Musical Markers

I was excited to tell my 4th and 5th grade students about the Myrna Kaiser grant that I was recently awarded. In doing so I  gave them a few highlights of what the project will look like next Spring. Many were very excited about taking their art a step further and developing a performance competent. Although none of them had ever heard of the Makey-Makey.

Since I had mine at school, and I have already made my own set of Musical Markers, I took the opportunity to give them a quick introduction. We quickly discussed the difference between inductive and conductive materials. The basics of building a circuit, and I asked them to close the circuit I made with the Makey-Makey. 

They quickly realized that the paper the ground wire was connected to was inductive, and after a short brainstorm session discovered that by misting the paper with water, and the ground wire, that the circuit could completed. 

There are two videos below, the first is my students experimenting with the project, and the second is a tutorial on how to make your own set of Musical Markers. 

Make Your Own Musical Markers

Myrna Kaiser Art Classroom Grant

The beginning of the year I spent quite a bit of time writing grants, and all that hard work is paying off. I was notified at the beginning on November that my proposal for the Myrna Kaiser Art Classroom grant had been approved, and it being fully funded!!

Weaving with a Tech Twist

This project will have two main goals; the first is to connect students to other cultures through learning about their art. Students will study and learn about the Navajo and explore their art of weaving.  My classroom does not have looms or basic weaving materials, so receiving supplies from Blick Art Materials will be crucial to completing this unit of study.

The second goal is to turn the students' weavings into an interactive art experience. This second goal is part Science and part Technology. While weaving students will add in pieces of aluminum foil (have in stock) to several sections of their project, this will turn each art work into part of a circuit. Using a device called a Makey-Makey (already have), students will be able to connect their fiber art to a computer through a series of wires. The circuits will then be built, but not functional.  The last step will be to close the circuit. Students or other members of the community will hold one wire, while touching each weaving. This will close each circuit, on contact and the computer will play a musical or spoken word audio recording. This is completely safe; there is no shock to completing the circuit. All you have to do is lightly touch the wire and the foil and music will play. Each work of art will play a different melody, or word. Allowing each performance to be completely customized, which creates a constantly changing experience each time someone closes the loop.

Here is the inspiration for this project.

Free to Cheap Ideas for STEAM Integration

This past Spring I was asked to teach a workshop for art teachers showing ways to integrate technology. When I was asked I was just finishing up a collaboration project with the School of Art at the University of Tulsa. For that Digital Art/TURC class we were working with a select number of fourth and fifth graders from my school Mayo Demonstration. We had several goals for the group among them were teaching healthy eating habits, portraiture, sculpture, and ultimately showing them how to use Adobe Illustrator.

I say all of that because when I was asked to teach workshop this summer I instantly went to Adobe in my mind, along with other computer/device based applications. I started making a list, and knew I wanted to include some new tech gadgets I have been drooling over the past few years. So my focus of my class became free or inexpensive ways to integrate technology into the art room, besides buying a new device or computer.

I showcased 4 technologies, Squishy Circuits, Makey-Makey, ArtBots, along with Google Cardboard, but I include a ton more in my presentation. Which you can find below

The class was a great success, many of the amazing Art Educators of Tulsa Public Schools were in attendance, along with several tech savvy Librarians, and a few classroom teachers. I have submitted a proposal to teach a similar class at the upcoming OAEA 2015 Fall Conference, I will find out soon if my session has been selected for the catalog.

If you like the theme I used for my Google Slide presentation check out this awesome resource, SlidesCarnival.com.

Technology for the Arts Presentation - Google Slides