ARTifacts

WEEK 1: 

LET'S GO TO THE MOVIES
In week one we got to know each other by discussing movies that are relevant to our lives. 

 There are so many movies to choose from. I wanted to talk about The Jerk, star wars and even Mighty Python's Holy Grail but I ended up narrowing it down to the Coen brothers' Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. 

It was difficult to choose just one, but Oh Brother Where art thou has been meaningful to me for some time. The movie follows a trio of newly escaped convicts during the great depression, and the movie is loosely based on Homer's THe Odyssey.

The story always spoke to me because of the journey that these three embark upon is a metaphoric parallel to my life. I cannot help to think about my favorite line from the movie:

"You seek a great fortune, you three who are now in chains.
You will find a fortune, though it will not be the fortune you seek.
But first first you must travel a long and difficult road, a road fraught with peril, mm-hmm.
You shall see things wonderful to tell.
You shall see a... a cow on the roof of a cotton house, ha.
And, oh, so many startling sights.
I cannot tell you how long this road shall be, but fear not the obstacles in your path, for fate has vouchsafed your reward.
Though the road may wind, and yea, your hearts grow weary, still shall ye follow them, even unto your salvation."

I am 33. I have seen some grand things. I have experienced parrel, pain and joy. I am still on the winding road following my heart until I make it HOME.

I imagine and I am reminded by this movie that everyone has their own journey/story filled with pain and fortune.  

Zachary

Cary, IL

Art & Design

Alternative assessment paradigm:

The article's focus on the theoretical shift away from ‘measuring’ learning and towards assessment that is explicitly designed to promote learning shed light on what I do in the classroom and what we were asked to do in the first module. In the first module we had the opportunity to use assessment tools as learning tools. I like the quizzes. Provided that retakes are allowed and that the score does not count as a grade, the quizzes help me to pick out the important and helps me to realize what I need to look up again.    

In the article, and in my classroom, "it is all about fostering a much more comprehensive system that supports the appropriate use of multiple methods of assessment". So, the module asks us to take part in multiple assessment tools and that is what I will take into my classroom. Surveys, quizzes and discussions will be used to diagnose students strengths and feedback will be used to coach students weaknesses.

Zachary

Cary, IL

art and design teacher

WEEK 2:

Blog Examples and there Relevance to Online Learning:
I have used several types of blogs in my classrooms, but mostly the blogs have been controlled by me and used to inform classes about what they need to do and how to do it. After doing a little reading I was inspired to use blogs in new ways. 

• I was inspired by Ms. Cassidy's class blog with all the little kids making blogs and teaching each other. If the little ones can do it than certainly my highschool student can do it too. I imagine that just like many of us; they will sigh at the task of creating a blog. However, like many of us, the HS students will probably get into it once they see what it is capable of. 

• Classroom blogging in the service of student-centered pedagogy: Two high school teachers’ use of blogs  was interesting, but it felt like the teachers could have expanded on how they were using blogs. A majority of what I have been reading seems to describe blogs made by teachers and student are posting on their blogs ( I may be wrong, but that is the feeling that I got) I wanted to think of ways to expand on the ways in which blogs can be used with HS students that crave autonamy and ownership over their learning. I am thinking of using blogging in two ways in addition to having a class blog for the distribution of class information.

• The two ways in which I might try to use blogs are:

1. I ask my students in my Visual Art & Current Trends class to research key conpepts in contemporary art and then teach the class about it before we make an art project. In this process student learn about alot of trends in art and then are faced with a challenge to make art that is inspired by one of the many presentations. I think it may be worth while to have small groups create an art blog that continues to grow in each unit of the class and the students would use it to compile research, links, images, videos that will teach the rest of the class.
2. I am considering using blogger for upperclassman to make visual art portfolios that include their artwork, reflections, artist statments, inspiration. and more. 

• It is problimatic to use these online tools when your classroom does not have computers. I dream of the day when all of my students have a laptop/chromebook or I have a class set, so that we do not have to go to the computer lab ever time we want to do a little research. 

Zachary, Cary IL, Art & Design

WEEK 3:

WHAT IS ON THE HORIZON?
One groups discussion concerning the ever changing and quickly developing world of technology led me to this discussion post.

I still am fighting the system with no smartphone(my phone does not even have a camera on it...hahah), no television channels (just netflix) and no facebook account. I am off the grid and refuse to get sucked into these anxiety promoting technologies. Yet, I can't help but to wonder how much longer I will be able to hold out on having the internet in my hands 24/7. I looked around at tables of children today in lunch. All heads down, faces lit up, typing on phones, oblivious to their surroundings. Are my children going to sit in a fort that they made with sheet reading books and playing with toys, or are they going to just stare at screens all day. Wall*E anyone?  

However, it was discussed, and I came to the conclusion that while there are some fears concerning the rapidly growing technologies in the world, nobody can stop it. Students need to be prepared for a future that is dependent on technology and it is our jobs as educators to show them how to learn and thrive in a world that requires technology skills and social skills. It will be challenging, but with hard work we should be able to find a happy medium.

OBJECTIVES:
One of the tricks to developing assessment is to know where you want students to go before you decide how they are going to get there. This is known as backwards curriculum design discussed by Wiggins and McTighe here. Writing learning objectives is one way that educators can think about and express where the want there students to go and how they will get there. Writing good objectives is difficult but this website was helpful.

CONCEPT MAPPING:
After writing some solid objectives constructing a concept map helps to organize thoughts so that the objective, activities and assessments are in line with the learning that is desired. The following example is a map that I created for a unit of exploration in my graphic design class using popplet.com. The lesson involves defining design principles, planning and creating a design that shows the use of these design principles and reflections that discuss the learning that took place. All of the artifacts and reflections would be included on a blog based portfolio that the students keep throughout the duration of the class.

FIRST ATTEMPT:

REDESIGNED AFTER SOME FEEDBACK:

Third try

4th try

WEEK 4:
COLLABORATIVE ASSESSMENT TOOL BOX
A Collaborative Jigsaw Allowed Us Four Teammates (Lisa Jones, Anne Cameron, Stephen Cobb & Zachary Wisser) To Explore Online Assessment Tools, Their Benefits, Threir Shortcomings And Their Applications. These Are The Highlights And Our Synthesis Of Our Research.

  Click to see the WEEBLY 


WEEK 5:
Taxonomy Table:
This week I researched taxonomy as a means to focus objective toward higher level learning activities. I worked towards building activities that challenge students to actively pursue the objectives that were discussed in the previously posted concept map. The results of my research and work on activities led me to build the taxonomy table below. The table includes four objectives from a unit in a hypothetical online design class that explores the use of visual hierarchy to communicate to an audience. The production of this table absolutely focused my attention on including verbs in my objectives that would help inform the students as to what they are to do in this unit.  

Bloom categories/Revised Taxonomy	Learning objective verbs	Activity
Knowledge /Remembering (recall, list, define, identify, collect, label)	Identify, collect	Provided with teacher’s presentation regarding visual hierarchy in graphic design, students will identify and collect visual examples of hierarchy found on the internet and will post their examples on a blog page called purposeful exploration (research).
Comprehension/Understanding (summarize, describe interpret, predict, discuss)	Summarize, describe	Provided with gathered images/examples of visual hierarchy, students will summarize their definition of hierarchy and describe how their gathered images exemplify the design principle known as hierarchy.
Application/Applying (apply, demonstrate, illustrate, classify, experiment, discover)
Analysis/Analyzing (analyze, classify, connect, explain, infer)
Evaluation/Evaluating (assess, recommend, convince, compare, conclude, summarize)	defend, evaluate	Provided with the experience of researching, planning/designing, the creation of a poster that demonstrates the use of visual hierarchy and a rubric, students will evaluate and defend their success through a written or audio reflection that is posted alongside their finished poster design on a blog page called portfolio.
Synthesis/Creating (combine, integrate, plan, create, design, formulate)	Design, create, demonstrates	Provided with accumulated knowledge of visual hierarchy and a video demonstration of Sketchpad 2.0 (Free Google App), students will design & create an event poster that demonstrates the use of visual hierarchy.

Rubric Rehearsal: 

Developing objectives and ensuring that they are clear statements that will inform student activity throughout the unit is an important step in planning online instruction. However, without descriptions of achievement levels, students are likely to fall flat of the educators expectations. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to develop rubrics that clearly state the educators expectations for achieving mastery, mediocrity or failure. The rubric below was created for one of the objectives in the previously posted taxonomy table. This experience allowed me to explore just how difficult it is to clearly lead online students to an understanding of expectations.   

Objective: Provided with accumulated knowledge of visual hierarchy and a video demonstration of Sketchpad 2.0 (Free Google App), students will design & create an event poster that demonstrates the use of visual hierarchy.  

Criteria	4	3	2	1
Purposeful Exploration	Student demonstrates mastery of exploring all possibilities by showing multiple design possibilities, and redesigning and submitting after teacher/student feedback is considered.	Student demonstrates some exploration with multiple solutions considered.	Student demonstrates very little exploration with only one solution submitted.	Student demonstrates no attempt to explore design solutions.
Formal Qualities	Student demonstrates mastery through many design choices that results in visual hierarchy in their design.	Student demonstrates some design choices that result in some visual hierarchy in their design.	Student demonstrates little design choices that result in little visual hierarchy in their design.	Student demonstrates no design choices that result in no visual hierarchy in their design.
Technical Media Skills	Student demonstrates mastery of the given design program.	Student demonstrates some knowledge of the given design program.	Student demonstrates little knowledge of the given design program.	Student demonstrates no knowledge of the given design program.
Meaning & Function	Student demonstrates a mastery of visual communication skills through the use of visual hierarchy, creative problem solving, design choices and technical skills.	Student demonstrates some visual communication skills through the use of visual hierarchy, creative problem solving, design choices and technical skills.	Student demonstrates little visual communication skills and is minimally using visual hierarchy, creative problem solving, design choices and technical skills.	Student demonstrates no visual communication skills and is not attempting using visual hierarchy, creative problem solving, design choices and technical skills.
Imaginative Expression	Student demonstrates mastery of creative solutions to design problems in their design.	Student demonstrates some creative solutions to design problems in their design.	Student demonstrates little creative solutions to design problems in their design.	Student demonstrates no creative solutions to design problems in their design.

WEEK 6 
Pre-coarse Survey: 
Survey monkey allowed me to make a quick survey that students would take before starting my online design coarse. The survey was designed to get critical information that would allow me to best teach my students. Take the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TTRYSHW

WEEK 7

What a week! A lot of hours later... My final project draft is below:

http://wisseronlineassessment.weebly.com/