Here is my idea for my COETAIL Final project:
I am currently teaching a unit to my 5th grade on Tessellations and am revamping it. I am now trying the online app SUMO paint. I’ve created a tutorial for the kids to follow which is part of the presentation. Taking what I learned from the Google Summit, I’m also going to share the rubric I’ve made and use Goobric. Using Doctopus, I am sharing the tutorial, rubric, and expectations with the students. I also intend for students to upload their completed tessellation to Artsonia and submit a reflective statement. Students must then comment on another student’s project/statement.
Tessellation start
Why this project?
Creating Tessellations is an excellent cross-curricular project on the upper level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, combining the mathematical components with the creativity of art. Rather than using pre-made templates, tracing, or using “fluffy” apps that affect only the surface level of images, students have to build their altered shape and tessellate it from scratch. In the process, they develop some great practice in working with layers, transparency, saving multiple versions, and the wonderful “undo” function – all useful skills for applying towards future graphics projects. Students have access to the documents and tutorials beforehand and during the project through Google Docs and our new online Haiku page, essentially making it a mini-online course with flipped learning components. Having students photograph and upload their work to Artsonia gives them practice in digital photography and opens up their work to be viewed by others – a powerful online community motivating kids to show and do their very best. Requiring students to include a reflective artist statement including self-assessment is a vital component of Discipline-based Art Education, asking students to reflect about their art making, art aesthetics, and art criticism. In a Connectivist-style format, students will be learning from others as they view the artwork of their peers, read the selected artist’s statement, and then work on writing a comment on the artwork that is useful, encouraging, and thought-provoking. If I can get students from other places (such as my brother’s 5th grade art students) to also comment on a tessellation, it would expand the dialogue even further and potentially set up exchanges in the future.
Although this project will take many weeks to complete (as I see students once every six school days), I believe that it is an authentic project that encompasses so many of the art skills and 21st century learning attitudes/skills we expect our students to practice. It does not feel like “fluff” or an add-on technology tacked to a lesson just for the goal of incorporating technology. I also am applying some educational technology skills I’ve learned through my time in COETAIL and the Google Summit and sharing my resources with fellow art teachers, thus becoming a contributor to the online art community.