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Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital. Show all posts

Thursday, 11 February 2016

Digital: Promoting your student artwork!

Art education and the use of social media has caused a bit of a stir lately but, for my department it really has made a difference in our students (and potential new students!) engagement and possibilities within Fine Art. This academic year has been the most challenging and rewarding of my teaching career so far and through the more difficult times I have been fortunate enough to gain continuous CPD through the Facebook group of NSEAD. It really is a fantastic resource and teachers from up and down the country are sharing inspiring ideas, resources and examples of excellence every single day. This site made me think about the new digital age and how it is now more relevant than ever to be seen and heard online. Social media really has made a massive difference in the promotion of my course and more importantly, made a significant impact on my students knowledge within the arts!

So, wondering where you start?

Branding:
First things first - create a brand for yourselves! It is important for your students and others to recognise who you are and establish a connection. I created our own identity by making a logo and selecting a colour and font that would work best for us. We use our logo for everything - from signs around the department, open day events, taster sessions, briefs for students, social media sites, icons on emails, competitions such as the Saatchi, publicity for Reps, etc. It really does make a massive impact in drawing attention as to who we are as a department and highlighting attention to our students work.


Lastly, make your own tag so people can start locating your work and identifying you on multiple sites. Ours is fsfcfineart - we even have our own hashtag: #fsfcfineart!

Flickr:
Some of you may remember Claire's wonderful series of posts on 'digital tools'. The blog gives you a real snapshot of what ticks our boxes in the world of digital media and how you can use it yourself to make your students learning experience more exciting. For us, Flickr was where everything began and we find it fab for sharing past/present work with our students and they can access it both at home and in college.



Additionally, you can create your own albums to categorise styles of artworks or split between year groups, final pieces and preparatory work. It also saves on time in taster sessions and instead of creating a PPT of student examples you can play your Flickr page on a continuous slide show to inspire learners. We even use it for Open day events and end of year exhibitions to create a real buzz within the department!

Pinterest:
This is old news nowadays but if you haven't got it - do! Pinterest really is the most incredible resource for the visual arts and students respond to it really well. On our Pinterest board we have created over 60 boards of artists and techniques that make us tingle with excitement and our students use the site successfully to share ideas and to inspire one another. Pinterest has allowed us to network with fellow teachers, students, businesses and galleries around the world and as a department we have over 1000 followers. 




We have also made our own YBA (Young British Artist) board to showcase students work that we are a teeny bit envious of. It has been up and running for less than 6 months and already has nearly 700 followers. The images pinned are from our portfolio of student work on our Flickr page and additionally gives our students the possibility of building employability links and being contacted by potential artists and galleries interested in their work. It also lets our followers see who and what we are and helps build networking opportunities and relationships with brands such as Fujitsu.




Instagram:


Instagram was initially recommended by one of my students and after a few discussions in class I found that several of my students were already using the social media site for their own publication of artwork and gaining huge successes from it. About three weeks ago, I decided to try a new digital venture for the department and since launching our own page we already have over 100 followers. Our students have responded positively to the site and many have followed us - checking daily to see new ideas from fellow students in both AS and A2. Through hashtags we have been able to create an online following and draw attention to what we want people to look at. For example: #fsfcfineart, #studentartwork #expressivepainting, etc. Our page has also enabled us to find new artists and follow galleries for inspiring artwork for our students. Our students can then click on what we 'like' and within the past week some students have already approached me through our online signposting for artist research!


It makes me incredibly proud to see my students receive the attention they deserve and even prouder to see them independently critique and compliment one another's artwork. In turn, this positive praise gives my students more confidence within the classroom and successfully introduces them to new initiatives and links within the art world.

Now, I won't lie.. the above does take time and we try to post on each social media site at least once a week to keep our audience happy. All of the above sites have an App and once set up it is pretty quick to post something from your phone and access it without a computer. We even have our own QR codes within the classroom for students to access in lessons and we publicise these also on our course leaflets and next to paintings around the college (linking back to our Flickr account).


We'd love to digitally interact with other educational institutions so if you use a digital tool for the promotion of your student artwork then let us know by either following us or leaving a comment on the end of this blog post!
- Kirsty 

Wednesday, 22 April 2015

digital: Canva and a happy third birthday here at I Heart Teaching Art


To celebrate our third birthday here at I Heart Teaching Art I've been playing around the online Graphic Software Canva. Earlier this week my partner went on a training course at work and afterwards he did not stop raving about it so I had to check it out and so far... I'm pretty impressed! The site allows you to make blog graphics, Facebook covers, posters and more in a matter of minutes! You can customise the fonts, colours and upload your own images into a selection of existing templates and they even have a ton of stock images which you can use if you don't have your own. 

Already I've come up with a few ideas of how it could used in the classroom...
  • Mocking up initial ideas with Graphic Students
  • Making beautiful things for classroom displays (but in much less time!) 
  • For those of you who are tutors and have to get your class to put together poster etc. for around school
  • If you run a blog, twitter, Facebook etc at school! Make some quick, stylish imagery! 

I can't believe it's been three years since we started the blog! I had fun looking back at the photo's we took when we first put the site together and chucked in a fun one of me and Kirsty having a bit of a giggle in B&Q last year whilst collecting paint for the end of year exhibition! We've had so much fun  with the blog and we're always overwhelmed with the positive feedback that we get from our readers! Thank you! 

- Claire 

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Digital: Fragment App

This academic year has flown by and like many of you in Further Ed I can't believe we're about to start the exam unit! With this in mind I realised my attention lately has been on the job and that it was about time I focused on sharing ideas that I've discovered on my journey.


Some of you may have already heard of this App but it is literally amazing.. and I am a teeny bit jealous that it wasn't invented when I was studying art and design. Fragment App first came to my attention when it was iTunes 'App of the Month' and my colleague shared it with me. At first glance, I knew it would be some sort of photo editing software but I didn't realise the potential it had in the classroom!

Straight away I tested the software with some of my student's work (above image) and discovered that it was perfect for adding geometric patterns and shapes to images. I was instantly hooked and saw how it could revolutionize the development and experimentation of my student's work. 

My students have responded to the App really well and I would say that in some cases it has saved their project work. Some of my students have created entire projects using the App and it is a brilliant way of getting digital work into a project quickly without the hassle of Photoshop.



Here are some of my suggestions as to how you could use the software in your classroom:
  • Initial Responses: Engaging students with different ways of how to view their images - especially those who are most suitable to abstraction!
  • Experimentations: Drawing, painting, collaging, weaving, layering, double exposures, etc.
  • Sculptures: Print, cut, images and turn into unique photographic sculptures.


Fragment App is available through the iTunes store and works on iPhones/iPads/Androids as well as desktops! The App does cost - but it's definitely worth the couple of pounds and if you have a department account then you only have to pay for it once.. yay!

So, what are you waiting for? Deliver it as an exciting new technique to your students over the next few weeks and make their exam project stand out!

- Kirsty 

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Digital: Pinterest, why I think all Art Teachers should be using it!



I've done a few posts on here over the last two years about Pinterest but having recently given a talk at a staff training event I realised things have changed in two years! Pinterest has some new functions and I have some more articulate ways of explaining why I think Pinterest's is so great and why I think all Art Teachers should be jumping on the Pinterest Bandwagon! 

Social Networking tool/Digital
It's digital! (obviously, I hear you cry!) but that has a fair few benefits for us as Art teachers:
  • It can be submitted in that format to your exam boards! Edexcel even have an article on it and we have experience of submitting it as part of student research for three years now. It has always been simple and painless and relatively well received (more so now that it is more widespread!)
  • You can save money on printing and time on presenting (for you or students, however it works at your place) instead of printing out, cutting, sticking and hand writing around it, students can just send you the link to their account! We use the 3W approach that we use here on the blog with our students for annotating their boards
  • It's a great and easy way to effectively introduce a digital tool and a social networking tool into the classroom without it being a token gesture! I've always found making 'quizzes' and other smart board related tools largely geared towards exam based subjects. There's plenty of ways to get it used in class and outside, starter activities, collaborative boards between students or between staff and students, homework tasks, a main tool for a full research based, etc! 
  • In my experience students don't see it as a chore, they actively engage with it! They don't just use it in a professional manner for their project work, they are using it for personal interest too, a fact which I think should be celebrated! 
Digital Literacy
I love this term. Digital Literacy has been on the curriculum for a few years but in places I've worked it's never really been on the agenda, so to speak. This case study by Future labs highlights the key components of digital literacy, amongst them are collaboration, E-safety, the ability to find and select information, effective communication and creativity. Pinterest is a tool which you can use to develop all of these skills with students.
E-safety by creating your own boards to share with students you can navigate them to appropriate content and as part of the introduction to Pinterest with students it's worth cover things like spam accounts and how to spot them!
The ability to find and select information again you can kick start this process but then it's up to students. Pinterest will give them help with this suggesting relevant boards each time they pin but a key part of getting pinterest to work with your students is explaining the pin it button and getting them to pin straight from the source!
Effective communication students will need to come up with appropriate titles and a description to explain what their board is about and as I mentioned previously we use the 3W approach to aid them in annotating. They need to ensure that when another person views their boards that they understand the themes and messages they are trying to communicate! Another good activity is to help the develop stages of research through different boards. There can be an initial board with everything on and this can be narrowed down and selected from for later more considered boards, and so on!
Creativity, Pinterest is great to kick start a project! students boards can be filled with ideas from inspirational art and design work to mate

Secret Boards
I think this was my favourite addition and is an absolute asset when it comes to planning. For anyone else out there who likes to put together boards for things like exam topics, you may too previously remember spending the morning before you delivered the themes pinning away or delaying creating your boards till after you had delivered it but no more! When it launched there was a cap of just 6 boards but since mid February secret boards have gone unlimited! Woo-hoo! Now you can plan away and launch the boards exactly when you want them meaning you can plan terms ahead and pin ideas for future projects. 

Our Pinterest Accounts 
The thing we have found about Pinterest is that it's quite addictive once you get started! What we have also found is that what is relevant for I heart Teaching Art is not necessarily relevant for work and sometimes there's stuff we'd just like to pin for ourselves. The solution...multiple accounts. When we first used Pinterest at work we all worked at the same college and worked across several subjects. We also had a large cohort of BTEC students so we had one account with boards for different subjects and felt it was good for students from different disciplines to have access to a wide range of artists and designers. When me and Kirsty started at our new place we had much larger groups of students and were only teaching one subject (amazing!) and felt it would be best to provide them with a more specialist and detailed range of resources so we created individual pinterest accounts for our courses. We also like to pin our own bits and pieces so we have our own personal accounts (I'm a fan of pinning cooking, house inspiration, tattoos and things I'd like to knit). Check out the links below to see our different accounts:
Previous Posts
In case you're curious and want to look back at my previous posts about Pinterest you can check them here (remember one of them is 2 years old so it may be a little out of date!)
If you're not on Pinterest already what are you waiting for? Come and follow us on there!
- Claire 

Thursday, 15 August 2013

digital: Pinterest teachers hub


Who else is starting/getting on with their back to school planning? I know I've been starting to get on with it over the last few weeks doing little bits here and there. One of my favourite tools for planning is Pinterest, I've blogged about it on here before! I know there's lots of teachers out there using it and for good reason, it plays a really key role in my initial planning. I start by gathering worksheets, tutorials and inspiring artists and designers before putting together schemes of work and projects. Once I've done my final plans my boards are ready to be edited so that they are student friendly! Normally this just means re pinning so that it's in an order which matches how I plan to deliver the project. I also like making extension boards - additional artists/designers and resources that students can use to complete independent research to extend their learning. I have found that Pinterest definitely engages a lot of learners with research that before they may have been less than interested in completing! 

Anyway enough about my thoughts, pinterest have picked up on the trend of teachers using it and this week they've launched a Teachers Hub. Unfortunately for us UKers it's in USA format but if you can work out the corresponding grades to year groups there's bound to be some inspiring stuff on there! There is also subject specific boards, classroom display ideas and education blog boards. You can read more about the Teachers Hub and the reasons behind it on the pinterest blog, here and it's well worth checking out the art contributor Donna's pinterest account she has an amazing amount of inspiring pins. Of course don't forget to check out our pinterest too!
- Claire 

Thursday, 11 April 2013

lesson idea: photographic collages

It's been a while since we've done a post so I thought I would share a recent photographic collage lesson from one of my A Level Photography classes. It was an enjoyable lesson to teach and the students all got high results from the various techniques and even recorded their creative process into stop animations!
With only 4 college weeks to go until my students exam (how quick does time go!) I needed to find a new photographic technique that would push their practice. I don't know about you but I find when your over the halfway point of projects some students have a tendency to want to 'stick' to one idea. I needed to break away from this quickly and the following activities did just that!

  
To start the lesson I gave each student a found photograph and told them they had 5 minutes to rip up the image into any shape or size. Once they had destroyed the original image they were then instructed to throw all pieces of the torn photograph into the air and let them land on the paper provided in front of them. All pieces of the photograph were to be glued in their 'fixed' state and upon completion all students were posed with the question 'What have you just made?' Luckily, all my students recognised that they had just made a collage but more importantly the starter activity really got my students thinking (whilst making) which resulted in strong, relevant discussions!

I then did a quick demonstration of each three activities above and placed the students into groups. Our lessons are an hour and a half each so I was fortunate to split each activity into a rotation of twenty minutes which in terms of timing was spot on for each task! The whole point of the lesson was to get students to see their photographs in a different light and I found 20 minutes enabled students to create an experimental outcome that let them just create and not worry about why they were doing it. At the end of each 20 minutes we stopped, looked at work and discussed briefly processes that were working well and what could the next group do differently to improve that task. Whilst each task was underway each group also had an iPad and used the app iMotionHD. iMotion HD is basically a stop-motion app for any ios based system and allows you to record video which is then made into timed stop motion animations. The app is fantastic and I love how it records students development as well as allowing them to start viewing their work as moving images!


This lesson will leave each student with a minimum of 4 photographic collages and 2 animated videos which shows that all students can make a number of strong imagery quickly, whilst exploring new, innovative technology that records and documents their process! You can view some of our students recordings here or for alternate photographic collage lesson ideas The Photographers' Gallery 'Perspectives on Collage' teacher exhibition pack is fab!

Do you use iMotion HD? If so we'd love to hear from you to share different approaches to the software and see your students photographic collages!
- Kirsty

Wednesday, 6 February 2013

digital: Vine


Are you on Vine? It's the latest social networking app and so far we're loving it. Vine allows you to share short video clips - just 6 seconds to capture exciting moments. We've only just started using it (our first post was our video at The Photographers Gallery INSET) but I can see the potential - quick captures of displays, student work, tutorials - a chance to give a more 3D glimmer into what we get up to in the classroom. If you want to follow us our username is: iheartteachingart

- Claire 

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

tutorial: Jasper James

Jasper James's city silhouettes are stunning! Amazingly, he creates his incredible series of images by just using light and glass to reflect focal points and cityscape backgrounds within his carefully composed silhouettes. James's travels through China (he is based in Beijing) to capture his unusual perspectives and birds eye viewpoints. For those of you who are regular readers of our blog you will be aware that our current photo project for the BTEC Nationals is related around the theme of 'journeys' so when we came across James's work we just knew we had to make a tutorial. We love how the viewer gets a real insight into the journey behind the subject and the city, creating a familiar story we can all relate to! This tutorial will show you a similar method to our recent double/multiple exposure tutorial and get you to build on existing Photoshop knowledge. 

If you haven't got Photoshop don't worry - why not create a paper city background and get your students to practice compositional skills by posing in front of it. Your class will love it and you'll get a piece of art up on your wall ready to use for that perfect shoot again. We'd love to see any examples you do so as always drop us a shout if you do use our tutorial.

- Kirsty 

Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Vasilisa Forbes tutorial

At i heart teaching art we can't get enough of geometric shapes and colour at the moment! You may of been following our posts recently about our BTEC National photography students - this tutorial concludes the digital part of our lessons and gets students to practice everything they have learnt so far: masking and cropping in Photoshop! I was new to Vasilisa Forbes work until last week and I am so glad I have introduced the bright coloured collages to my students. They loved the use of 'found' imagery and how the artist has used shapes that intersect together to hide the subject matter and create a narrative story line within the image. Have a go at our tutorial below and let us know which work your class preferred: Julie Cockburn or Vasilisa Forbes!


- Kirsty 

Monday, 8 October 2012

review: typic


This weekend I discovered Typic and I think I'm in love! I'm always wanting to add text to my images, for blog posts, resource sheets, etc. It's one of those fussy things that I just like to do, but it does take a bit of time. Then I discovered Typic! The app allows you to quickly add text to photographs and as an added bonus there are some instagram-esque filters on offer, a beautiful selection of stylish fonts (like homestead, what a nice font!) and an instant upload to various social media platforms at the end, if needed. I think it's one of those apps that people will either love or hate, to many the need to add text to an image will seem unneccesary and perhaps a little too 'hipster' but for me it's hits the best criteria - it saves me time! It's just an added bonus that it's very aesthetically pleasing. You should definitely check it out, it feels like an app with potential - I'm already thinking starter activities based on word/image connections...
- Claire  

Monday, 17 September 2012

digital/review: iMotion HD

Gorgeous timelapse sunrise created by my dad using iMotion HD

This weekend my dad introduced me to what I think will soon become my favourite ever app for my iPhone/iPad, iMotion HD. The app allows you to create stop motion and time lapse animations with complete ease - you can take still frames manually (which I tried yesterday) or set it up on a timer (what my dad did in the video above!) so it takes shots itself at regular intervals. After you've got all your shots you simply click 'stop' and your images will be transformed into a movie, you can adjust the speed then export it. It really is that simple! Interestingly there's a free and a paid version, the paid one offers a direct export to You Tube but it's easy enough to just export it to your photos, email and then upload it so I don't think the paid option is vital! We're lucky enough to have some iPads at our college and I'm doing an animation unit with my BTEC students at the start of the Spring term - I think this will be a brilliant way to introduce them to stop motion, so hopefully I'll have some student examples in a few months! 

- Claire 

Monday, 27 August 2012

digital: digital tools we love part IV


When it comes to the start of a new project I'm always keen to show my students as much visual information as I can - I want them to see the artists/designers that have inspired me to create the project in the first place and I want them to get inspired too! The thing is, when I first started teaching the only way I'd ever seen this done was using a PowerPoint presentation or endless print outs and it didn't seem to quite cut it. PowerPoints always make me feel like I'm meant to explain and discuss every image and print outs seem like a crazy use of paper, I wanted something fresh and engaging that allowed my students to just get a quick flavour of the project that drew them in so they got excited about it without me giving them my opinion of why it's a great project and how the project ought to take shape. Then it came to me - a video! Above is the first ever 'video intro' I created for my students, the class I showed it too responded really well - they loved it having a bit of music, it meant they got their own bit of time to digest the project and it made a great starter at the beginning of the lesson! We create our videos using iMovie as you can quickly drop still images, add text and captions and then drop some music into it - it's really simple, in fact I found it's quicker than creating a PowerPoint (or the like!) and has captured my students attention a lot more effectively. 'Video intro' is my favourite way to start a project and I've got a bunch lined up for September, as have the rest of the team check out this amazing one that Kirsty put up today for her photography project! It's brilliant! 

- Claire 

Like this digital tools we love post? Why not check out parts one, two and three as well! 


Monday, 30 July 2012

digital: digital tools we love part III


I think all 3 of us are in total agreement that screen toasting is a digital tool which we love! Screen toasting is recording your screen, so what ever you're doing you can record it then share, play back, watch, etc. It's what we use for around 90% of our tutorials. So we use quicktime as we've already got it on our systems and the video below will show you just how quick it is to do!


It really is that quick and simple and we've found it really helpful for everything from basic photoshop tutorials to the more complicated stuff! It means our students can work at a speed their comfortable with and go back over things if needed. Most of the time we'll create a tutorial prior to the lesson but occasionally we'll embed it into the lesson, so we'll record the screen whilst demoing a technique to the students so they can see how it works real time and ask questions, which of course are recorded within the tutorial, then re watch the video if needed later in the lesson. Something I'm looking forward to introducing next term is getting my students to screen toast - this could be anything from showing how they did a technique, so their own mini tutorial, to presenting their digital work in a presentation like manner - I'll keep you posted on the results of this! 

So what if you haven't got quicktime? Well, I've heard good things about screencast o matic, cam studio (windows only) and Jing which are all free programmes, let me know how you get on if you have a go with any of these! Also if you've got an interactive white board in your classroom have a look through your different functions, we use Smart which has it's own in built screen toasting function. Happy toasting!  
- Claire 

Thursday, 26 July 2012

digital: digital tools we love, part II

Okay so today is all about blogging! If you're wanting to start a blog from scratch there is tons of helpful tutorials and guidance out there as well I'm sure as debates about the best way to do things and the best platform to use but at the end of the day it's what you feel comfortable with and what works for you! We were familiar with blogger, having used it ourselves, and so we went with that! If you want to use blogger and feel like you want some help getting started I'd watch bloggers tutorials for the simple basic bits and then head over to Pugly Pixel for some awesome tutorials for customising templates and so on, if you want to get into that!  

So what do we actually use blogs for? I mentioned briefly some of what we do in part I, but what I want to discuss today is lesson blogs. We have lesson blogs for each class which we use to post lesson by lesson content, so by the end of the year we'll have a whole course worth of posts. What's great about it is although the first year you're starting from scratch, in the second year you can simply re-post or edit what's already there! It's also a godsend if you're starting to teach a new course as the resources are right there. It's also brilliant in terms of quality assurance if you are delivering the same course twice (we always have at least 2 Graphics classes for example!) as you know that both groups are getting the same provisions, even if they might have a different teacher! It also means you can divide up the work load and share resources really easily! 

For the students it means they can access all the resources easily, even if they miss a class and they can refer back to resources, tutorials, tasks etc. at a later date if needed. It also provides them with more interactive resources, you can share everything from worksheets and articles to high quality image and video. Extending learning has also become easier as you can provide extension tasks easily, be it a little article, an extra tutorial or technique or simply additional artists/designers for students to look at. Students can also comment on posts meaning they can get in touch anytime - this could be for extra help or as part of a discussion, we've used commenting as a way of gathering some learner voice feedback for some of our projects. 

We set our lesson blogs to private so only ourselves and our students can access them, we like it this way as it becomes our and our students own little space and we don't have to worry about spam comments and so on! Obviously though it's not terribly exciting for me to talk about lesson blogs without showing you them - so I've made a short video which talks you through a couple of our lesson blogs so you can find out more about how we use them....




So that's a bit about blogging! If you want to catch up on previous posts you can check out part I, here.
- Claire 

Monday, 23 July 2012

digital: digital tools we love, part I

what we use in our department: flickr, pinterest, you tube and blogger

I'm a huge fan of digital 'tools' as I find they tend to be things which make my life easier and as a wonderful addition, make my students learning experience more exciting. Over the next few weeks my posts are all going to be 100% focused on digital, I'm going to discuss the stuff that has revolutionised my (teaching) life to give an insight into what I (and colleagues!) do and how it works and also to show how easily you can start using these things yourself! So to kick start the digital focus I'm going to run through the easy to access stuff that you can whizz over and check out. 

Our departments journey into the digital world began with blogging. I turned up eager, excited, new to teaching and a long term blogger and thought hey! let's do this! It was received initially with a kind of hesistance but has thankfully evolved into a key part of our department used by staff and students alike. In a moment which I can only retrospectively describe as sheer craziness I created separate course blogs for each course (we had 6 at one point!) upon realising that was a bit nuts, I merged all 6 into one combined blog: Coulsdon Visual Arts. We use it to post about student work and exhibitions and artists our students may find inspiring - it's essentially a quick and visual way to share resources that allows our students to start becoming more independent with their learning. For example, it's really great being able to direct students to our own archives of artists, textile/fashion designers, graphic designers and photographers to kick start research for new projects. It also allows us to advertise the awesome stuff we've got going on to the world and/or potential new students, in fact I'm sure I could bore you senseless with all the things I think it's great for but those are the big players! 

Blogging sort of opens you up to getting involved with all the other social media stuff that's out there. A lot of the stuff we get involved with often happens because one of us is already using it for our own work or because we're pretty geeky when it comes to the net so we've read up on someone else using it and thought it sounded awesome.   The other key things we use are flickrPinterest and  you tube. Each tool plays a different role,  Flickr  for example we use simply because it allows us to share photos easily! We find it's one of the best ways to share our images with our own students as they can access it both at college and at home. You Tube on the other hand allows us to upload video tutorials - something which I'll post more about over the next few weeks. Finally, Pinterest, I've already posted about pinterest actually, but I cannot stress enough how incredible it's been, you literally would not believe the amount of annotated research work that has come out of some of my AS Graphics students since we introduced it, it's incredible! Also I'm just so much more into visual planning as a starting point, this summer I've started each of my schemes of work for next year with a pinterest board -  it's great because I can share it with colleagues and once I start the projects I can direct my students straight to the board so they can get a quick visual overview of the project. 

Phew! Well I hope that's given you a bit of an overview and a few things to go and explore. So what else? Well coming up over the next few weeks I'll be getting into a bit more of the nitty, gritty stuff:
  • Blogging: How to create your own, lesson blogs, student blogs and more!
  • Video: tutorials, how to's, recorded assessment, etc. 
  • Gadgets/software aka things that make my teaching life simpler 

and more! 
- Claire 

Monday, 25 June 2012

Project idea: Pinterest


Pinterest is brilliant! I use it constantly - it's essentially a digital pinboard and I find it has completely replaced 'bookmarking' a web page. No longer will I spend time hunting through my bookmarks trying to remember what I called that website! Pinterest is my visual bookmarker! At I heart teaching art we collaboratively update our pinterest and we also have a separate one for college which we use to share resources with students and also to share ideas with each other - I use it when I'm beginning to put together a new scheme of work, like my BTEC L2 Portrait project for the Autumn term which I've been working on this week. 

Anyway, that's a bit about what we use it for and why, so what's the project idea? If you have a look at our college pinterest you'll notice 9 quite distinctive 'Graphics' boards. Looking at a range of artists and techniques is key for our students so I set my AS Graphics class an independent research task using pinterest! Each student had to create an account, research artists/designers in the 9 different materials/techniques categories, 'pin' at least 5 images for each category and add a personal response and explain the 3W's who made the work? what materials/techniques have they used? why was it made (i.e. exhibition, personal work, etc.)? to the description of each pin. 

I think it's a great project idea and our students responded really well. It's a quick, innovative and exciting way to engage students with contextual research, students can link up with each other and staff to share ideas and inspiration (I've found myself repinning some brilliant things my students have found!) and it's very time effective - instead of students wasting time selecting, printing and sticking down images onto a 'moodboard' type page they are directing time at more purposeful research and annotating all the images they find! 

Pinterest projects have a lot of potential - I'm already making plans for projects for gathering secondary imagery, initial research for essays, idea generating techniques and just looking forward to seeing the way that it evolves as my students continue to use it throughout their A2 year. I'll share any other projects I do with pinterest and I'd love to hear ideas and feedback from anyone else who tries it too! 
- Claire