 That's right. The third graders and I witnessed an alien invasion in the art room! They were everywhere: in the sink, on the scoreboard, running across the floor, jumping off the projector, playing with the green screen, and terrorizing the students as they ran like crazy around the room. We were able to capture it all on video and compile it into one movie. See it here or below.
 SPOILER ALERT:
Okay, it's a hoax. Third graders created the aliens on iPads using DOINK and took a photo of a place in the art room for their running creature to "invade". The process is summed up in this behind the scenes video here or below.
More about this project: Students have a screenshot of their alien invasion video on Artsonia. View them here. This project is a revised version of last year's "Aliens Have Landed" series. View more. We were able to use the updated version of DOINK to add a photo below our alien. I wrote a grant to receive over 100 copies of this app and a class set of styluses. View.
I just returned from a wonderfully energizing conference experience with thousands of art educators from around the country meeting for 4 days in Fort Worth, Texas. I loved the time I had with my Personal Learning Network (PLN) face to face. These are the people I learn from all year-round online through our social networks. All SIX of my presentations were with people I connect with online, three of which I had never met in person before! We decided ahead of time to buy this shirt from Inkpixie using our Twitter Handle and wear them as we gathered on Saturday for coffee. We posed together for this picture. (Our hands look funny because we are trying to imitate this picture that Stacy Lord made when she was being silly on a snow day.) Six Presentations:  Technology Tools in Elementary ArtTheresa McGee, an elementary art teacher in Hinsdale, IL, and I traveled together to Texas. We rushed over to the conference as soon as we arrived 15 minutes before our first presentation where we took turns with two other art teachers including Jessica Balsley demonstrating how we use technology. I quickly demonstrated this iPad art lesson called, It's Not Christina's World Anymore, based on the painting, Christina's World. See the finished student art here.
 Connected Art Educators: PLNsDr. Craig Roland, Prof. of Art Ed at Uof Fl, Dr. Elizabeth Delacruz (my former professor from U of I), Ian Sands, H.S. art teacher from Apex, NC, and I each took turns sharing how our online personal learning network has made a difference for our professional growth and has benefitted our students. I talked about three stories: Careers in Art, Doink Alien Animations, and IPEVO. It's too much to explain here, but trust me, they're great stories!
 Western Region/Southeastern Region Elementary Art Teacher ShowcaseThis presentation was part of winning the Western Region Elementary Art Teacher of the Year Award. I tried to sum up everything we do in 20 minutes. I used this video to preface the presentation and followed with a focus on how we use technology in our art room. I explain it better in this online presentation. The other presenter was Jennifer Johnson Keith of Louisiana who shared about her wonderful program in 20 minutes as well. It is hard to condense a career full of stories into 20 mins.
 Artsonia-Online Digital Art GalleryThis is the 5th year I've been able to present on using Artsonia as a tool to create a digital portfolio with my students. Our presentation has grown and evolved over the years as the company has improved and changed to make their service better and better for art teachers and their students. The CEO and President of the company joined Susan, Theresa, and I to help answer questions from the attendees and hear their concerns and questions about the process of getting started. Learn more here.
 iPads in Art (Part Two)This session was a continuation of the session that Suzanne Tiedemann and I ( Theresa Gillespie was with us in spirit) did last year to a standing room only group. We thought that since the room was so small we should offer it again so those who really wanted to learn about creating art on iPads can get a chance. Luckily they gave us a larger room where all 150 or so attendees could each find a seat. This year Theresa Gillespie joined me ( Suzanne was with us in spirit) as we presented about the top three projects we successfully accomplished with our students. You can learn more from my page, Theresa's page, and this page made jointly by Suzanne and me.
 Lights, Camera, Learning!
with Fugleflicks and CampbellartsoupI was so excited to share about making movies to teach art concepts with Janine Campbell. We had been learning from each other for years online and finally met as we shared our different approaches to student created art related movie making. Learn more about Janine's program here. View our Fugleflicks index here.
Receiving my Award  On March 7th I received the Western Region Elementary Art Teacher of the Year 2013 Award from the National Art Education Association. My nominator was Samantha Melvin of Texas who was the National Elementary Art Teacher of the Year in 2012. It is such an honor to be recognized at this level for doing the job that I love. Thank you PLN for making me a better teacher!
 Read this story about the THREE Illinois Art Educators recognized at the National Art Education Conference.
 MY take on this trip
When I saw this photo taken by Jennifer at the showcase presentation that we shared, I had a WOW moment as I looked at a relaxed and confident person happily talking to a large crowd of people at a national conference. You may not know my journey, but here is a hint: I was so painfully shy growing up and into my adult years that I had to come home from college after two weeks because I was too afraid to go into the cafeteria for my meals.
Thank you to all the people over the years who gently held my hand and helped me grow.
Art Teachers in Indiana
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Gretchen's Doink Alien
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Creating on iPads
| I lead an Art Education Association of Indiana sponsored an iPad workshop with art teachers on Saturday, Feb. 23rd. We explored techniques, ideas, and some apps that would enhance their art curriculum using my Creating on iPads resource page as a reference. Thank you Jill Sayers for organizing this event and Jay Blackman for setting up the tech. Together we drew collaboratively, from photos, in layers, from scratch, emailed art, practiced using the dropbox, grabbing templates, using photographic effects (both web-based and app-based), and created animations using the amazing Doink App. We even looked at how to build a Weebly website to host your links, photos, videos, and files to give access to your students. Take a look at their creations in the video below:) Special thanks goes to the folks at Percolator App and Bobbleshop App for giving us free iPad app codes. Attendees were very excited to go home and play!
We just learned that the animation app company DOINK will use images from Dryden's Art room and my Creating on iPad workshops to inspire others to get creative in their presentation at the LearnLaunch EdTech conference in Boston next week. Below is the video they prepared (or click here).  Click the image to view it larger If you want to learn more about how we have used the DOINK app in art class you can read the article in the Jan-Feb edition of iPhone Life Magazine, or read my blog post with video of students working, a tutorial of how to create, and their finished projects, or you can join me at the MINICON conference this Saturday (only $5) where we will draw together on the iPads. I will have DOINK app codes to raffle at the end of the session!
 Today I had the privilege of working with a great group of art teachers in Antioch, IL on using iPads to create in the art room. We spent the whole day exploring techniques, lesson ideas, and some great art apps. I'm so glad I made my wish for an iPEVO because my wireless plan for mirroring the iPad failed on their school's wireless network. By the way you can make a wish for an IPEVO too at this link.
Creating on iPads workshop SD 34
We tried an exquisite corpse project
One of the lesson ideas on my Creating on iPads page. You can download my template, draw the head, pass it to your neighbor who draws the next section, then pass again to the next person, and so on until the figure is complete. This is a great way to introduce figure drawing to your students. |
Collaborative art project This is the drawing I began then three other art teachers contributed to it as we pass it around.
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We loved DOINK for animation
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Used my handouts, tutorials, examples
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New App: Bobbleshop Great app to prepare students for a self-portrait or cartooning unit
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New App: Amaziograph This app makes tessellations. Here I'm trying a Keith Haring themed tessellation
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Over break I was asked to try to summarize how we use iPads in Dryden's art program. This felt very difficult because it is an organic process that evolves and grows as I learn what my students are capable of accomplishing and what apps are available to enrich our learning. Below are the slides I submitted to Sumit Vishwakarma, iPad artist and speaker. He will be including Dryden's art program in his presentation at the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco titled iPad Art Innovation. I also sent him a video with footage and stills of my students exploring and creating on their iPads (scroll down). If you are interested in exploring more ideas for using iPads in art, take a look at my Creating on iPads page with tutorials, examples, and files for experimentation.
Students are animating using rotoscope techniques, creating animations with the onion skinning technique in the DOINK app, and using layers over a template in kindergarten.
Students use iPads as an extension to their painting projects as they explore the same concepts but this time with digital media.
Students use apps that transform their art. Wordfoto adds a students' artist statement to the art, Percolator app abstracts the art, Faces iMake stretches their imagination with digital collages.
 Three wonderful art teachers flew out from a suburb of Detroit to join me in an all-day iPad workshop at Dryden. We explored ways to use ipads to make art using drawing tools, layering, incorporating the camera, graphic design techniques, photo effects, drawn animation, stop-motion animation and more. I demonstrated ways that I mirror my ipad, have students turn in their images, and how I assemble their work in iMovie. We made the movie below together at the end of our day showing much of what we explored. Learn about these techniques and ipad ideas on my Creating on iPads page.
 Digital Spoof of Son of Man |  Drawing over a Photo |  Layering a photo into a painting |  text + image + color | | Drawn animation using DOINK app | Stop-Motion using iMotion HD App | "I can’t thank you enough for your workshop. You are an incredible art educator and I am in awe of your capabilities. Thank you for your hospitality and sharing your vast knowledge of technology!" -Nancy
"Wow! Tricia is humble and so talented! Thank you for an amazing learning and sharing day! Big hugs from Melissa, Nancy and Sarah"
I've been playing with the animation app called Doink and combining it with green screen FX in iMovie. Below is a short video showing a layered animation over still images. There are SO many possibilities for this technique. I created this tutorial showing the iPad steps for making an animation in Doink, the steps I went through to use that animation as a video layer in iMovie over still images and video. See below or at this link.  View my other post/tutorial called, The Aliens Have Landed, about how to make aliens run using Doink. You can view my students' video all strung together in iMovie at the link above as well.
 I created a page on my website dedicated to helping teachers get started with creating on iPads. It has links to resources, files, videos, tutorials, and art galleries to help you through the process. I added some handouts today with a bit more detail to help things along. Download the pdf here.
 I recommend starting with this icebreaker activity to help you explore the painting tools, get a feel for the stylus, and trouble shoot Brushes app until it is doing what you want it to do.
Click on the image to enlarge.
 This activity uses the Brushes app. This is a nice project to help create a collaborative piece of art while learning digital tools and refreshing your figure drawing skills. You will need my template to get started. Click on the image to enlarge.
 You will need a couple of my files and the Brushes app again for this technique. I also have a video that will help you see what this looks like in the classroom. This technique can be used for any sketching activity when students need to look closely. Click on the image to enlarge.
 This graphic design technique is so easy that you'll start to wonder if anyone would pull out the laptops and try to layer in photoshop with elementary students ever again. View the video of students working. Grab hat. Grab a sample of healthy choices. Click on the image to enlarge.
 This project was a grand slam with my fifth graders. This technique is spelled out in this post. I put together a sample set of images to practice with taken from a 4 second video with at 12 fps rate. So give it a try.
Click on the image to enlarge.
 My third graders LOVED learning to create an animation using a flip book technique with onion skinning which sounds complicated, but trust me, you'll catch on really quick. View my tutorial. See my students at workClick on the image to enlarge.
Have fun creating on iPads. Don't forget all these resources and more are on the Creating on iPads page.
I'm gearing up for the school year by collecting my resources and making them easily available for anyone who wants to learn some of my tips for how to create on the iPad. There are tons of apps in the app store, but I tried to limit my ideas to only a few so that we can work with what we have on our school iPads while I explore other apps and begin writing grants to get them in the future. (100 ipads=$$ for each app purchase) so I'm trying to keep it simple. Below is a screen shot of the new page I added to my website. Visit it here. There are links leading to resources, videos, tutorials, and files that you can download from your iPad and get started playing right away.
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