Connected Educator Month....What Have I Learned and How Did I Connect

This month our school district has focused on helping educators connect to the greater community through the Connected Educator website and events.  Being made aware of the many options available has been useful.  I already was a very connected educator. This month of focus encouraged me to push myself in new directions or to go deeper with the tools I already have a high comfort level using. This model of deeper, richer connection is based on my district's goals.  Instead of adding more to our plates we're learning to go deeper with the curriculum and tools we already have in place.  There are two connections I made this month that have greatly enhanced my teaching and in turn my professional educational practice. 

This year for the first time I am teaching with iPads.  I will have a class that is completely devoted to digital art through the pads and the various apps available.  I am managing the iPads for my classroom and learning to sync and manage has been one of my professional challenges.  This first semester I've been using the iPads more for my own development and learning. Through this piloting phase of iPad usage I discovered an app called ThreeRing, which seemed to be the art educator's answer to the portfolio-slo-documentation prayer!  I had played around with this app, but never really used it for full classroom implementation.  Through a deeper use of my personal learning network on Twitter I connected to Dakota Cooper and ThreeRing  and gradually learned the ins and outs of this app and how it could be utilized by my students to create authentic captures of their learning.  The video here further explains the capabilities of ThreeRing.  I think it is phenomenal.

I've found that if I use the iPad as the camera and use Apples built-in photo editing interface I can get a bit better image than the capture.  Maybe future versions of the app will have better editing available of the captures.   The cool thing is that you can capture images, video or record comments or add a note.  You can also write comments.  I've been capturing the rubrics I use and adding them to the portfolios.  The main work is to add your class list at the start.  Eventually you can share the information with parents and students if you want to.  I am currently only capturing the information for my own SLO, which has to do with student growth in Drawing 1 class and their ability to create complex compositions with drawn media.  My knowledge of this app and my comfort level with it have grown tremendously thanks to these new contacts on Twitter.  I've had some good dialogues with them and have had many of my new-user questions answered.  I'm ready for the next step!

Second semester I will have students doing their own captures with assignments and they will be in charge of their own portfolio.  This aligns with my student-centered philosophy of teaching.  Learning to develop a high quality portfolio is a valuable professional skill for art students and is also used by many professions beyond art.  The connections made with these new contacts helped me gain confidence with these skills. 

The second major contact I made was with James Connolly at the School of The Art Institute in Chicago.  I found James through my research on Pinterest, Twitter and Vimeo looking at Glitch Art, a type of art that uses coded mistakes to display altered images in video and photography and other multimedia pieces.  James' site blew my mind and made me want to attempt to learn how to do this myself and also how to teach my experimental video students and possibly my advanced digital photography students how to do this.  I emailed James and was surprised that not only did he respond, but he sent me a lengthy email with lots of links and help for how to try this with my students.  He also suggested that he may be able to Skype with my class once we get more involved in the project.  We will be learning to do glitch in December because of this connection.  I'm so excited to try something so experimental and modern.  I hope my students are as thrilled as I am. 

This month long focus on connections have pushed me to try things that were on the periphery of my teaching and bring them to the forefront.  Learning happens because we take risks.  I've taken risks this month by connecting to people I don't know.  This will make for a more enlivened classroom and will help me grow in my own practice as a connected educator.  For more on my classroom and the lessons my students explore click here for my school visual art website. 

Artsy and Brainpickings

Being an artist, I think I troll the the web somewhat differently than others.  I am especially looking for things that are visually intriguing, but also mentally stimulating.  I have found two new favorites to further my addiction to being online.  Artsy is one and Brainpickings is the other.

First Brainpickings:  I found this site by accident, and it was a happy accident indeed.  There are articles and essays about literature, art and more.  I'm not sure how to describe what you all might find on the site.  I was especially impressed when I saw things like manifestos (somethings we'd been asked to write and design in art school) posted there.  I've found that my Pinterest board of inspiring quotes often gets lots of new pins from this site.  Mostly I love that I get an update on Sundays when I'm playfully imagining and creating and daydreaming really.   You will find essays and art and more by people like Susan Sontag, Maira Kalman, Edward Gorey or how about Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching?

So rather than me, try to tell you what Brainpickings is I'll just quote the website.  Of course you can check it out yourself.
 
Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who also writes for Wired UK and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors.
 
Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why, bringing you things you didn’t know you were interested in — until you are.

The other site I mentioned as a favorite is  Artsy.  First part of what I love is the clean design of the site itself.  I am a big fan of design and I really appreciate when something such as a website is well planned.  (worked briefly as a web designer so I really like this)  Artsy  is organized to be as detailed or as clean as you want.  It is a repository of artwork that you can browse through for the purpose of purchasing or for research.  You can browse and search in a variety of different ways.  Browse by Medium/Technique, Subject Matter, Region and Contemporary Art.  You can also Filter your art further with the Filter menu.  Another choice is to save art into a favorites folder.  I find this especially useful as an Art Educator.  I can customize favorites for the classes I teach.  The Learn More link helps explain the goals and aims of Artsy and how you customize your experience with the site.

There is, of course, also a Search function that works quickly to find what you've asked for.  When I typed in Renaissance I found a great collection of some of the top art hits of the Renaissance complete with information about the artist and where in the world the work can be found.  It also gave me the option to further narrow my search by looking at the early Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance, the Northern Renaissance etc. 

I have found Artsy to be a really great repository of more modern, current art, which in education we sometimes ignore.  Both Artsy and Brainpickings inspire me to think and reflect and that is something I greatly value in my web browsing and daily life. 

Pinterest: Create Digital Inspiration Boards

As a visual learner, I can still remember when the Internet and the web first were developing. One of the biggest disappointments and early realizations of those who design was that the web was this wonderfully powerful tool that in its beginning was all text and no images. Slow dial up Internet really limited the quality and amount of images that were able to be displayed on a page...seems like ancient history, but the web used to be mostly words and hyperlinked text. Fast forward to the 21st century and here we are in a bombardment of visual imagery all streaming to us at speeds unimaginable and we can hold this information in the palm of our hands if we want too, AMAZING. It is to this end that I eagerly subscribed to Pinterest, the ultimate tool for the visual learner.
Pinterest enables its users to pin images and video to an online board, kind of like your bulletin board. The boards are set up by the user in any number of categories. There are preset categories you can choose or you can make your own. You can invite friends to join Pinterest and you can also make follow people the way you follow on Twitter. You can also make your boards into group boards by inviting others to join the board. This collaborative aspect of Pinterest is the most appealing to me as an art educator. Pooling your thoughts and the images you find and sharing them with each other could be a very powerful teaching tool. You can add a written description of your pin complete with links and any other information you wish to share. This adds to the level of value. The pins and boards can be simply visual or they can go farther with words and links.
I have played with Pinterest mostly as my own toy...collecting inspiring knitting designs and joining one group board about iPad and iPod apps. I have sung the praises of my personal learning network in the past on this blog and Pinterest is just one more way I can connect with the PLN. I am following a lot of the same talented art educators whom I already follow on Twitter and on Art Ed 2.0 ning network. I don't own an iPhone or iPod yet, but hope to get one for Christmas. I have learned so much about the many art related apps from this pin group. What I like about this shared board is that the teachers pinning do a nice job of describing their pins so you get more than just a picture.
There are many ways to capture your web content and save it. First there was the idea of Bookmarking sites, which resided on a single computer, then came Diigo and Delicious, which enable the user to bookmark and see their library of Bookmarks anywhere. Then came livebinders, which has you collecting web content into digital binders and adding images and words to the binders if you choose. Each of these are powerful, but the websites often change their content and the exact image that had drawn you in may not be there the next time you visit the site. Pinterest allows you to pin that actual image to your board and keep it as inspiration. As a visual person it is often the image, the colors, the light and shadow that have pulled me to the page, not so much the written content. Pinterest celebrates this type of person and how we think...visually.
As an educator I'd love to have my students start using Pinterest, but several things stand in the way. The first is the inability to make your pins and boards private. I would like to be able to set up a class group for my students where we could collaborate individually as a class and only the student members of the class would be able to see the content pinned and discussed there. Diigo has done a fabulous job of offering an Educator version of their site and I wish and hope that Pinterest will do the same some day. Currently the other big thing holding my students back from using this is that they are not allowed to download and install anything to their laptops. This means that they can't install the easy to use Pin It button. This button is what allows you to pin anything you find on any site. Without it, the whole interface doesn't work. I am hoping the IT department will consider installing it for us...we'll see.
Have fun with Pinterest...but beware. One other thing I noticed is that it is pretty easy for images to be copied and passed around with Pinterest...that's the point of it, but it seems pretty easy for people to get images that maybe weren't supposed to be able to be copied. There is a lengthy page about copyright on Pinterest and they've certainly done their best to discuss this in their Pin etiquette, but I noticed that I had an image on my own flickr account that I pinned to a board. Because I can't make my board private, 3 other people re-pinned the image. On my flickr the image is copyright protected and can't be downloaded by others. By my pinning it others can now get it and do what they want with it. Being able to have private boards and pins would resolve this issue. I like that on Diigo and Delicious and Livebinders I can choose to collaborate and share or not....I wish this was an option on Pinterest.
Aside from the privacy thing I think Pinterest is a great tool for the visually inclined person. I collect scraps of fabric, torn out magazine images, my own photos and more into sketchbooks and journals. Pinterest allows you as the artist to continue that practice while you're online. That visual brainstorming is my favorite part of Pinterest and being an artist.

Video-Singin' The Praises of My PLN

I've decided to post the final project video I created for my grad class on Developing Your Personal Learning Network.  I had fun creating this video because it really highlights the new approach to teaching I've adopted since  integrating technology into the courses I teach.  Art has moved from studio to mac lab and back to studio with organic use of both traditional and 21st century tools to make art.  Students have learned valuable job skills and developed connections to many people beyond the school building.  My PLN ROCKS!!! and this video celebrates the reasons why they are so fabulous.  ENJOY!

Thanks to so many in my PLN, but especially Matt Cauthron, Ian Sands, Theresa McGee, Craig Roland, David Gran, Kendra Farrell, Tricia Fugelstad to name a few.  They have all inspired me to go beyond the 4 walls and create a truly connected classroom.  Thanks!


Connected Teaching: Developing Your PLN from Jeanne Bjork on Vimeo.
I created this video as a part of a grad class on developing your personal learning network. All of the artwork in the video belongs to the students I teach at Pewaukee High School.

LIveBinders vs Diigo Bookmarks

Lately thanks to my PLN, I have been experimenting with some new web 2.0 tools. (new to me that is!)  I put a question out  on the arted20 ning asking how to teach art history in the 21st century making it a non-lecture-based-watch-the-slides-go-by, interactive class.  There were many innovative responses as I mentioned in my previous post.  Theresa McGee, an art educator from Illinois and one of the keepers of the Teaching Palette website and blog,  shared her LiveBinder sites with me and a whole new way to save and organize web-based media was introduced. 

Like Diigo, LiveBinders allows you to bookmark and save sites that you find on the web.  Unlike Diigo,  LiveBinders gives you an actual visual copy of the website and it's content as if you've copied a paper page and put it into your 3-ring binder.  This is pretty awesome for a visual learner.  LiveBinders also allows you to upload documents, images, videos and more.  So your binder can become this wonderful, online, multimedia resource that can be shared with anyone...students, colleagues or your PLN.  The binder pages can be organized in tabs or sub-tabs just like a real binder.  All of the pages saved come in with the links and embedded content intact so you can view and click through from your binder. 

This video explains in 90 seconds how simple it is to use LiveBinders.

I still love Diigo, as a bookmarking and research tool.  I also think Diigo is fantastic for collaboration within groups, but being able to organize everything I'd want in a list or group into a binder that is available online is fantastic!

This is one more example of my PLN coming to my rescue and teaching me how to do something new on the web.  I think most of what I've learned and experimented with over the past couple of years has been because someone in my ning community or twitter feed has mentioned it and I've checked it out and been happy with the results.

I will be teaching Art History next year and I've already begun to organize my Art History binder online using LiveBinder It the simple tool button you install on your toolbar.  Thanks to the many resources shared with me by my PLN I've got a rich collection of resources to use with my students next year.  I think I will have students keep their own LiveBinders as a way to organize notes and other materials for the class.  It will be a great way to personalize their own experience of art history. Eventually I'll make my binder a public one, but for now I've made it private while I continue to learn the tool and develop the collection. 

PLN IN ACTION: How It All Works

My PLN is pretty well-developed and so this week I decided to lean on them for help.  I learned that I will be teaching the Art History class next year in the art department.  My goal is to revamp the class and take it from a lecture-based, watch the slides go by kind of class to an interactive, student-centered course.  I want my students to build the content of the class with my guidance.

I asked my Tweeps and my ning colleagues what resources they would use to do this.  I also asked for their ideas on how they would make Art History into a more interactive, student-centered class.  I am still collecting information, but already I've received some great feedback.  I developed a diigo list for gathering all the links.  It is public so others can see it and I hope they might consider suggesting other links to add.  To see the diigo Art History link click here. 

Immediately I got a response from Melinda Larson-Horne, the talented French teacher at Pewaukee High School.  She suggested both http://smarthistory.org and google art project.  Smarthistory looks really promising with wonderful ways to search including by artist, time, style or theme.  It features a timeline that you can click on to see what was happening in art.  The timeline is image based so visitors can immediately see the works of art and then click to learn more.  You can also create your own content, browse the blog, download podcast to iTunes and watch videos embedded on the site.  There is also a link called Teach with Smarthistory, which has a number of other fantastic resources. They have a flickr photo group that I joined.  Members contribute their photos of famous works they've visited and seen.   Lastly I see that they also have a Youtube channel and a Vimeo link as well.  Fantastic resource that I will definitely use.  Thanks Melinda!

I already knew about google art project from  Theresa McGee, another PLN person whom I follow on Twitter and the Art Ed 2.0 ning community.  She also does a blog and shared her own use of google art project there at the Teaching Palette.  I had fun exploring the the virtual art museums and galleries at the Google Art Project.  I think it could be very powerful for students to view.  I especially loved how I was in the Uffizi and then suddenly headed outside and was actually on the street in front of the Uffizi where I'd really walked a few years ago on my trip to Italy.  VERY COOL....Bella!  You can create your own collections on the site and customize your visit.  This could be a really powerful tool for student-centered explorations. 

I was especially pleased with the suggestions of Ian Sands, an artist and art educator who I follow on http://arted20.ning.com .  Ian shared a link to his school website and ning network.  He already teaches art history this way, sending his students on webquests using mobil phones to find the information they need to develop the content for the course.  I like the use of cell phones and also the fact that Ian has a vimeo video of himself explaining the entire process.  I'm guessing his students watch this for the first time when things are introduced.  Teaching is so isolating so to actually feel I am a fly on the wall in another teachers' class room is really powerful.  Thanks Ian for your help.

Why have a PLN?  In less than 2 days I received answers and numerous resources that I may or may not have stumbled upon in my own research.  I found people who are already doing what I want to do and grew my teaching community and the community for my students.  Perhaps I will collaborate with Ian, maybe my students can quest for art history knowledge with his students, chatting online or even via their cell phones.  Love it!

Week 4: Social Bookmarking & Other PLN Connections

This week I actually taught a section of the class on Diigo, the powerful social bookmarking tool.  I have written in this blog in several past posts about the value and power of Diigo.  I think it is hard to beat the many features of Diigo.  The ability to immediately organize your bookmarks with tags, lists and groups and the ability to collaborate within class groups or other social groups makes it very powerful.  The now defunct Delicious allowed for some of this, but the interface was less intuitive and required a lot more knowledge to organize and sort through information.  I also found it more challenging in Delicious to join groups.  Delicious didn't have an Educator Console like Diigo.  This console makes Diigo fantastic for organizing your class groups and working together on research, sharing, highlighting and commenting back and forth within the class groups.  This just wasn't possible with Delicious.  The Educator console even allows you to print out student logins in easy to cut apart and pass out strips.  Very cool!  Another feature of Diigo is that you can follow people and read the bookmark lists they've found to be helpful.  This is another way to further build your PLN.  I don't really chat with the people I follow on Diigo, but I do like to look at the bookmarks they have amassed, especially on topics that I teach and have in common with them.  Most of the educators I follow are people I met through ning networks or on Twitter.


During the second part of class we further explored the concept of social networks that are specifically for educators.  Ning networks are some of the most common. You don't have to be an educator to join a ning, but they are very popular amongst teachers.   I joined the various networks that were introduced in class, but I must admit I haven't really networked much on these sites yet.  I feel I already have a pretty developed PLN and by adding too, much to the mix I may actually dilute the quality and frequency of my interactions.  I think the ning networks that I belong to are useful and effective because the members of the nings are very actively involved in the conversations.  They are checking the posts daily or at least weekly and get back to you if you have posted a question or comment.

I am already following the Art Ed2.0 network and also the NAEA secondary educators ning network.  Both of these are vital communities that have taught me so much.  The conversations range from nuts and bolts to highly intellectual and philosophical.  I have learned a great deal about other web 2.0 tools through these networks and have also enlarged my Twitter community because of them. Lastly when attending the National Art Education convention a few years back I didn't feel I was there alone, because I got to meet and mingle with many of the online PLN members I'd met through the ning. 

I have fully embraced social networking both on a personal level and as a professional.  I decided this week to draw a line between these networks.  I un-friended people on my Facebook network that aren't really my friends on a social level.  I decided that from now on Facebook will be for me on a more social level.  I will still post art eduction sites and links and comments because as a person I am an artist and I can't undo who I am.  I will use Twitter and the nings I belong to for more professional networking.  I like that there will be a distinction.  There are still some professional ways that I will use Facebook as my Art Club has a page and so do my AP Art students.  Facebook is the easiest and fastest way to get a message to students so it will still be there for that.