Mural.ly

I have had this app for a really long time...and my subscription to the other mind mapping site is about to end so I thought I would give it a try. This is a pretty cool site for mind mapping, I would definitely try it again.

While working on this Mind Map (made extremely more difficult while also learning a new tool), I found the most amazing Bloom's iPad Wheel. It does a much better job of explaining my idea...I thought it would be great to attach it here as a reference...it is really better than mine...I know... ;-)