Thursday, October 30, 2008

Empty Bowls

Every year my students and I participate in the Empty Bowls Project. This unit in my curriculum combines the study of ceramics and social awareness. Students make bowls that are given to American's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay to be used during the Empty Bowls Luncheon. At the luncheon for $10.00 you can get a bowl of soup, a piece of fruit, a roll and a bottle of water. And a ceramic bowl made by an elementary student of Hillsborough Schools.
For the past few years I have had the students work in groups to make bowls. This helps when we give them away and this way we end up with larger more interesting bowls.
This year the students are making figure bowls. We are using gingerbread men cookie cutters to make the figures. Then using 6 or 7 figures in a circle we make a bowl. Each student is responsible for one figure to make and glaze. I think that they will look very cool when done.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Nap-Time


Nap-Time
Originally uploaded by blisschan
This is the result of a workshop I took this weekend at the FAEA conference in Orlando. It is called a bueprint or cyantype image. It is created by cutting a stencil and then placing the it on top of the photo sensitive fabric. This is pressed under a sheet of glass and placed in the sun for 15 minutes. After that time the fabric is washed in water to reveal the image.
Thanks Patricia Velazquez for the workshop.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Fridays FAEA October 17, 2008

On Friday I took a workshop in the morning that was really challenging. Flash in a Flash. This was a workshop on creating Flash Animation. There is a lot to the program and I will have to play with the program before I feel comfortable with it.
I also taught a workshop called "Web 2.0 Publish to the World" I had about 11 people there and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Here is a link to the second half of Fridays Keynote Speaker


Thursday, October 16, 2008

FAEA Conference in Orlando 2008

Today was the first day of the FAEA State Conference. I began the day with a Gallery Hop to various Museums around the Orlando area.
We first visited the Orlando Museum of Art and saw a very interesting exhibit called Provocative Parings. The exhibit was made by pairing works from the museums permanent collection that represented different points of view and or use of media. It was very good and in some cases funny, I laughed out loud at the work titled "Head Cheese".
The next museum we visited was the Mennello Museum. There we an excellent collection of works by the artist Earl Cunningham.

Later on Thursday we had the FAEA General Session with the keynote speaker Dr. Deborah Reeve. Here is the first half of her talk.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Updating my Jott. I've...

Updating my Jott. I've updated my jott to a paid account and I find that I do use enough that it was worth paying for this. So its something that you shall look into Jott. listen

Powered by Jott

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The Test

I began this week giving the HCSD Elementary Art Assessment. Oh are the kids excited, come to art and take a test.
Now don't get me wrong I believe that valid assessments are an important part of education. But the thought that a single pre-test and post-test shed any light on a students growth in art or any subject is just foolish.
Last week while scanning the various blogs that I read I came across a video by Chris Lehmann and about a minute into the talk he made the statement that "good data cost a lot more than we are willing to spend". Ouch that hit the nail on the head. We create standardize who's main function as I see it is to create numbers masqueraiding as data.
I know that the FAEA is in the processs of creating a state wide standardize art test. This could be a good thing from what I have seen from a plemenary  review of possible test questions I saw last year. but I'm not sure how the test will be paid for. Will it be part of a State mandated assessment like FCAT. Or will individual districts have the option of paying for and administrationg the art test? I don't know.
I do know that watching the students in my art class that growth cannot be measured during a single class. Often I see no growth at all untill all of a sudden a student gets it! But it may not be at the same time that other students "get it". So if I assessed at that time some would show growth and others not. Even if the other students "got it" the next week, that would not count. That is a problem. Do I have the answer, no I haven't gotten to the point in my education to "get it" .....yet.

Followers

Listen to my blog

My Esty