School one of 10 nationwide and only facility in Alabama chosen to participate in John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center program

I am thrilled to share that Foley Middle School in Baldwin County is one of 10 nationwide and the only facility in Alabama chosen to participate in John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center program.

Educators at Foley Middle School are being given a rare opportunity this week to showcase a unique art curriculum. The school was chosen as one of 10 across the nation — and the only school in Alabama — to participate in a program sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a Washington, D.C.-based educational facility that is administered by the Smithsonian Institution.

The students are creating a documentary about Fairhope artist Ricky Trione, a blind painter who visits students and demonstrates his ability to create visual art.

I have had the privilege of collaborating with Ricky Trione and Vicky Cook (Baldwin County Fine Arts and Media Supervisor) as they share art, character and special education ideas with preservice teachers at the University of South Alabama. I have presented with them at the Troy Alabama Art Summit and most recently at the National Art Education Association Conference in Minneapolis.

A bus, described by Kennedy Center officials as "a media studio on wheels" and manned by a three-person team of theater and media professionals, is at the school from April 21 through May 1. YOU can read updates at the Road Diary site. The documentary is part of a grant that will give the school a media lab consisting of a computer, digital editing software, camera, sound recording equipment and accessories, valued at an estimated $5,000; $1,000 for the school to support the project; curriculum materials to develop media projects about the arts; and training for teachers and students.

The documentary being created by the students will be showcased on http://www.artsedge.org/onlocation/ according to Donna Russell, executive director of the Alabama Alliance for Arts Education.

Baldwin County schools Fine Arts Director Vicky Cook said the school was chosen because of the application written by Foley Middle's librarian Sue Norman and the novelty of Trione's presentations.

Dog & Shapes

What a relaxed demeanor! How did William get Fay to pose for such a symmetrical image? I wonder how many shots this took!

Triangle, Circle, Semi-Circle, Rectangle, Square:

AKRON, OH - The Akron Art Museum will present the wonderfully witty, entertaining and moving exhibition William Wegman: Fay, featuring the artistic collaboration between William Wegman (b. 1943) and his celebrated Weimaraner, Fay (1984-1995). The Akron Art Museum is fortunate to be able to include in this exhibition not just black and white photographs but also large format Polaroids and chromogenic (color) prints, from the artist’s personal collection. In addition to 56 still photographs, extensive selections from Wegman’s videos featuring Fay will be on continuous view in the exhibition. On view 16 May through 16 August, 2009.

NAEA: The White Ella Project

One of the most interesting and inspiring presentations I attended at the NAEA Conference was Karen Danielson's Teaching Preservice Generalists: Global Poverty and a Transformative Curriculum. Karen discussed ways she used Aqua Yost's paintings on global poverty to inspire preservice teachers to transform curriculum through the arts. The class assignments and outcomes Karen shared have inspired me to rethink my own teaching methods.

See the Aqua Yost Video at http://current.com/items/88868448_the-white-ella-project.htm

NAEA Connections Across The Bay

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Naea Connections Across The Bay Pp

View more presentations from guestb09d10.

Solving Problems

Einstein said "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it."

Now I'm thinking about how to solve my problems...maybe I need to be unconscious? :-)

Build Your Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Craig Roland (associate professor of art education at the University of Florida in Gainesville) reminded me of the reason I Blog, Facebook, join Nings and create Wikis in his recent May/June 2009 SchoolArts article: "What you gain from your personal learning network will be in direct proportion to what you put into it: the more you contribute, the more you'll get back."

As most writers and artists know, I find it therapeutic to communicate (in multiple forms) my ideas and reflections as I read and view what others share.

In addition to his own presence on the WWW, which continues to inform and inspire me, Craig offers some great blogs he follows:

To find and track blogs:
Technorati.com

blogsearch.google.com

Top Education Blogs at:
education.alltop.com

Top Art Education at:
art.alltop.com

Art Ed:
carrotrevolution.blogspot.com

theteachingpalette.com

digitalartstechacademy.blogspot.com

2009 National Art Education Association Conference

I returned last night from the National Art Education Association Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After the NAEA conference last year, I synthesized all my conference notes and images and reflected on my own and other presentations with links to resources at my Art Talk wiki. I found this reflection process quite helpful in my own professional development and it provided information for my students as well as an organized resource for my own future reference. (So often I return from a conference and forget the ideas I found inspiring because I jump back into the maze I have created at home.) Because I attended the 2009 NAEA conference this year with plans to post reflections, and because I found the majority of the sessions I attended worthwhile and informative, I have copious notes to revisit. I will engage in this synthesis and reflection soon and post the link here!
Last Year - 2008 NAEA Conference Reflection: http://arttalk.wetpaint.com/page/National+Art+Education+Association...
This Year - 2009 NAEA coming soon....

NAEA created a conference wiki for presenters to share resources. Many excellent presentation resources are already uploaded. I will be posting my PowerPoints to this site as well.
http://naea.wikispaces.com/

Any Value to Social Networking?

So according to Will Richardson, "The world is changing because of social web technologies. Our kids are using them. No one is teaching them how to use them to their full learning potential, and ultimately, as teachers and learners, that’s our responsibility. To do that, we need to be able to learn in these contexts for ourselves."

I AGREE.

Richard goes on to provide a reference: a piece in the Harvard Graduate School of Education magazine Ed. titled “Thanks for the Add. Now Help Me with my Homework.” As Richardson points out "Harvard" and "research" might be cause for notice.

Some points made:

• A virtual creative writing boom among students spending long hours writing stories and poetry to paste on their blogs for feedback from friends, or creating videos on social issues to bring awareness to a cause
• Skills students are developing on social networking sites, are the very same 21st century skills that educators have identified as important for the next generation of knowledge workers — empathy, appreciation for diversity of viewpoints, and an ability to multitask and collaborate with peers on complex projects
• A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers cited this spring in The New York Times found that more than half of employers now use SNSs to network with job candidates.
• "Perhaps even more important than the impact of social networking on the classroom, however is the impact that the classroom can have on social networking, by teaching students how to be responsible "digital citizens" online. At their most basic level, these sites can be launching points to discussions on Internet ethics. "If we want kids to be digital citizens, we must model that behavior for them," says Greenhow. As it stands now, however, most schools do the exact opposite, actively discouraging student use of social networking sites by blocking them on school computers -- sending the message that they are dangerous or inappropriate. As Wiske says, "A lot of people can do a lot of damage driving cars, but we shouldn't tell kids not to drive cars."

There's MORE: Read the entire Will Richardson post The “Added Value of Networking.”

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN: A Guide for Global Leadership?

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

I came across the following application of Robert Fulghum's list; something to think about:
"Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."

Cool Resources I Found Today

FUNDRED

The FUNDRED DOLLAR BILL PROJECT is an innovative artwork made of millions of drawings. This creative collective action is intended to support OPERATION PAYDIRT, an extraordinary art/science project uniting three million children with educators, scientists, health care professionals, designers, urban planners, engineers and artists. Together they are working to make safe the lead polluted soil of New Orleans that places thousands of children at risk for severe learning disabilities and behavioral problems, including violent crime.

In This Case: Godly Susan

At the Smithsonian American Art Museum "Eye Level" Blog, there is a great entry on understanding and responding to the portrait Godly Susan by Roger Medearis.

"The choices artists make about what to include in their work and how to do it are very interesting, whether they are part of a larger, moral message or something more personal. You can make a close reading of a painting by simply looking, but there are some things that cannot be uncovered without doing a little more research. Maybe you'll need to pull out an old art history textbook, or do some reading on the artist. Everything is intentional!"