How Frank Lloyd Wright and a Progressive Art Teacher Made Me an Art Historian

Picture a high school student who loves art, but who just isn’t very good at drawing, painting, or sculpting. Her work is the stuff that elicits “nice effort” and “interesting composition” from her teacher and an obligatory spot on the refrigerator at home. She is the one who jealously looks at all the other students’ work, wondering why her figures don’t look correctly proportioned or her coil pot doesn’t stand up straight. This student was me almost fifteen years ago.

I have always loved art and have always tried to make it. I can still recite my art teachers’ names, but somehow can’t recall most of my language arts, science, or math teachers. Art was the class where I could think outside the box, experience colors not found in my Crayons at home, and dangerously wield scissors. But while it brought me lots of joy, it also made me sad…I knew I wasn’t cut out to be an artist.

Then, one day in high school, my wonderful art teacher Mrs. L. showed us a video on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. This opened my eyes to structures that looked differently from the grocery stores, stadiums, and government buildings I saw around my tiny East Texas town. It made me realize you could create a house with a live tree growing out of it! Most importantly, it made me understand that I could love art, get to be around it, and study it without having to be successful at making it. With that one video, Mrs. L. gave me (and all the other students in my class) an introduction to art history.

Mrs. L. didn’t just introduce us to Frank Lloyd Wright, but to other artists through books, posters, and videos. Her class was our museum since we didn’t have one close enough to visit on a field trip. She was one of the reasons I pursued an undergraduate degree in museum management and a graduate degree in art history. Because she knew that to reach all of her students she needed to combine art-making with art appreciation. And for at least one student, that knowledge shaped an entire career, as I’ve had the privilege to work in museums for the past decade.

This month on the NAEA Mentor Blog I hope to share ideas that will inspire you to add additional art history topics and resources to your teaching toolkit. I plan to post three entries each week: Getting to Know, which will introduce American artists and their work; Museums and You, which will highlight key classroom resources from museums across the country; and Art Speaks, which will discuss how artists and their work can be used to jumpstart conversations about important societal issues. I invite you to join the conversation by commenting on the posts.

Finally, I want to thanks Mrs. L. and all the other art educators who teach their students not only one-point perspective, but also about Degas, Picasso, and O’Keeffe. We truly appreciate it!

-Stacy Fuller

Final Thoughts

I have had a wonderful time being the NAEA Monthly Mentor for January.  I tried to share information regarding software, hardware, resources, professional development, lessons and more all revolving around technology.  The art-technology connection can be a valuable one in our programs.  I hope you found at least one thing useful in my blogging.  Please feel free to contact me if you want more information on any of the topics I covered.  I also hope this will encourage others to share the things they do.  I don’t think enough teachers appreciate the value in even the small things they do.  Often it is an idea that others have not thought of and it would benefit them.  PLEASE SHARE the great and simple things you do!

-Thom 
tknab@williamsvillek12.org OR tkvolley15@aol.com

Creativity Express

I would like to share one more resource I use with my elementary students.  It is a program called Creativity Express through madcaplogic.com.  You can get it as a software or web based product.  The program introduces the characters of Furnace, a polar bear, and Ruby and Tickles, both penguins.  They look at art, learn about art and discover art elements and principles.  It is even connected to history and science.  Short video clips introduce students to concepts and then there are interactive activities for student to reinforce learning.  I have used these clips as short introduction to my lessons as a way to grab the students’ attention.  They love the clips and the characters.  Students can move through at their own pace.

The sixteen-lesson curriculum focuses on the ways that artists visually convey messages and ideas through emphasis, contrast, and structure of the core artistic principles.  Each lesson explores artwork in context with other relevant facts and disciplines to assist students in gaining a deeper appreciation for the works of artists and the historical events and technological developments that influenced them.  Artistic principles are taught using a creative, interactive process that makes learning fun and accessible, combined with a contextual approach that makes art more relevant to one's daily life.

The online version allows students to track the sections they have completed and how they have done in the activities.  Teachers can monitor student progress as well.  There are many reviews and much information on line about the program.  I think this is an awesome resource and hope this information helps you.

-Thom Knab

Digital Wish is on a Mission to Solve Technology Shortfalls in Classrooms!

Many technology ideas are great but what if you do not have the right equipment or software?  Digital Wish is a site dedicated to gathering sponsors to benefit teacher technology needs in the classroom.  On the site you can explain what your need is and why it is important.  Digital Wish also provides grants for various subject areas and you can get deals on buying certain equipment and special pricing.  You can register and they will send you emails about the deals they offer.

Digital Wish believes that every child deserves a technology-rich education that will provide them with the skills necessary to excel in the global economy. Every day, Digital Wish develops new online tools and promotions that empower teachers and their supporters to get new technology for their classrooms and enhance learning for our children.

In 2006, Digital Wish was founded by Heather Chirtea's because her 7-year-old twins were enrolled in a small, rural elementary school on the brink of closure.  In September of 2008, Digital Wish officially became a nonprofit and one week later Digital Wish received its first grant to scale operations and rebuild its website to serve the ever-increasing demand from teachers.

Since August 2009, Digital Wish has granted over 24,000 classroom technology wishes and delivered over $10 million in technology products to American classrooms. However, they've still only scratched the surface of the need.

This site is certainly worth your investigation.  Visit digitalwish.org.

-Thom Knab

FROM ONE BLOG TO ANOTHER

Today, on the NAEA Monthly Mentor Blog, I thought I would share some great blogs/bloggers in art education.  Some are connected to websites and offer many ideas about art rooms, lessons, classroom management, musings, ideas and more.  Enjoy!

http://dolvinartknight.blogspot.com/ - by Mrs. Knight at Dolvin Elementary

http://artjunction.org/blog/ - The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet by Craig Roland

http://artteacheradventures.blogspot.com/ - Adventures of an Art Teacher by Katie Morris

http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/ - Art Projects for Kids by Kathy Barbro

http://artprojectgirl.blogspot.com/ - Art Project Girl

http://vividlayers.blogspot.com/ - Art is Basic by Marcia Beckett

http://theteachingpalette.com/ - The Teaching Palette by Hillary Andrlik and Theresa McGee

http://artwithmre.blogspot.com/ - Art With Mr. E by Ted Daniel Edinger

http://elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/ - smART Class by Natalie Waggenspack

http://drydenart.weebly.com/fugleblog.html - Fugleblog by Tricia Fuglestad

-Thom Knab

Podcasting

In 2006, I attended the National Gallery of Arts’ Teacher Institute on Dutch Art in the Golden Age.  This institute had a podcasting component to go along with its art history aspect.   A podcast is a multimedia digital file made available on the internet for downloading to a portable media player, computer, etc.  We created our podcasts with the assistance of the software Garageband 2.  Garageband is an apple compatible product which communicates directly with iTunes and iPhoto.  These two programs were used to bring our images and narrations into our podcasts.    Participants created podcast which revolved around our learning of Dutch Art.  We selected a work or works to include in the podcast.  Some also used additional images they created or were allowed to use.  We created narrative scripts which we recorded directly into iPods using microphones you can actually attach directly to the device.  We used Belkin Tunetalks (pictured right) but there are other devices available.

Garageband allows you to edit images, to some degree, and is quite easy to edit your recorded narration as well.  Garageband also has a variety of musical options one can utilize for background scores of the podcast.  I have included the one I made at the institute here for you.

Over the past few years I have created podcasts with some of my fourth grade students.  It is an interesting project which asks them to recreate their art history knowledge through the creation of a podcast.  The project involves research, writing scripts, recording their scripts with expression, syncing images to their narration, editing, and of course the many technical aspects of the project.  It supports, quite nicely, literacy skills in the Common Core.

I have included the podcast I created at the NGA Teacher Institute for your viewing.  I hope you enjoy!

-Thom Knab

Evaluating Internet Sites

I attended a conference in 1997 with the presenter being Alan November.  He spoke about accessing information on the internet and how to critically evaluate the site and/or the information on the site.  Although this is already fifteen year old information (hard to believe) I think it is still relevant today for all teachers to use with students but especially with older students. 

Students need to be taught not only how to use the internet but they also need to be taught how to evaluate what they find.  Students must understand a possible bias that may be represented in the information i.e. cultural, historical, gender, national, etc. 

The following are some questions that students can ask themselves to evaluate internet sites and information:

1. If my parents were standing behind me would they want me to view this site/information?
2. Who created the site (sponsorship)?
3. Why was it created?
4. What can I learn from this site?
5. How will I use the information I find?
6. Is it backed up by other resources/quality references?  Is it biased?
7. Is it relevant to what I am looking for?
8. Is it an original source or secondary, etc?
9.  Who am I interacting with?  Giving information to?
10. Do they know I am there (tracking)?
11. Can I take information/image from the site (permission)?
12. Can I find a contradictory source?  (Compare/contrast information)

Obviously, some of these are useful for younger students and all are useful for upper middle and high school students as they become more independent in their research and internet use.  I hope this is helpful!

-Thom Knab

The World’s Largest Kids’ Art Museum

I hope by now you have heard of Artsonia.com.  If you haven’t, it is an online art gallery for student work.  They refer to it as…”the world’s largest kids’ art museum”.  Artsonia is also a partnered by the NAEA.  I have uploaded a great deal of student art work to this site over the past several years.  Artsonia is a great way to just highlight and share student art work, create on-line portfolios and encourage participation by family and friends of your students.  Students are listed by their first name followed by a number.  Student last names are never used online.

The first big steps are to add the class lists for all your students.  The following years you can just add the new students and/or grades you teach.  Artsonia allows you to move class lists up to the next grade very easily.  Scanning or photographing student work can become time consuming but enlisting parent/volunteer help can ease that quite a bit.  Students can enter statements about their work.  Students can also have “fan clubs” and visitors can leave comments for the artist (which parents have to approve before they are displayed online).  Family and friends and admirers can by items with student art work on them.  15% of each purchase goes to support your school’s art program – what a great way to enhance dwindling budgets.

Bob Reeker, and arts and technology teacher in Lincoln, Nebraska, used Artsonia to do a student art work exchange.  We both uploaded mood portraits to the site which our students could then view.  We designed a question sheet for the students to answer as they viewed the work.  We wanted to see how students in a different locale would respond to how other students created a mood/feeling in their work.  The responses were in turn sent through email.  Using Artsonia cut out the expense of send art work through snail mail there and back.  It also allowed the work to be viewed almost instantaneously.  We did have to make sure, however, that we had parent permission slips for all the students involved.  I think we did pretty well receiving about 98 % permission.

Please share how you may be using Artsonia in different and creative ways.  To view my artsonia gallery visit www.artsonia.com/schools/dodge1

-Thom Knab

Document Cameras

One of the most useful technology items I have in my art room is a Document Camera.  If you are not familiar with these devices, they are a camera on an arm which hangs out over the item or image you place underneath it.  The item or image is then projected onto a screen through a projector or onto a computer screen.  You will also need some sort of portable or mounted camera in your room.  It is great because you can project student art work up for everyone to see (which the elementary students particularly love).  You can also project postcard size images and make them large enough for the entire class to see.  It has made so many of my postcards exemplars more useful in my program.  If you read stories to your classes, it is an effective way to show the text, images, or both.  I have created art vocabulary flashcards for my fourth grade students for them to use on their own, but I can also use them with a whole class using the document camera.

There are different brands of document cameras and I have most often referred to them as ELMOs, but I am in no way promoting one brand…it is just a way you may have heard them.  ELMO is a brand name.  The expense is under $1000 and is a great investment for an art classroom.  

Elmo

On some, the arm rotates so you can capture items that are placed vertically and others capture video as well.  They have many uses and I hope some readers of this blog will share how they have used document cameras.

-Thom Knab

Technology-Artwork Idea

Here is a neat and easy technology-artwork idea.  I was playing around with the idea of creating a Warhol-esque portrait project with my students.  I wanted it to repeat the portrait image but change the colors of each image as Warhol’s Self-Portrait at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. 

I had students take either their school photo or a photo of someone famous and we brought it into a paint program that had a “paint-can” type of fill tool.  For my example below I used Paint.net but other programs can work.  I previously also used tools associated with the scanner I used to scan in the original pictures when I first tried this idea.  When asking the students to manipulate the color in the photos I might encourage setting parameters for each image i.e. use only complementary colors for three images and black, white and gray for the fourth image or reinforce color groups such as primaries, secondaries, warm and/or cool colors for each image.  Access to a good color printer is essential.  I had them trim and then mount the images in an appealing manner – two across and two down or four vertically or horizontally arranged.  It was a way to introduce students to an artist, his style and inject some of the art elements and principles in fun way.  I have included an example I made of my own “mug” so you can see the idea as an actual artwork.

-Thom Knab