Day26-27: Project workshop days

These are two days for you to work independently or in your group to fulfill the research project requirements. If you finish your individual work and group contributions, you may practice your presentation.

Day 25: Research Project Portfolio Requirements

On Friday all groups will give a 3-5 minute presentation on the culture that they have been researching. Discuss with your group what facts, ideas, and descriptions you want to teach the class about your topic. Use the home page of the group wiki to get organized. Decide who will say what, each group member should participate in some way with the presentation.
As individuals, each student is responsible for producing:

• 10 facts about the culture
• 7-10 images that tell us something about the culture
• the URL's of your sources
• a brief description of each image that you chose and what it tells us about the culture
• positive contribution to group work
  

Day 24: HW#3, Purposes of Art, Expression

HW#3
Bring in your initial brainstorm sketches, revised version, and final color composition.

Background information:
Using the letters of our first names we brainstormed to come up with 6 different 2D versions of each letter.
Next we chose the style that we were the most fond of and revised it to make it even more interesting and figure out how we would create each letter in the chosen style.
For homework, create a finished design in color which expresses a particular theme or feeling.

Day 23: Website as flowchart, making links, inserting images

We looked at how websites flow, and a sample graphic organizer for how information flows in a website, and wikispace. This kind of picture is called a " flowchart".
There are two parts to every link, 1-clickable text, or picture, and 2- the URL or new place that the link takes you.
Images can be inserted using the "insert image" button on the document toolbar. Images can be uploaded from a disk or thumb-drive, images can be inserted by entering the URL of the original page you found the picture on.

Day 22: wikispaces vs. wikispaces account

Your wiki account gets you into wikispaces.
Your group wikispace is where you collaborate with your classmates on your group project.
Each group wikispace will contain the main page, commonly known as the "homepage", and links to individual research pages.
The main page is a collection of important facts and dates that your group decides to use in their presentation.
The individual research pages should contain your images and the URL's where you got your information from.

A complete body of work for each group and each person will include:

• facts
• images
• URL's
  

Day 21: More about YOUR group's wiki

Now that you have a wikispaces account, choose one member of your group to create your group's wiki so you can collaborate on your research; eventually it will be in wiki-pedia format. Name your wiki like this: ancientegypt702.wikispaces.com, so we know which class you are from and what your topic is.

The person you select will invite the rest of you to the wikispace with your @wjps account. From the "manage this wiki" link on the left hand side of the page, members or space owners can invite others and do other space managing.
Once you've been invited, check your email inbox, accept the invitation, and each of you start adding your 10 facts together.
Happy wiki-ing!

Day 20:What is a wiki, you ask?

Watch this to find out:
http://blip.tv/file/246821/
then groups go to wikispaces.com and together make one for your groups project.
We will put all of our wiki's together to show what we know as a class!
Start by creating a free account at wikispaces.com; use the same ID and password as your wjps account. In some cases your username will already be in use, just add wjps at the end of your name and it should be OK.

Day 19: Element of Art Value

Dec 6-7, 2007
Today you looked at black, white, and gray objects. Your drawing hopefully show a range of grey values. You can check out this link to learn more:
http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/study/g_value.html

Day 16-17: Internet research

We have to make sure that we aren't violating any copy rights when do internet research. That means that you can't copy something without permission, but you can use information that you find to create your own image or written work.
We looked at this video to learn a little more about what's OK:
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/getcreative/
as long as we aren't trying to pass someone else's work of as our own, and we give credit to our sources, we will be OK.

The first steps towards the group project is individual research.

1. download 7-10 images that tell a story about your people
2. keep track of the source URL's and paste them into google doc
3. research your nation in the time between 1400-1600 AD, and record 10 facts that you think are important
4. share your facts with your group members as collaborators

The group will eventually prepare a class presentation on the topic and a corresponding Wiki

Day 15: Humanities, Tech, and Images

We will be exploring the purpose of art which is that artworks and artifacts will tell us about the people that made them or the times that they lived in.
You are beginning to research an historical community or nation. The results of your research will make use of the following technology and art projects:

• a digital collage on your assigned nation
• written results of your research
• an in class presentation
• a group research wiki
  

7th grade nations are from Colonial and Native American History, 1600's AD
6th grade nations are from 1400-1600 AD Asian history

The first step is to find 7-10 images that give us clues about how the people of your assigned nation lived. Keep track of your sources by recording the URL's that you found thepictures on in a google doc. Downloaded images must be stored on a student flash drive, or other storage system.

Day9: HW#2, In my room

HW#2
Title: In My Room
Create a writing sample that describes your room. Save it as "yourfirstnameclassnumber" room.Use adjectives and adverbs.
Include details like:

• Where in the house is your room?
• Who else uses the room, do you share it?
• What do you like or dislike in the room? any favorite things?
  
• Why do you like/ dislike or favorite the stuff?
  
• When do you use the room?
• What do you use the space for?
  

save it, share it, print it
share it with me at ms.dryg@wjps.org
put the print out in your sourcebook

Day 7-9: Space

Begin by making a list of everything that you can think of in your room. Then draw a map of where everything sits on the floor. Now follow the template for drawing an indoor room, showing the facing wall, two side walls, ceiling, and floor. Add the things from your list to your drawing, make it look as 3-d as you can, using the shapes that we have been practicing with.

Day 4-6: Happy Holidy Weekend, HW #1

Over this long holiday weekend, please create a description of your citi-scape.
HW #1, 2nd term
Create it in googledocs and save it as "yourfirstnamecityofdepth". Your description should tell us what kind of a place it is and what the inhabitants are doing or do there in this place.

Share it with me at ms.dryg@wjps.org as always, to receive credit.

Second term projects begin! Day 1-3: Cities of Depth

We created drawings that demonstrate the element of art DEPTH.
Combining the techniques of linear perspective and 3d shapes and shading previously learned in class, we created an imaginary cityscape of 3d forms.

Your city should display these qualities:

• your creativity
• a place where people may gather, visit, work or live
• linear perspective concepts
• 3D shapes and shading

This is your imaginary place, so give it your own twist :-) !
We will write an artists statement describing this composition and your art elements knowledge.

Students are required to bring a blue or black pen and two sharpened pencils to class everyday.
Some supplies are available for sharing, but students may want to bring their own rulers, erasers, colored pencils, etc.

Examples can be seen HERE

Portfolio Requirements

1. Coverletter
2. Script from 1 minute play
3. iMovie reflection essay
4. Self evaluation
5. 2 drawings
6. Teacherease report
   

Day 40: 7th grade trip to the Apollo Theater

To do an internet safety workshop.

Day 39 & 41: Elements of Art, Depth

Drawing 3D shapes and creating * depth * through shading
Review Lesson HERE

BUT FIRST: We have to review the class expectations for being prepared now that the passing time is only 2 minutes long! and you may only go to your lockers before period 1.3.5.6, not before period 2,4, or 7.

Background information:
We began our investigation of depth with observing space outside our school building and looking at lines and shapes. Then we were introduced to looking at depth with the technique of Linear Perspective. Now we will look at generic shapes that we will see in almost any real life shape or structure that exists in the world.
Activity:
In class today we will see how to create the illusion of depth on the flat paper by drawing these objects in 3D:

• cylinder
• cone
• cube
• sphere

? Can you name the 2D versions of these 3D forms?
After we have drawn each shape 4 times we will practice these forms of shading:

Linear:

• stippling
• hatching
• cross-hatching

Non-linear:

• blending
  

Day 38: Return of self evaluations for Open School night

If you completed your self evaluation for Art and Technology standards you will receive it back today. This should be placed in your class notebook to be discussed with your parents as part of your portfolio on open school night.
After which you will finish your in class linear perspective drawing, adding color.

Do you still need to do your self evaluation? you can download it HERE

Day 37: 7th Grade field trip to the Queens Museum of Art

Today we went see the Panorama of the city of New York.

Day 35-36, & weekend- election day: Linear Perspective

In class we discussed this vocabulary related to Linear Perspective:

• linear
• horizontal
• vertical
  
• diagonal
• horizon line
• vanishing point
• converging at the vanishing point

Then we did a practice drawing using these concepts, and two more important concepts came up:

• scale/size
• foreground, middle ground, background

HOMEWORK, due next class:
Draw the block where you live in linear perspective as best you can, there is no right or wrong. We all have our own style, our own mark to make, that's what makes us special!
Don't stress, do your best!

Day 34: Using Google Docs to Share and Collaborate

So you've composed 20 questions and shared it with "moi", now please share it with the other 3 people that you sit with in class at their wjps.org account. You have also been invited by them to collaborate on their 20 questions. Open the emails from classmates, do the following:

1. click into their question documents
2. change the type color and add comments to their questions
3. save and close each document after you do step 2
4. Go back to your own shared questions and see what they wrote

Google doc shows you who wrote what and now you can do group work in the virtual world online!

Day 33: 20 Questions

Compose 10 questions about yourself, and 10 questions about the world.
When you have composed your questions please type them up in a new google document, name your document yourfirstname20questions.
When you have finished and spellchecked your document, save it and SHARE it with me at:
ms.dryg@wjps.org

Day 31: Reflective writing on Movie Project

In three paragraphs or more describe the project that we have completed.
Discuss:

1. What you did
2. Successes that you reached, problems that you encountered
3. concluding opinions and questions that you still might have.

On your own type this writing reflection into your google docs account, name it "your first namemoviereflection" and when you have finished and spell checked it, email it to me here:

ms.dryg@wjps.org

Day 29: Final Cuts turned in and Midterm Evaluation

Today you are to transfer your .mov file to my thumb-drive for presentation and evaluation. Tomorrow the class will evaluate your project, and you will evaluate those of your peers.

Compressing Movie for web streaming
changing from .dv format to .mov format
____________________________________

1. Open file
2. share menu
3. quicktime
4. web streaming
5. name it, save it in movie folder
   

Midterm portfolio and evaluation

Your midterm evaluation is a reflection of how you are doing in terms of meeting the standards and developing good habits for 21st century skills.
Click here to see the Middle School Technology Standards.
Click here to see 21st Century skills standards.
In your binder, folder, or sourcebook you must have the following items from our classwork:

• Table of Contents in correct format
• numbered pages for easy reference
• sourcebook entries
  
• original magazine picture or description of picture
• first draft of story line
• final draft of script
• reflective writing on the process of 1 minute play production and performance
• self-assessment rubric

Your ability to develop good habits of conduct as outlined in the first day's blog post and class discussion are also a criteria for evaluation. Having the above listed items in order and ready for Open School night later in the month is the basis for any discussion of your evaluation.

Day 21-24, Creating a Final Cut

We will work for a few days to edit and refine our 1st iMovie production. Remember this 1st project is just to learn the tools of movie production so we can make many more interesting productions!
Since Friday is the end of the marking period, we will evaluate our progress for this task.
Rubrics coming soon!

Part of your task is to write down in your notebook what you know how to do in iMovie and what questions that you have about things that you couldn't figure out. I will be checking this today before I do a demonstration and and answer these questions that you have.

Applying the "hamburger method" to this production:

• top bun: titles
  
• bottom bun: credits
• meat: the video project
• condiments(things that make it taste better): good editing,transitions, special effects, sound track
  

Day 20: Getting footage from shared DVD

You are to share the DVD with the raw footage for your class section. When you have your footage you are to figure out as many things about movie editing as you can to share with the class.

• When its your turn to get your footage, transfer your clip from the DVD to the movie folder for your class.
• Start a new iMovie project and import your clip into it
• See if you can figure out how to split clips to delete what you don't need, add titles, transitions, effects, and credits.
• After you have discovered some things on your own we will discuss these techniques in class.
  

Good Morning! Saturday...

I had to modify an email setting but your username@wjps.org email should be up and running now, maybe test it by sending mail to a few classmates...or me, ms.dryg@wps.org

you can read and send email from your wjps-Goggle start page or this link:
http://mail.google.com/a/wjps.org

See you Tuesday!

Day 19: Looking at Lines Part II

Today we observed some plain brown boxes stacked together, looking at the boxes we can develop our sense of space and how lines appear to behave in 3D space. When we try to draw the boxes we see that some horizontal lines appear to go up and down at angles. Vertical lines remain vertical in our drawings.
These boxes are examples of in-organic objects, as opposed to the things we saw in nature when we went outside to draw before, for looking at lines Part I. Can you describe some differences in how organic and in-organic objects look?

Day 17-18:iGoogle and Digital Reading Logs(DRL's)

Follow the steps that you recorded in class to sign in to your WJPS-Google apps. account. If necessary follow the activation instructions. Start your first reading log with the book you are reading now. You will need to have at least 25 logs completed this academic year to be meeting WJPS expectations and standards.

Here is what you need to record for each Fiction title that you read:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dnwpw33_30fn8gkc

You all have many great questions about the data you will be inputting for your books, like what is a theme? Until we discuss it in class lets leave it blank, the great thing about google docs is that we can go back later and add information when we have it!

Day 16: Keyboard shortcuts & Setting Internet Proxies

Wow, we learned a lot today, I think, can you think of 11 keyboard shortcuts that you know now?
Then, remember what step you are at when you finally get to the internet connection settings in the browser? There were at least 15 steps from login to surfing the web in Firefox or Flock!

Day14-15: Intro to Google Apps

Today we caught the link on the homepage to start playing with our wjps personal start pages. Ms. Dryg is also going to transfer the video files for each class to student computers since all teh footage is on one tape. Please use the information from today to activate your new personal webspace for scholarly pursuits, and poke around a little to see what features you can find and customize. Maybe send out some test emails to classmates?

Day12-13: Intro to iMovie, video production software

1. open iMovie HD
2. select New project
3. give your project a name
4. select Movies in the left window pane
5. click on create
6. *very important* in iMovie, turn letterboxing off!
   
7. check camera connection(with 4-6pin firewire cable)
8. turn camera on to Play
9. import video footage, raw footage
10. create video cuts to cut out unwanted
    

Day 10-11: Portfolio Design

In class we are using design specifications, or "specs" to create a design on the cover of our art portfolio folders. Here are those "specs":

• 2"border marked out
• the border contains one or more patterns of your own design
• inside the borders, on the front and back you will fill the remaining space with shapes
• one side will contain organic shapes or objects
• one side will contain inorganic shapes or objects
  

Day 8-9: Standards for Percieving Magazine Photographs

As stated in the course description on day 1, students are evaluated by specific standards of performance and participation.
Follow this link to see what the standards are for this project:
http://wjps.org/arttech0708/storywriting.htm

In your notebook, write a reflection on this project from start to finish; from getting the photo to performing your play. This writing exercise should be a paragraph or two.
Some ideas to write about:

• What did you do?
• How well did you do it?
• What did you learn?
• Did you like this process?
  

Day 5-7: Percieving Magazine Photos

You received a magazine photograph with at least 2 people in it. You and your partner for this project will use your powers of perception to create a story from what you see in the photo. You will need to decide which two people that you will use as the main characters in your story. Then you will use your story to write a script for a 1 minute play.
Begin by deciding on:

• setting
• characters
• plot, maybe there is a Beginning, middle, and end or a conflict and resolution

Each member of your group or partnership must write a copy of the script to use in your performance. The script should have a heading that includes: Plot, Setting, and student names, followed by the exact words and actions that each character will perform. You and your partner will be the actors that perform your play!

Day 4: Perceiving an object

You received a small object to perceive. You were asked to observe your object for 3 minutes, place the object under your chair and recall the perceptions that got stored in your short term memory. After recording as much as you could, we looked at our objects again and added to our lists anything that we may have missed in our memory. Using any writing tool available to us, we each did a sketch of our objects. If you missed class today you may follow this procedure and bring your paper in for makeup credit.

Day 3: Perception Walk

We took our clipboards out of the classroom and into the world to practice our powers of perception. We used these senses to percieve our surroundings in more detail than usual:

• sight
• sound
• touch
• smell
• taste
• common sense
• instinct
• inquiry
  
• experience
• problem solving
  

Day 2: Habits

From the previous blog, we discussed the Habits of conduct:

1. Participate Fully
2. Be Kind
3. Be Safe
4. Take care of our Space

and examples of what each habit is.
Also, we agreed these habits will help all students to be successful.
We began our discussion of perception and what it means.

Course Description and Contract for Success

6-7 Art & Tech

WJPS

Fall 2007

Teacher: Renee Dryg contact: ms.dryg@gmail.com

_______________________________________________________________________

Welcome to Art and Technology for middle school at WJPS! We are so excited that you are here!

There is so much to learn and so many stories to tell, especially your own story!

Parents and Students, please read the Course descrition and expectations that follow, and print and sign the Contract for Success in this course. Thank you in advance for your participation.

_______________________________________________________________________

We will use the STANDARDS^1,2 to practice using these tools to develop LITERACY³ :

• Elements of Art
• Principles of Design
• Read-Write web(iGoogle, do you?)
• Productivity Software

Our goal is to be able to present what we can do and what we know in all situations!

Our ACTIVITIES will be:

• percieving
• describing
• typing
• blogging
• presenting
• drawing
• painting
• photography
• videography
• performing

Our TOPICS will come from:

• Humanities
• Sciences
• Arts
• Technology⁴

Students are EVALUATED according to project and portfolio RUBRICS⁵

• meets and exceeds all standards:4:A
• meets all standards:3:B
• meets some standards and needs to improve in other areas:2:C
• below standards and needs improvement:1:N
• is not performing and needs intervention:0:F

EXPECTATIONS

It is expected that all students will:

• participate fully
• be kind
• be safe
• take care of our space

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns at the above email address at any time with questions or concerns. You may also leave a telephone message at the school, please specify the return telephone number you prefer and the best time to reach you. My contact hours will be updated shortly.

Looking forward to a great year!!!!