Technology Initiative and Grant Proposal- Help us See the World to Create: iPad Integration for the Artist in Us All. Enjoli Bell

Technology Initiative and Grant Proposal – Help us See the World to Create: iPad Integration for the Artist in Us All.

 Enjoli Bell

Rationale:

I decided to base my technology initiative off of the time that I spent as a high school art teacher in WV as I am currently not working in a school environment. I taught Art I for four years in Preston County before relocating. The technology that I have chosen to incorporate is iPads. During my time in the art classroom, I was only fortunate enough to have 2 computers, a laptop for my use and a desktop for student use. So needless to say this was a constant strain on everyone.  The situation was the same for my fellow art teacher. We had very limited funding for even basic materials. The students would have to constantly share and rotate through using the computer for images, researching for projects, and visiting museum sites. Being that art is a visual language; students are in constant need of visuals to create from. Having very few books in the classroom, the students needed to rely on the internet for a visual library. If we could acquire even ten iPads this would dramatically increase the student’s ability as 21 century learners. Not only could they easily search images needed for references, they could access museum sites,  use the camera to go out and create their own compositions or images for projects, look up questions that they may have on their own, and create digital art using art apps. Truly the possibilities would be endless for creating and learning in an art classroom with iPads at the student’s disposal. They could learn how to create artwork for future presentations, how to upload these to a digital portfolio and even comment and critique each other’s artwork online.

Needs Assessment:

The community analysis of Preston County Schools shows that the region is characterized by rural development, farmland, forest, and residential areas. To the West are Monongalia, Marion and Taylor counties and to the south is Tucker County.

The census of 2000 showed that there was a population of 29,334 people. The racial makeup of the county was 98.84% White, 0.29% African American, 0.11% Native American, 0.15% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.57% Hispanic or Latino, 0.05% from other races and 0.54% from two or more races.

The median income for a household in the county was $27,927, and the median income for a family was $32, 904. 14.70% of families and 18.30% of the population were below the poverty line.

Preston County has 49.0% of students receiving free or reduced lunch. This shows the percent of all enrolled children in grades K-12 who applied and were approved for free or reduced-price school meals. This is used as a measure of the percent of poor and near-poor children in West Virginia.  Based on this demographic information integrating technology and trying to keep our students competitive for college or the job market is very important. Integrating iPads will help students to become more actively engaged in the objectives and goals for their lessons.

Help us See the World to Create: iPad Integration for the Artist in Us All.

Project Overview:

It is vital for students to learn to create digitally using 21^st century technology to be prepared to succeed after high school in college and the workforce.  Students having access to iPads in the Art classroom would be able to create and share digital content and media that focused on art and also cross-curricular learning. The Fine Arts department teachers will collaborate to integrate the use of iPads in their classrooms.

Goals:

·         Given iPads in an art classroom students could draw, paint, use digital photography, critique,  use digital storytelling, animation, graphic design, build websites, movie-making, and more.

·         Work with students to expand their knowledge base on how to use technology to help them become better 21^st century learners.

·         iPads can help students to become more proactive in answering their own questions by providing them the ability to open up an internet browser and locate the information needed.

·         Students will be able to upload and share their work more easily with each other and provide critique and feedback to others in the classroom.

·         Having access to iPads in Art will provide a great multimedia environment for students to learn, create and grow from.

Activities to Integrate iPads into the Art Classroom:

·         Students will create digital artworks using 21^st century technology to gain skills needed to succeed in the future.

·         Students will use iPads to read and research for their art projects and concepts.

·         Students can search and find images for inspiration and reference.

·         Using iPads in the art classroom gives students a base to build technology skills that they can use in other classes and in the future to create presentations.

·         Students will upload their artwork to Artsonia and collaborate with each other by critiquing artwork and providing positive feedback to each other.

·         Students will be able to access a wealth of information on artists or time periods that we are studying.

·         Students will experience a multitude of ways to create using art apps.

Alignment to International Society for Technology in Education (iste):

I chose one sub-category from each standard for the art classroom, to start out and focus on but each sub-category will be covered in the course of a school year.

1. Creativity and Innovation- Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop Innovative products and processes using technology.

B. Create original works as a means of personal or group expression, this particular standard is prevalent in the art classroom. 

2. Communication and Collaboration- Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.

A. Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.  Access to ipads will give students the ability to participate in all of these types of opportunities every class.

3. Research and Information Fluency – Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate and use information.

                B. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.  Students would have the ability to find their own project resources and answer their own questions at any moment with an iPad at their desk.

4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making- Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.

                B. Plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.  Students will constantly need to form a plan to complete the given project at hand and be able to search out resources to complete the tasks at hand.

Timeline:

Before Students Begin the School Year	Art Department teachers will meet in a PLC group. Teachers will use self-directed professional learning materials and free materials online to explore and learn how to use iPads.  We will schedule a weekly meeting and also determine at what rate we would like to cover Chapters or sections in the Just in Time Professional Learning course. Free in iTunes. Talk about ways to incorporate iPads into the art classroom.
First 9 Weeks	Art Department teachers will continue to meet once a week to share strategies and ask questions about iPads. Educate students on the proper way to handle iPads and the basic functions. Survey students to see their technical ability level using iPads. Students begin to use iPads for research and reference for projects. Students will learn to upload artwork to an online gallery to be shared with classmates and the larger community.
Second 9 Weeks	Continue to meet and work together on professional development. Teachers will choose an art app to explore and integrate into the classroom. Students begin to explore Apps for creating. Survey Students
Third 9 Weeks	Teacher will meet to discuss and evaluate how iPad integration is going in the art classroom. What changes need to be made? What is working? What is very successful? Survey Students
Fourth 9 Weeks	Continue to meet and work in PLC groups. Survey Students and compile data for the school year.
End of School	Analyze the data Teachers reflect on iPad integration process for the first year.  Planning for the next school year.

Costs:

Apple iPad Learning Lab (Includes Bretford PowerSync Cart for iPad and 10 iPad 2 16GB with Wi-Fi devices)	$6,299.00
iPad Smart Cases	$49.00 X 10 = $490.00
MacBook Air	$1, 149.00
Apple VGA Adapter (supports video mirroring so everyone in the room can see what is on your screen.	$29.00
Money to purchase apps	$1,000.00
Total Costs	$8,967.00

Summary:

We as an Art Department are excited about incorporating iPads into our classrooms to provide support of the 21^st century learning environment of our school. Having access to iPads in the art classroom will open many doors for students to create multimedia presentations and to create art digitally. They will learn skills that they can carry with them into the future for presentations. If I were still teaching in Preston County and trying to implement this TI, I would apply to donorschoose.org. Once the project was listed on the website for donations, students would help brainstorm ways to promote our need for funding to acquire iPads. I believe with social networking and advertising locally in the community that we could generate enough interest to meet our financial goal.

Professional Development Strategy:

During the Professional Development module in this course, I determined that a Professional Learning Community (PLC) would be the best route for my technology initiative. PLC’s are supportive learning communities where teachers collaborate to discuss new strategies and practices that are being used in their classrooms. They share and report the results to each other and can solve problems together in a supportive environment. When I taught at the High school, we met once a week in a PLC, and every week there was something that we were to discuss and then the teachers also shared. It was a great experience for me as a beginning teacher and I seemed to be beneficial to all teacher involved as well.

So we would continue to meet once a week to work on the grant proposal for iPads and after acquiring the technology we would meet up to strategize how to incorporate the iPads effectively into the art classroom.  We will discuss what apps to explore and purchase and work on professional development activities together. A blog was started as a way to share and document our progress and setback as we go.  It can be accessed at http://ipadsforart.wordpress.com/.  It would also be a great way to share with each other when we are not in the PLC. We will create surveys to administer to the students from the beginning to the end of the year to evaluate their learning experiences using the iPads. At the end of the school year we will meet and evaluate the collected data and begin to plan for year two. Teachers will answer the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SHGKDYX .  Hopefully we will also being to work on a second grant proposal for the addition of ten more iPads to the set.   

References:

Children Approved for Free and Reduced-Price School Meals (Grades K-12) (Percent)-2011

 http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/bystate/Rankings.aspx?state=WV&ind=3412

Demographic Makeup of Preston County

http://www.prestoncountyschools.com/documents/volume1.pdf

Professional Development (self-paced, free in iTunes)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/just-in-time-professional/id605198747

Morrissey S. Melanie.  (2000).  Professional Learning Communities: An Ongoing Exploration.  Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.  Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/pubs/catalog/items/cha45.html

A short free online book that reviews how a school should operate to become a learning community.

Apple Distinguished Educators.  (n.d.).   Just in Time Professional Learning.  iTunes Preview.  Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/just-in-time-professional/id605198747

A self-paced course for educators to gain skills and practices for finding, evaluating, organizing, and learning from existing resources.

Student made Art advocacy video, Tricia Fuglestad.  (2007, February).  Art-iculation.  Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/2790627

 Motivational video for why technology is needed in Art education.

Tricia Fuglestad and Suzanne Tiedemann.  (n.d.).  iPads in Art Education.  Retrieved from http://ipadsinart.weebly.com/index.html

 A great website where two teachers who have iPads in their art classrooms share and collaborate.

Shawn Carlson.  I-Pad Pilot.  Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/a/csd3-brhs.org/i-pad-pilot/home

I-Pad Pilot website which is used by teachers at a school to share information concerning the deployment of iPads.

BalancedEdTech.  (2011, August).  Apps Taskonomy: Digging Deeper into the Application of Apps.  Retrieved from  http://balancedtech.wikispaces.com/Apps+Taskonomy

Professional development activity for teachers.

Tricia Fuglestad, Theresa Gillespie, and Suzanne Tiedemann.. (2011, May).  Ipadsinart.  Retrieved from http://ipadsinart.wikispaces.com/home

Three teachers who are working to find ways to improve instruction and art production in the art room with iPads

Ian Wilson.  (n.d.).  IPADS IN EDUCATION.  Retrieved from http://www.ipadineducation.co.uk/iPad_in_Education/Welcome.html

A website ran by Ian Wilson, a freelance Apple Distinguished Educator. Pages are listed by subject area and provide a large number of apps for teaching and learning.

Melissa Enderle.  (2013, January).  From iPads to Crayons.  Promoting Creativity in the Art Room.  Retrieved from http://www.coetail.com/melissaenderle/2013/01/26/promoting-creativity-in-the-art-room/

An important reminder that the art lesson should be focused on creativity and not the technology only.