Animate for Assessment

by Mike Kaechele

In my technology class the "content" is somewhat up to me and I don't give tests. I teach using projects as both the content and the assessment. Since I have some freedom regarding content I like to show students how to use on-line tools for learning integrated with other subjects. I try to work with other teachers in my building to tie into what they are doing in their courses. So I worked with the 7th grade science teachers to have students make videos about different kinds of waves. I showed students different examples and gave them many choices for ways to present. The following is one way.

You may have seen this animation from RSA set to a talk by Sir Ken Robinson. If not, it is worth the 12 minutes.



I showed part of this video to my class and told them that this was one choice for their presentation style. I would let them use a new tool, my livescribe smartpen. One group took me up on it.

First they wrote their script and practiced it on scrap paper. The smartpen requires special paper with micro dots printed on it that an infrared camera at the tip of the pen reads. They then recorded it talking while they drew. They did it in the hallway so there is a bit of talking in the background.

The really nice part about the pen is that you simply plug it into your computer and upload your program and you can easily put it on the livescribe site. From there you can get embed code to put it wherever you choose online. This next quarter I am going to have the whole class try making this style of videos.

So you like this idea, but have no money for a pen. Try using this online whiteboard from GE instead. It lets you email a link to 2 or 3 friends so multiple users can draw at one time. It records the drawing and allows you to play it back. Students can email their finished drawings to themselves or save them. Students could put them on-line using a screencast program such as Jing (requires free download) or Screencast-o-matic (online and easily uploads to Youtube in HD). You can get almost the same effect as the pen for the great price of free!

On the Natural Connection between the Arts and Technology

ASCD practically researches ancient history with this post today:

All too often, arts education is regarded as a whimsical activity rather than a serious academic subject. In the December 1987/January 1988 issue of Educational Leadership, former U.S. Commissioner of Education and President of the Carnegie Foundation Ernest Boyer argues that the arts should be considered in both an intellectual and imaginative context.

I love working in the Department of Fine Arts. I've got a little desk in the television studio's control room littered with computer paraphernalia and a small collection of jazz cds; I teach Art History and a course on Digital Audio Production; and I help maintain a lab of Macs including some in the hall where we project student work.

To me, the Fine Arts -- especially in an academic context -- are all about problem solving. To 'make' something is to make a series of decisions. In almost no other discipline is the line between 'getting it' and 'not getting it' so clear. Either you've learned how to make a pot or you haven't. Either you can edit a video or you can't. Everything else is a matter of style and character.

And that's why it's so invigorating to teach. Because, in a way, you get the basic stuff out of the way early. What's left is the real stuff of the soul.

I would also say that in no other department is technology so naturally intertwined with our everyday work. As I write this, the student TV crew is preparing a live production. It's all a blur of kids hurrying about plotting the digital mixers, switchers, multi-monitor set-ups... let alone setting up the cameras, lighting rigs, and everything else. Across the hall, the drawing teacher is projecting enlarged digital versions of classwork for crit. Next door, a dozen students are busy laying out the school newspaper in digital format. My class is down the hall working on a collaborative blog project that I'm monitoring from over here in my office.

More and more, the arts and technology are being merged in completely naturally and beneficial ways. That's the way it should be.