Knecht/Mixon

Digital Arts

How can we use technology to incite curiosity?

Our summer program was not linear. "Lessons" were not necessarily taught in a linear order. Instead, a wide range of tools, programs, questions, technologies, etc. were presented to students as options. Students were given the opportunity to follow their curiosities using these options as starting points. Some students would jump from option to option throughout a single class.. Some students honed in on a single curiosity and followed it thoughout the entire summer.

Below, we show what occurred in our summer program. Keep in mind that, although it's presented in a linear form, most of the things we're sharing happened concurrently during any given session. 

Pixel Art

https://www.pixilart.com/draw

One of the first options presented to students was using pixel art to create images. Since pixels are the basic building blocks of computer images, it felt like a good starting place for working creatively with digital technology. Some students decided they wanted to sketch ideas on paper before attempting to render them in pixels. Some watched youtube tutorials or looked up reference images. Other students dove right in, prolifically creating pixel images straight from their imaginations. 

Below is a small gallery of more images created by students using pixel art.

Students were invited to print stickers of their pixel art. If students opted to print their stickers, our class took a "field trip" down to the office to work with the sweet administrators who helped students use the office printer. Once stickers were done, students traded stickers with each other. 

3D Printing

https://www.thingiverse.com/.         https://www.3dslash.net/index.php    https://www.tinkercad.com/dashboard

New Sullivan has a 3D printer, so we decided to set up a 3D printing station in the classroom. Students were invited to use the online website 3D Slash to design their own three-dimensional images. 3D slash is very similar to pixel art, in that images are built using rectilinear units. The only difference is that the units are cubes, rather than squares. In order to show students how the printer worked before they started designing their own objects, we looked up objects on Thingiverse. This provided us, the educators, an opportunity to get to know the interests of students more. 

Block Coding/ Game Design

https://arcade.makecode.com/

Some students were very interested in making their own video games. We used Make Code Arcade as our primary game-design program. The website provides thorough tutorials which walk students through introductory lessons of block coding. Sometimes students chose to work on their iPads. If the smartboard wasn't being used, some students preferred to work on the larger scale, enlisting more public help from the class. 

Collaborative Play/ Shared Smartboard

The smartboard was an integral element of our classroom. It allowed Mr. Jordan and Ms. Mixon to present work to the entire class. We used it to share songs, videos, host dance parties, play games and do group work. 

scribble.irl

https://scribbl.io/

One day, we attempted to play the online game, Scribbl. To our dismay, the online program didn't work well on iPads and when we tried to play on computers, many students couldn't remember their own logins. Instead of giving up, we pivoted and used the smartboard to play the game. Students took turns walking up to the board and picking up a random word written on a piece of paper. They had 45 seconds to draw their image on the smartboard. Students used pieces of papers and pencils to record their guesses of what the images could be. Points were tallied on the smartboard. Hilarity and camaraderie ensued. We called the game, scribble.irl. 

Shared Drawing

Sometimes the smartboard was simply used for shared drawing. Students would work collaboratively on the large space as though it was a whiteboard. The technology provided a much wider range of colors than they would have had access to if they had drawn with dry erase markers. It was great to see the smartboard become a place for communing digitally in a physical space. 

Music Production

www.beepbox.co   https://apps.musedlab.org/groovepizza/?museid=GkcSjjV7p&   https://www.soundtrap.com/home/

Ms. Mixon was a DJ for over 30 years, so we used her expertise when it came to music production. Students were shown a variety of programs for making music and were given the option to explore the ones that resonated most with them. Beepbox is a program which looks a lot like pixel art. Students fill in rectilinear sections on a grid to sequence sounds. Groove pizza uses a circulinear layout to sequence sounds. Soundtrap is a much more expansive program which allows users to even record their own voices. We purchased a high-quality USB microphone so that students could explore recording and manipulating their own sounds. 

Student Beep Box Projects

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Digital Drawing

There are so many different programs for drawing digital on tablets and computers. We let students choose their own programs and follow their interests. Some students used programs they were comfortable with already. Younger students really enjoyed using markup on iPads to draw on pre-existing photographs. 

The Outside World

It felt important to get outside of the classroom. One day, a great opportunity arose to bring our digital technology outside. There was a large bicycle race happening just outside of the school. Each class took iPads to the street to document the sights and sounds of the race. Students had questions and were brave enough to ask folks who were involved in the race. Students found ways to explore their curiosity even when we weren't explicitly making art. 

Even though we were teaching an art camp, there were some times where it felt necessary to diverge from the task at hand. One day, Mr. Knowbody found out that no students knew how to play kickball. All objectives were dropped and we went outside with our classes to play ball. 

So much of our summer was about figuring out how to share space and get along with each other. Our curiosity allowed us to get to know each other more while also getting to know more about our own interests.