When I started this class and read everything that we were going to do,I immediately thought “ yeah right.” I thought if you can take a sometime emailer and banking account checker and get them to create a Wiki page, make a podcast and a nonlinear PowerPoint then you are truly a magician. I will admit I was overwhelmed at times . I think that always in the back of my mind I was doubting myself and my abilities to cram more into my already busy brain. I realized that I  just had to create a “new folder” to store all of this information I was learning. I could pull out the technology whenever possible to infuse it in to my art, after school program and personal life “folders.” 

 I loved the ease of collaborating on a Wiki page. It is a great tool to have with everyone being so busy and living in different places. But when I wanted to use it in school , I found that it was blocked. That was very frustrating especially when we are supposed to be teaching our students 21st century skills by using technology such as this. I seems the fear of what the extreme student may do makes them block it.  The extreme student can do the same thing by using Photoshop and making a disturbing image or even Microsoft word to write up an alarming plot. How do they decide what technology they need to protect us from?  I also loved google docs and even told my son and fellow teachers about being able to  collaborate, revise and access their work from any computer… I will return with part two .

I don’t know if it is the warm weather or the fact that we just returned from spring break that is making my students act like it is the first day of school again. Granted we are learning something new, but after spending one whole class period just focusing on one element of the lesson ,they are acting like everyday is the first time they are hearing the information. I photocopied a detailed packet and had them watch a tutorial that I had found…that actually wasn’t blocked. Even with both of these available to them, they want me to personally sit with each one of them in order for them to make a move on their paper. Telling them that it is a practice drawing and that I don’t expect perfection is not even working…I am very frustrated and my patience is wearing very thin.

 Yesterday, they looked at me like I had sprouted horns when they couldn’t understand why I was upset at them. After giving them very detailed instructions, verbally, in the sub plans and on the board, a majority of them either did the activity wrong or not at all.  Everyday is a new day so today they were not sure what to expect. Once again I worked one on one with them and they kept track of how much time I spent with each of them…”Ms. L you spent more time at their table than you did at ours.”  I feel I repeated the same information the whole class.

I am taking a mental vacation tonight and all day tomorrow. I will enjoy the weather and relax. Sunday I will kick back into teacher mode and try to figure out what the deal is. I used technology with them, modeled the activity I wanted them to do and gave them a detailed packet with all of the information I  had told them and that they saw in the tutorial. 

Please don’t tell me that this is something that I can fix with a fabulous PowerPoint presentation, by  using a Smartboard, or by showing them another non blocked tutorial on the computer. We have access to all of this  technology in our school but what it comes down to is they  literally want me to sit next to them every step of the way and baby-step them through the activity. 

I have no problem with hurdle helping them through this to get them started but once I get them over the hurdle they are good until I move on to the next student. Their only concerned with how long I spend with the other student. 

If  I don’t know something, I will ask , figure it out  by trial and error or look it up. When is  it ok to just sit there and give up until someone basically does it for you. If I wanted to have them turn in drawings that I literally helped them complete, then why not do one an photocopy it.  Ok, my rant is over. I feel cleansed. My frustration is ebbing away in 5,4 3, 2, 1.

So this is how my Spring Break/Vacation went… I went grocery shopping because everyone was off this week. I nearly had a heart attack at the bill.My son had tennis camp Monday -Thursday at Hobart and William Smith College and had to be there by 9 am.( Who wants to sleep in anyway?!) I had grad classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and actually spent 9 hours on Tuesday at school working on projects. Thursday was semi relaxing as I was able to do a little shopping at the outlet mall and we were invited for dinner. Friday my son took and passed his road test and I had an appointment in the city. Today is more school work and tomorrow is my son’s last minute job shadow assignment after his other one fell through… Ughhh… I think I need a vacation from my vacation.

I don’t feel like accomplished anything. It went too fast. I know the students are not going to feel like doing anything for at least the first two days. I’m glad that we had excellent weather this week, but I’m not happy that  I will have to come up with an alternative project.  The outdoor  project idea I had will not work  because of the rainy weather predicted for next week…sigh. That is the life of a teacher though, always prepare for the unexpected and always have a back up plan. Let me soak up the last few minutes before its back to work…Hey, don’t we have another break for Memorial day…

I’m not sure if technology or my faulty memory can be blamed, but my whole world wide web existence was  on hold because of a missing power cord.  A friend who had been staying with me for seven months, while her house was being built, moved out and took her Dell flat screen computer with her. I have a Gateway ”huge screen”( I don’t know the real name but it looks like how the old heavy televisions used to) It is also very slow. I was told after its recent uninstall and reinstall that it also needs more memory.  I have heard that I can go to the store to purchase more memory for my computer.(Wouldn’t that be nice if they had a store for purchasing human memory?  I would buy some to store all of the information that I use  when I watch and “play” Jeopardy.) I am not complaining because my Gateway has been doing its job for the past four years. 

It felt really weird. I didn’t think I was that dependent on the computer.  I couldn’t check my bank account, emails, blog, news,Facebook…you get the point. I guess that is almost as bad as my feeling of doom and  panic when my phone is dying or dies on my way home  from school or when I can’t find my charger. I’ve never felt this need to stay connected before and it is  seriously bothering me. I will have to ponder this further.

On another note,my  brother showed me his I Phone . That phone/computer is ridiculous. He showed me a music video that had set as a “videotone” ( a video ringtone) it would show up for whoever who was calling that he had it set for. The picture and sound were amazing. He can also use the Internet and watch videos.  My son had him look up some of his favorite College Humor shows on You tube. He also had tons of old school video games downloaded to it and once again the sound /graphics were amazing. Would this phone solve all of my problems…will I never have to worry about a missing power cord again? Would I ever get anything done with all of this technology sand entertainment  at my fingertips? Those are the burning questions.

ps. I found another power cord at my parents house. After much nagging and whining my son pulled himself away from texting to set up  the computer late last night. I give him way to much technological power over my life…I am working on changing that.

 On a final side note, why doesn’t New York state have one spring break week set up? I’m on break next week and my nieces have it the following week. Luckily I teach in the same county because I would be very upset if my son had a different break than I did!

Happy Easter

The first thing I need to say about my research on digital technology and computer’s effect on art education is that I really struggled trying to narrow down exactly what I wanted to focus on. Did I want to deal only with the technological resources and devices that we can use with art education, or do I deal with the positive and negative effects they bring to art education? I ended up with a mix of both.

I talked briefly about the technology we have  and should utilize as art educators. I also talked about the art educator’s positive and negative thoughts about technology. Before doing this paper, I was definitley one of the teachers who believed that traditonal art is the only true art form. But now, I am all for technology because it’s continuously changing and still being used even if I’m embracing it or not.  I feel that some of the strongest art programs in schools incorporate technology into their art programs.I  also realized that we are doing our students a disservice if we as educators are not using  the technology that is available to us in our classrooms and schools.Just because we may not be comfortable with something does not mean that our students should fall behind the rest of the world and not create art using these new mediums.  We may also be keeping our students from being competitive when they interview at colleges and technology related jobs.I’m not saying that basic art skills such as drawing and painting are not important . I believe that having that foundation is very important especially when you can take those skills and use them with technology to bring them to the next level. 

Doing this research really helped me realize that students will experiment more and try things  that they may have  thought were impossible or were afraid to do on their original paper version. I also feel that technology and computer’s use in art classes have brought students to our classrooms that we might not have normally seen in a traditional studio art class. This has definitely increased our art class sizes and the experiences of both the teacher and student. This has made me want to learn and experiment more with technology even if I have to do it along with my students.  I think they like to see that we don’t always have to know everything and it will empower them to temporarily switch roles to show us something we may not have thought to try. All of  our students have grown up using computers, not all have grown up with pencils and a paint brush. Utilizing both will make for a stonger and well rounded art education program.

Last weekend ,I had my son on standby if I needed his help for working on the wiki page. He wasn’t going to be around for hours, because of the crazy musical schedule, so I had to decide… Do I wait until I have him sit next to me and walk me through it or should I try it on my own? I actually had some precious down time and felt adventurous so I went to youtube. I wanted to see if I could figure out how to embed a video on our wiki page. I figured this was the hardest thing to do, for me, so if I could do this I could do anything… I did it and although I couldn’t find the scene from Clueless that showed Cher and Dionne walking with the new girl describing the  schools cliques, I did find some videos that worked for our page. I am normally afraid to do anything as “crazy” as this but once I did it and the computer didn’t break down, I realized that if I put my mind to it, I can do it.  When my son returned home,I think I even saw a miniscule spark of pride in my son’s eye when I told him what his technologically challenged mom had accomplished.

The class discussion on internet safety really got me thinking about  a lot of things that students and even adults are not  thinking  about when they are using technology. I have seen some teenager’s pages on MySpace. Not only am I shocked by their pictures, but also their “theme song” that plays when you visit the page. I told a 15 year old  girl ,that was looking at her Myspace page at my house, that I did not see how her leaning against a locker, in a ” *butt shot”  pose  would lead to her meeting people who want to know what type of person she really is. 

*For those of you who are not familiar with this pose… this is where you rest your hand on a wall/locker ,look alluringly over your shoulder with your other hand on your hip and stick out your butt…I have also seen this pose in a  group setting! 

  If  I was a teenage boy, or the creepy 50 year old man posing as a teen,I would think that she likes to show off her butt and that she will do what her  explicit “theme song” says she would be willing to do. I also asked this girl if her mother had seen her page. She rolled her eyes said “yeah” which sounded more like “duh” and scrolled down the page to proudly show me  a picture of her mother doing  the same pose. All I could do was shake my head. What can I tell her when her mother thinks this is acceptable ?

  The  most disturbing  thought is that these images are out there for everyone  in the world to see, share and store if they want to, for future use ,especially if they are your frenemies. I would love to see Internet/technology safety become a  mandatory workshop that our students have to take…along with a parent because obviously, If you watch the news ,it is not only children who are getting into trouble with technology.

I am not saying that technology is the root of all evil. I will be the first person to admit that it definitely makes  my life a lot easier… I’m just saying that we are long past the time when we believed that what we share with one person will stay with that person.If we always think the whole world is watching, I think we would limit what we do and say.  I think the saying ” The world is your stage” aptly refers to the use and abuse of technology.

Overwhelming…is the best way for me to describe how Web 2.0 makes me feel. I was introduced to it last semester in another class.  We were required to have a total of  six web 2.0 experiences. So, for some of my experiences, I created an avatar in Secondlife, viewed and commented on a picture in Flickr, joined youtube and commented on the Mona Lisa made out of Post it notes video. While this may make me seem at least a little cool (except in my son’s eyes who couldn’t believe that I wanted to read everything in the terms of agreements) I hate to admit it , but I never went back. I was absolutely afraid that all of these sites would consume what little bit of time that I had outside of  my teaching, grad school, family, and friend obligations.

I also joined Facebook last semester. Besides accepting friend’s requests, I haven’t even put  a picture on it or set up a real profile. While the possibilities for reconnecting or just  keeping in touch with friends or making new ones are endless on all of these sites, all I can think about is how time consuming they could be. While I like reading all of  the updates on Facebook ,when I am on for about 10-15 minutes a few times a week,  I laugh as I think about adding one that actually says what I am doing… “Alicia is sitting in  front of her computer ,in her pajamas, trying to remove a stubborn walnut kernel lodged in her back teeth from her fabulously yummy bowl of  Honey Nut oatmeal.” While this would still definitely lead to comments ,aren’t most of these web 2.0 sites purposes to show everyone how interesting  and popular we are…or  virtually would like to be. 

In class, I actually perked up when when I saw that Twitter has the thing I like about Facebook…the updates. I haven’t joined yet but I probably will in the near future. The whole microblogging is a little intimidating because I can’t  imagine writing using a maximum of 140 characters. I also like the art blog site that I visited . I told my fellow art teacher about it and it’s many resources. Once I have the  required picture to add on to the site, I think I will join it. I am still afraid of the time consuming aspect of these sites ,but I think they will be good for me in moderation and with the use of a timer.

I really enjoyed looking at the hoax websites  in class,such as “The Onion.” The articles, topics and news stories are hilarious. They are not something I would recommend for children though. I could appreciate it  for what it is…but what if I was naive and believed everything I read. My group in class had to check out a website that was all about a pretend chemical( DHMO) that was practically found in everything possible.  It sounded scientifically official and because so many of us are afraid of toxic chemicals there were people conducting surveys and signing petitions against its alleged use. I will admit that before I looked deeper into the site that I believed that it was a real chemical. This exercise definitely will have me rethinking everything I hear, read , and see.  This  is something that I will share with my students  who may not questions a site’s reliabilty. My example will be the the Martin Luther King Jr. website that is set up by  a white supremist group. Although it looks official, at first glance ,it is definitely not providing reliable information. This site is a  wake up call for me and will hopefully do the same for my students.

SO guess who remembered Saturday morning that they forgot to blog last  week…I actually was really excited about all of the things I had learned about in class. As usual, I was excited to share all that I had learned with my fellow teachers at school.

Let me give you some background about my technology reputation  first. The other teachers know that I am the one who can’t use a scanner without assistance. I am also never asked to run the poster maker /printer  or to laminate things for them…Usually ignorance is bliss when it comes to doing  those things. I feel this way because everyone mistakenly believes, that because we are art teachers, that we have all of this free time on our hands to do all of these things on top of our own workload. I do feel bad for the other teacher who is the one who does end up doing this. I will usually do some of the non technology based things that she is working on while she tends to their requests. I have honestly tried to learn how to do all of these things, but I learn by doing not following the written directions.I will pat myself on the back for once successfully helping to change the paper in the poster printer.

OK, back to what I was saying about  sharing all of the information about the cool sites and software we have used in class. I always tell my fellow art teacher about anything that I think we could use for our art students . Scribblars was an excellent site for that. As I was trying to tell her how it worked, she gave me the same incredulous look that I would have if I had not used it myself. I told her this would be something we could use with our students who are out of school because of a long term suspension or an extended illness. I feel that this could  keep them on track with the rest of the class.  I also feel that even though they aren’t physically in the classroom they would appreciate  that they could still contribute to the project or the discussion.

I also told her how one of the students used Excel to make an image by filling in the cells with colors. I also told the self -contained teacher about this and about the different graphing programs we used for the students. Of course, like me ,they had never heard of these programs besides Excel. I will also admit that I had never used Excel before. This was because I believed that it was only a  graphing and chart making  program. I am now thinking about using it to help with grading and for making the schedules for my staff.

I will admit that I do struggle with all of this information that I acquire each class . It does help to put it in to practice and to “play” with it without worry.  I will continue to share whatever I learn in class with my fellow teachers . Maybe my computer technology reputation will improve by the end of this semester…just don’t ask me to print out a movie sized poster and to laminate it for you…yet.