IB Art is by far, the most challenging class I've taught. In addition to projects, students are required to research, reflect, analyze, and explore in their IB Workbooks to the tune of 4-5 pages a week. The students seem pretty up to the challenge. It's a great class. However, getting the workbook 'right' is no easy task. Its not a sketchbook, its not a journal, its not a notebook, and its not a scrapbook. Its all of those things, and more. I created this slide show to help them think about how to approach their workbook. The second half of the slideshow deals with how to use the book to approach a project, and ends with an introduction to our next project.

...every body will be famous for 15 minutes. Link via Boing Boing.

This summer Kim bought me a Holga Lomography camera and a fisheye lens for my birthday. These fun little cameras give you the opportunity to work with this retro material called 'film' (which was the medium that photographers worked in between derrogotypes and digital), and it mimics the poor color quality which we once lamented and now idolize. The cameras themselves are inexpensive and the students seem to love the idea of giving their photographs a lomographic look. You don't need a special camera for that, just photoshop and one of many tutorials to get you started.

In the past I've made the last project for many of my classes the creation of a digital portfolio. For example, when I taught in New York my year three video classes would have to create a DVD portfolio, and my advanced photography classes had to make a digital sideshow. I can't help but notice how much has changed in the last few years, specifically, how easy it is to make an online portfolio.

For example, iWeb just keeps getting better and better. It used to be a little annoying if you didn't have a .mac account. You'd need to save and export everything to a folder, then use a separate ftp client to upload it to your website. With iLife 08, they added the ability to put in little html clips if you were so inclined - which was great news if you know how to code, and even better news if you wanted to embed a video or any of the other embeddable goodies out there in the internets. Then, with iLife 09, they added a built-in ftp client and that small time saver makes a huge difference.

However, not all of us have Macs, or want to build portfolios from scratch- lets face it, if we're doing it with a class, we'll need to commit to learning a little bit about good web design - that is a great idea if you can work it into your curriculum. However, if you don't have the time, or don't have a mac, here are 10 great alternatives from Spoongraphics.

Well, its actually just 9 great alternatives (or 7 great alternatives if you're looking only for unpaid sites) as the last one is advice for building your own.

Here's one more though, if your students are shooting film or video. Reel Clever (Thanks Jerry!) is a site to upload and share your show reel!

This year, I'm making time for this - for my intro classes as well. As our collective concept of "publishing" changes, and we can find authetentic audiences outside the walls of the classroom, the students interaction with their own art work can no longer end with 'turning it in'.

(In reference to a cheap mechanical rabbit I bought for the 100 Kuai Challenge, which I'm working on as well)

Joy: You stripped it of all of its best assets! ...Eyeball-wise.

We've had many wonderful years, and it would indeed take a lot to pull me away from you...

...but I have to say, this looks very attractive.

Get it together.

Teachers of various digital media and animation take heed! The international collaborative Rotoball Project returns in 2010 with an important change: This year, we will accept any form of animation, as long as it conforms to the rules of the game!

These rules are:

The ball must enter from the left hand of the screen.
The ball transforms into a new object and interacts with a chosen scene.
The object transforms back to a ball and exits the right hand of the screen.
The entire animation is 15 seconds.

Herbert Kohl wrote an excellent Open letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  It is well worth a read, as well as a digg.  Here is an excerpt:

Cutting programs in the arts reinforces this impoverishment of learning. The free play of the imagination, which is so crucial for problem-solving and even for entrepreneurship, is discouraged in a basics curriculum lacking in substantial artistic and human content.

Add to this the elimination of physical education in order to clear more time to torture students with mechanical drilling and shallow questioning and it is no wonder that many American students are lethargic.

It is possible to maintain high standards for all children, to help students learn how to speak thoughtfully, think through problems and create imaginative representations of the world — as it is and as it could be — without forcing them through a regime of high-stakes testing.

The burden of the art teacher is, of course, that we never have time for our own art. Kim and I are trying to fight that trend, although it gets harder and harder as it gets closer to baby time (at which point I'm sure we'll have all the time in the world...). So, one of the things we've done is to get a little creative and start a themed dinner club. This idea came from a dinner club that the Surrealists used to do - the famous example was that everyone had to provide a food that was a small white cube. Maybe that will be our next attempt.

I've added this badge to the sidebar down the left hand column. As an equally proud Philadelphian and art educator, it brings me no end of sadness that my home state passed a horrific bill eliminating state arts funding.

After commenting on another great tutorial that Frank posted recently, I was left thinking that perhaps I've been too lukewarm about using tutorials in class. Both he and Skocko seem to use them to great effect with their classes. For me, I always thought that if I show the students 'the right way' to do something, I've robbed them of the possibility of figuring it out for themselves. I have used tutorials in my class, but I've tried to keep it limited.

Consider me converted.

With that in mind, PSDTuts, has expanded into a whole new tutorial network worth checking out. For those of you working in meatspace, Smashing Magazine has a great list of 50 Clever Drawing Tutorials, including one of how to draw Marilyn Monroe (that would be...perscriptive)? After seeing a half dozen Monroe portraits of her at the Shanghai Contemporary Art Show this weekend, I'm sure this is a useful skill for all budding artists.

After a while, this kind of stuff just isn't surprising anymore, is it?

Its parent teacher night and I was just scaring the bejeebus out of a bunch of folks by telling that what I expect from their children this year is that they come to my class and fail.

Ok, then I explain that no, I don't expect (or want) them to fail my class. What I want is that they take risks and really put themselves out there. My photography students know that a National Geographic Nat Geo photographer will take 60,000+ photographs in one week in order to get the 4 or 5 good ones that end up in the magazine. I'm more interested in what they discover by botching something than what they give me that they think I'm looking for.

Its funny that on my little break period here, I just come across this video. Where were you 15 minutes ago, little clip? Ah well, at least it will still be here for the students tomorrow.

Part I: The Junkateria

Yu Yuan Garden is one of the biggest tourist attraction in Shanghai, a 16th century garden that is overrun with tourists all pushing their way across the Bridge of 9 Turns which brings luck for the year - at the expense of 3 minutes without personal space.

Outside of the Gardens are massive expansive of the small items markets: multi-storied buildings filled with tiny stalls selling everything from buttons to night lights to knockoff transformer toys (this kind really isn't anything more than meets the eye). There is something alluring about endless stalls of useless junk- poorly constructed electronic rabbits and fake jade bracelets just beg for meaning.

Out of this idea the 100 Kuai challenge is born. The IB Art Year One students are given this challenge to obtain materials for a mixed media sculpture:

• Spend exactly 100 Kuai (approximately 15 US Dollars). This is tricky because all prices at the market must be negotiated.
• Find all their materials in less than half an hour.
• Find their way in and out of the maze of the junkaterias and back to the meeting point.

Especially at the beginning of the school year, I'm often asked for a recommendation on video cameras. Students sometimes want to purchase their own for use in my class, or teachers want to buy cameras for their classes. I always begin by recommending to both that they figure out how much they want to spend and then look for the best camera in that price range. To this end, both Amazon and CamcorderReview.Com are useful resources. Amazon is a bit easier to navigate, and I find customer reviews often more insightful and practical than professional reviews. Camcorder Review.Com organizes its cameras buy price, brand, and media- a fantastic way of breaking down your various options. That being said, here are my personal choices for consumer camcorders, by price.

High End: $800-1200 range

Low End: Sanyo's Xacti
Forget the Flip.

Sanyo's Xacti camera has three things going for it that make it a better buy:

1) Removable storage: With the flip you're locked into 120 minutes. Although that's more than enough for most people, with the Xacti you can swap out SD cards.

2) The Xacti goes under water. It works up to 5 feet under water, great for swimming pools or snorkeling. Word of caution though- if you use it in salt water, you must clean it by soaking it in fresh water or the salt will corrode the insides. Found that out from a friend who will be a reader of manuals from now on, I suspect.

3) Its ergonomic. I have been waiting for a camera that actually fits comfortably in your hand for years. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for camera manufacturers, but I long for the sort of handle that I had on my old 8mm and 16 mm camera. It just feels better in your hand. For a simple carry-around camera, its a great choice.

The drawback for this camera is that there is no external mic, and the mic that is included, like almost every other consumer camcorder, isn't that great. If you're teaching a video class, you'll probably want a camera with a mic jack. That brings us to:

Low End: Canon ZR Series

I'm including the Canon ZR series in this, although their cheaper models seem to have disappeared, but you can still get them refurbished or used on Amazon. These cameras are not great. Not by a long shot. They have terrible sound (with an audible buzz) and they are horrific in low light. So why am I recommending them? It comes down to this- with these cameras, your students have to be conscious of sound and light. They need to use an external microphone and plan our their lighting. Otherwise, their videos will look terrible. If you're teaching video and want to emphasize the importance of lighting and sound, this could be a useful little tool, especially if you're on a budget.

However, if you really want good sound and good light and have a little more money, take a look at...

Mid Range: Panasonic HDC-HS9

STOP. Before you take my recommendation for this camera, heed the following warning. I used to recommend the mid-range Panasonic cameras because they were a great deal for a 3 CCD camera. A short explanation; most consumer camcorders have one CCD that receives all the light, 3CCDs break the light up into red, blue, and green and give you a much better image. However, for one reason or another, they've dropped their external microphone jack. This is a deal-breaker for me, as I want my students to have good audio, and no on-camera mic will do. However, I haven't so far seen another camera in this price range with as good an image quality. The newer models also shoot at 24 frames per second which give the footage a filmic feel - that's a great addition, but not enough of an incentive for me to forget the whole missing mic jack thing. Camera prices have dropped recently though, so I'm not sure if I'd even recommend these anymore when you can spend just a little bit more and get a much better camera, like...

High End: Canon Vixia

With proper lighting, the kind of image you can get with the Canon HV Series looks nothing short of fantastic. These cameras have the 24 frames per second mode, HD, and an external mic jack. In addition a manual focus ring allows you to pull focus and grab some control over your depth of field. This is hands down the best consumer camcorder I've worked with.

It does occur to me that most of us put our orders in at the end of the year. I'll repost this with updates later in the year.