Recently I joined a book group. I’ve never been part of a formal ‘book group’ (secret is out). I’ve never been interested and truth be told its only recently that I’ve been reading books at a very fast rate, now that my schedule allows. I like this book group for several reasons. It’s pretty non-traditional, no one book is read and discussed like in traditional book groups. Actually, its one of the reasons I decided to join the group. We gather over lunch monthly and each participant shares books, films, podcasts and other forms of stories and ideas. The participants are retired educators who have a keen interest in education and other interesting and sometimes challenging topics. At our April gathering we each shared a poem in recognition of National Poetry Month.
At more than one gathering the conversation has included AI – Artificial Intelligence. I’m certain as we learn more that the conversation will continue. I’m reading and learning about what AI is, where it is, and the potential impact on the world. A 60 Minutes episode from a couple of weeks ago provides foundational information that I suggest you take the time to VIEW. It’s very informative and important as educators that we inform ourselves.
You can google AI and come up with the definition but until you begin to ‘see’ and experiment with the online tools I’m not sure it will provide you with the understanding to consider the impact on education. For example, think about this: The sum of all human knowledge is online. AI is replicating the brain. What are the implications on education? What is the impact on art making? AI can solve problems in very little time compared to the brain. Is humanity diminished because of the enormous capability of AI?
Visual artist Jonas Peterson is creating art work using AI. His collection of art called Youth is wasted on the young is an amazing collection that is his way of celebrating the ‘old’ and a comment on ageism. He used fashion to highlight the personalities of older people. Jonas is a photographer but in this collection he uses AI to create scenes, the people and what they’re wearing. In his own words:
I give specific direction using words only to a program, lenses, angles, camera choice, color theme, colors, styling, backgrounds, attitude and overall look and the AI goes to work, it sends back suggestions and more often than not it’s completely wrong, so I try other ways to describe what I’m after, change wording, move phrases around and try to get the AI to understand the mood. It’s frustrating mostly, the AI is still learning, but getting any collaborator to understand you can be difficult no matter if it’s a human or a machine. After a long stretch of trial and error I get closer to a style and look I want and after that it comes down to curation, picking the renders I believe go well together, I start making it a series. To me the process is similar to that of a film director’s, I direct the AI the same way they would talk to an actor or set designer, it’s a process, we try over and over again until we get it right. Should I get all the credit? God, no, the AI creates with my help and direction, it’s a collaboration between a real brain and an artificial one.
You might be thinking or asking, is this really art? Do I want my students to use this in their art making? Here are some of my thoughts and questions. AI exists in the world. Microsoft introduced ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, in November 2022. Bard is a conversational generative artificial intelligence and was released in March 2023. How should educators learn about AI? Should we leave it up to students to teach us? I’m sure that this will be the next wave of education professional development offerings, in person and online.
Jonas Peterson said:
I’m not here to debate the process, I’m a professional photographer, writer and artist myself, I understand the implications, how this will affect many creative fields in the future. I’m simply using a tool available to me to tell stories, the same way I’ve always told stories – to move people. To me that is the point of this, not how I did it. Dissecting something will almost always kill it.
You can learn more about Jonas’s work by googling him and also at this LINK.
I’m sure I’ll circle back to this topic in future blog posts. If you have questions or comments that we can all learn from please don’t hesitate to comment at the bottom of this blog post. Thanks!
For those of us who came in contact with Phil Brookhouse, we are all better for it. You may know Phil from his days with the Maine Learning Technology Initiative. He and Barbara Greenhouse played off of each other while providing professional developing with technology. They were quite a team. For many Maine educators this was their first introduction to technology in the classroom so it needed to be top notch. The delivering was excellent, the content was spot on, but more importantly Phil understood it was ‘all about the relationship’. He was gentle, kind, and knowledgeable, AND he understood how to communicate with teachers because he had teaching in his heart and soul. A teachers teacher!
Phil worked with the State of Maine to roll out and support one of the first “one to one” laptop programs in the country. Phil always had a pleasant look on his face and often he spoke with a ‘pirate accent’. In fact, he was the first ‘pirate’ I ever met. Phil loved music and performed in community theatre. He understood the value of arts education and took the opportunity to include the arts in the work he did. He was proud to be named an Ambassador to Jupiter through NASA. After leaving the state work, Phil returned to the classroom at Edward Little High School in Auburn working with the gifted and talented program before retiring. He will be missed but the seeds of learning he spread will live on. I am grateful for the work he did in Maine education! You can read his entire obituary at THIS LINK.
This story starts with the design that was selected for the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) conference t-shirt. But, it’s about much more than that. It’s about a 7th grader who LOVES the arts. Congratulations to Penny Graham who attends Waterville Jr. High School. Her art work, seen below, was selected to be printed on t-shirts that will be worn by Maine middle schoolers and their teachers while they attend the virtual student conference being held, May 26. Registration is open for the MLTI Virtual Conference and all grade 7 and 8 Maine students are invited to participate.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Penny recently about her design that connects with this years conference theme: Space2Connect. Before getting to the creating part Penny looked at t-shirts from past years which helped to guide her decisions. She wanted it simple so she considered ideas with space, specifically planets. She decided on one color so it could be seen and read easily. She tried different colors including pink and green but kept coming back to purple. She’s been using the digital app Procreate on her iPad for about a year so it made sense to use it for designing the t-shirt idea. In fact, she has created a video that demonstrates her knowledge and how she went about accomplishing her design. Video about using the app Procreate. Penny’s video will be included on an upcoming episode of theMLTI SLAM Show, which focuses on student leadership in technology integration.
Penny drawing
After being on the phone with Penny for about 45 minutes I realized that I was not only speaking to a t-shirt designer by an incredible arts advocate. “The Arts are important to me. My whole life I’ve always loved doing music and art because they’re my passions. I’ve done art clubs, I draw a lot, I played a little saxophone, guitar, and the recorder. This year I can see myself improving.”
In addition Penny loves to write, narratives and some poetry. She’ll often learn something while writing in school and goes home and practices what she’s learned. She’s had several different learning opportunities in the arts. “I love doing art with materials and using my hands and getting dirty. It is such fun.” She enjoys pen and ink, sketching, water color, rock painting and pottery. Penny also loves creating with digital tools because “I can change the design quickly and the process goes much smoother.“
The arts rotate through the schedule for students at Waterville Jr. High and as a 7th grader she doesn’t have visual art but she does have music. She selected the violin which she played when she was younger and is happy to return to it. She enjoys playing in the school orchestra and likes the performances.
She also loves theatre and has participated in the Sound of Music and Nobody Believes in Fairies which was written by one of the school’s 6th English teachers. She’s excited about the musical coming up this spring called Middleschool Madness. Penny says: “Theater is a really nice bonding experience. It’s a fun, social thing that I just love to do. I got to meet so many new people in the two plays I’ve been in. My theater experiences have all been really great.”
Penny as Gretl
Penny also shared her experience of the pandemic. She was glad to have alone time to draw and bake and was able to pursue her hobbies. “I feel like without the pandemic I wouldn’t have been able to move forward that much. I feel like I could take big strokes that I wouldn’t have had time to do.”
Penny’s dad shared: “Waterville is a wonderful place for artistic and curious children like Penny.”
I’m certain that Penny has a bright future and I’m grateful to have met her and for our conversation.
Curious about the Maine Arts Commission (MAC) program, Maine Arts Education Partners in Leadership (MAEPL)? Wonder why you should consider applying? Listen to arts educator and veteran MAEPL Teacher Leader Charlie Johnson at THIS LINK explain his reasons and the benefits that he’s experienced during his ten years of participation!
DEADLINE TO APPLY IS TOMORROW, JUNE 22, 2021! DON’T DELAY!
I’ve posted about the Global Oneness Project in the past. They continuous are providing amazing resources, food for thought, asking challenging questions, and pushing on educators thinking. Thank you to Executive Director Cleary Vaughan-Lee recently I received an email with the following information. I’m not re-wording the message that Cleary sent since it is ‘spot on’ (as Rob Westerberg would say)!
A good story has the potential to broaden a student’s worldview, providing a foundation to foster empathy and inquiry. I love this description of storytelling from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Eudora Welty, who explored the American South. She said, “Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
We’ve created a collection of our most viewed films of the year. From an ecologist in the church forests in Ethiopia to a Native teenage basketball player in a remote community in Alaska, these stories document the vulnerability and resiliency of life around the world.
I’ve been watching these films and they are thought provoking and they warm my heart – a good thing for the end of 2020!
“Teaching an Effective Virtual Lesson” will be presented on Wednesday, December 9, 7:00 – 8:00 pm. Sarah Hoad from Saco Public Schools will be leading the session with tips and strategies for teaching online. Included will be a roundtable discussion on this suddenly-extremely-important topic.
This session is free, and is sponsored by the Maine Chapter of the American String Teachers’ Association (ASTA). The session will be presented over Zoom. You can access the session by scanning the QR code below or email maineasta02@gmail.com for the Zoom link.
I don’t know about you but ideas continue to fly into my email box on how best to do “school” at this time. I trust and value some resources more than others, sometimes depending on the source. Edutopia from the George Lucas Educational Foundation provides thought provoking and action packed articles, many times written by practicing educators. When I see that, it’s a 5 Star resource. Below are links to articles sent by Edutopia that contain valuable teaching strategies. Most of them include addressing the social and emotional learning needs of students. Even though not all are not specific to arts education they can be adapted and I hope you find at least one useful. You can sign up to receive Edutopia emails by going to their website.
Teaching Drama in Distance Learningwritten by Shana Bestock. Shana provides tips for transferring practices to virtual spaces, how to dig deeper with students, create community, and reminds us that how in uncertain times the arts helps us embrace uncertainty and foster resilience.
How to Help Middle School Students Learn to Work Independently written by Ryan Steinbach. Learners at home might be juggling so much more than if they were in simply going to school each day. To work around other responsibilities they have will require helping to guide each one towards independent learning. Ryan believes its all about “self-pacing” and provides information on how to support learners.
My musical career started in 4th grade when I picked up the flute in the beginning band at Metcalf Middle School in Exeter-West Greenwich, RI. My middle school music teacher, Joe Smith, was an inspiration to me and all my classmates. He was quirky, fun, and taught us interesting and different music. It was truly an amazing middle school music experience. I would definitely say that he inspired me to be the kind of teacher I am today.
I went to Boston University for my Bachelors degree in Flute Performance and to Boston Conservatory after that for my Masters degree in Flute Performance and Music Education. I then moved up to Maine and finished my certification requirements through USM while playing in the Southern Maine Community Orchestra and continuing to seek out performance opportunities in the area.
My first teaching job was at Marion T. Morse Elementary School in Lisbon Falls teaching K-5 General Music and beginning band. I was hired at Gorham Middle School (GMS) in 2003 when the school was built and I was tasked with developing a brand new middle school music program that had not previously existed. Currently I teach General Music to all 6th & 7th grade students, Chorus for middle school and Steel Band to middle and high school students. My amazing colleague, Rose Skillling, also teaches GMS General Music as well as the Band and Jazz Band program.
I have always been a huge proponent of educational technology and the positive impact it can have on music education particularly in schedules where we see students so infrequently. dHaving Apple devices, a large portion of my curriculum has been based in Garage Band for many years. So when our technology director announced that the entire 6th grade would be moving to Chromebooks a few years ago I had a panic attack thinking I was going to completely lose the amazing possibilities I had opened up for the students. I did some research and I found a couple of apps that would work on the Chromebooks in a similar way and thankfully administration was super supportive and on board with purchasing Soundtrap and WeVideo for every student in the 6th grade. Unbeknownst to me, this was about to open up a whole new avenue of connections across the world for me and the students.
At the time, Soundtrap, a small company based in Sweden, was still only a few years old and not that well known. But there happened to be a Maine educator who had connected with them and taken a position as an educational consultant. I quickly connected with her, and we teamed up to present Soundtrap at the student MLTI conference the same year I introduced the software to my curriculum. From there, the opportunities for sharing student work, lessons, ideas, connecting with music educators, blog posts, and articles just kept coming. Soundtrap has since been acquired by Spotify and is being widely used by educators and musicians. In January of 2020, through Soundtrap, I connected with the Society for Online Music Education and was invited to direct a Virtual Choir project for the International Music Education Summit to be premiered in mid-March. There were a couple of other Virtual Choir projects out there that I knew about but this was to be a new vision, one that included collaboration amongst participants, making Soundtrap the ideal software to use. We had a handful of teachers signed up for the pilot project. Things were going calmly and smoothly, and then COVID-19 hit us.
With the swift move to on-line learning, every music educator in the world immediately started to seek out virtual ensembles for students to participate in. Our project was quickly populated with hundreds of teachers and students and my director position got a lot more complicated! I asked two Maine colleagues, Rachel Scala-Bolduc and Patrick Volker, to help create vocal practice tracks to support the diverse group of new participants. Another music educator who teaches full-time at a virtual school suggested I try a Zoom rehearsal for participants to help them learn the parts. She hosted a how-to-run-a-virtual-rehearsal webinar that I participated in which ended up being an invaluable resource. The edit of the recordings took many, many hours of organizing, communicating, editing, and figuring out how to make the best quality audio. At one point I was playing the tracks for my husband and he suggested just dipping the volume at a certain point and it made a huge difference! During another moment of frustration, I listened to one of Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choirs to get some inspiration and realized that reverb was a key component to blending the voices that I had yet to try. I am so thankful for this learning opportunity because it gave me a head start for what was to come with the extension of distance learning to the end of the year.
As soon as our school announced the closure in March, I set up Zoom virtual rehearsals with the Chorus classes right away. We continued rehearsing just the same as we had in school. The only difference being, I couldn’t hear them as a group and they couldn’t hear each other. We experimented together, recorded during Zooms, recorded after Zooms, talked about other apps that might accommodate multiple singers, but we just kept on our path of our end-of-year performance goals and figured out everything together along the way. The students continued learning music we had started in school and also learned new music purely through our virtual rehearsals. In the end, they have recorded six pieces of music during our time home due to COVID-19, all of which I am turning into virtual choir videos to serve as our “spring performance”. While this is certainly not an ideal scenario for ensembles to rehearse, it is temporary and it can be successful!
Unfortunately, because the steel pans are housed at school, and the steel band program is extracurricular, that is now in a bit of a holding pattern until we know the future of getting back into the school this Fall. I have been researching apps that could provide some type of virtual pan experience to get the students by in the meantime and I have been in communication with our facilities department about potentially holding outdoor parking lot rehearsals for steel band next year.
General Music Class was another whole challenge when we moved to distance learning! At GMS, students have 7-9 week rotations of Allied Arts. Both the 6th & 7th Grade Music Classes were about halfway through the rotation when we moved to online classes so we had established relationships and structures ahead of time. However, the student rotation change to a new Allied Arts class was scheduled for right after April break. This meant students and teachers connecting with and getting to know each other for the first time in a new content area, virtually. As an Allied Arts team we worked together to help our current classes connect with the next teacher through Google Classroom. In Music Class, we introduced a Tabata composition project that combined physical activity and Music to help make the Music to PE transition smoother. The last rotation has been a challenge. It has been difficult to connect with kids with the asynchronous model that our district adopted due to many class meetings happening simultaneously. I have learned a lot about what I need to change in order to effectively teach new music concepts to individuals in an online format as opposed to a full group in person where we utilize a lot of repetition and group collaboration to help support learning. Although there are plenty of other variables in a new grouping of students, there was a marked difference in the performance of the General Music students who started before distance learning and those who started purely in the online format. This summer, my colleague and I plan to meet to talk about some of these challenges and make plans for how we can better teach General Music class should we remain in distance learning this Fall.
There have been a lot of worries circulating amongst Music teachers with research studies outlining the risks of the high transmission rate of COVID-19 through singing and instrument playing in conjunction with news of music educators being laid off in districts around the country. The best thing we can do right now is to show our communities and administrators that, despite temporary limitations, music can and should still continue in our schools regardless of whether we are in the building or learning remotely. Think of solutions that will work and suggest them to colleagues and administrators before something is suggested for you! That also requires creativity, experimenting and out of the box thinking from all music educators. During the last few months, I had an overall participation rate of about 80% in my chorus students with a couple of overwhelmed students asking to drop and a couple of students asking to join because their schedule was suddenly free to do so. I had students completing Music Class work first thing in the morning saying they liked to do “the fun stuff” first. I had parents emailing about how much fun they had helping their child compose music or how amazing it was to hear the final virtual choir recording after hearing their child singing their part alone at home. The more success stories we share, the more everyone will continue to see the value in continued music and arts education whether we are teaching in the comfort of our classrooms or through the virtual world.
Here are the various end-products I’ve worked on with the GMS Virtual Chorus:
“I See Colors” – May 2020
Audio recorded in Soundtrap, edited in Garage Band, video collected in Flipgrid, edited in iMovie, collage and effects in WeVideo:
“Home” – April 2020
Audio recorded in Soundtrap, edited in Garage Band, slideshow videos of staff messages collected in Flipgrid, compiled in iMovie:
“Between the Bells” – March 2020
Audio recorded in Soundtrap, edited in Garage Band, stock images from pexels.com, lyrics added in Adobe After Effects:
“The Tiger” – May 2020
Audio recorded in Soundtrap, edited in Garage Band, video recorded in a Zoom session, compiled and lyrics & effects added in WeVideo:
“The Never Ending Story” – June 2020
Audio recorded in Soundtrap, edited in Garage Band, pictures from the Gorham MIddle School Facebook page, compiled in iMovie:
The Young Filmmakers Challenge invites young people to produce and submit a short film based on the theme:What if “school” as we know it didn’t exist?
Winning submissions will be screened and an awards ceremony held in Washington, DC, on May 3, 2020. The screening will be the culminating event of a three-day, city-wide celebration on Unleashing the Power of Young People. The producer of the Best Overall Film will receive $250 and, along with one guest, an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC.
This nationwide challenge is open to anyone 18 and under and submissions will be accepted between February 15th-April 1st. Winners will be announced on April 15th.
You can learn more about the Challenge, Awards, and Rules at FilmFreeway. Please share this opportunity with young people in your community, and if you have any questions about the Challenge, please email Monica Snellings.
What if you woke up each morning with the goal to “learn” by pursuing your interests, curiosities, and passions? What would your day look like? Ultimately, if you had primary ownership over the design of your education, what would learning look like for you?
Using your unbounded creativity, inventive imagination, and knowledge about yourself as a learner—and the genius that you are—this is your opportunity to share what the future of education could (and possibly should) be.
Need a little inspiration to get started? Consider these questions:
• What are you curious to know more about?
• What interests and passions would you explore?
• Where would you explore them?
• Who would you interact and engage with?
• Who would you learn from?
• Who might you teach the knowledge and skills you’re learning about?
• When would learning occur?
• Through your explorations and learnings what impact/change do you want to see in your community, the world?
Awards & Prizes
Jury prizes from the Education Reimagined Young Filmmakers Challenge will be awarded in the following categories:
• Best Overall Film
• Best Local Film (DC-based production, cast, and crew)
• Best Director
• Best Screenplay
• Best Film, Age 14-18
• Best Film, Age 11-13
• Best Film, Under 11
The Best Overall Film winner will receive $250 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC for you and one guest to attend the Challenge Screening on May 3rd. All other winners will receive $100 and an invitation to attend. Honorable mentions will be awarded in each category.
About Education Reimagined
A national non-profit based in Washington, DC, Education Reimagined partners with a growing network of visionary leaders (of all ages) who are forwarding the learner-centered education movement in their communities and across the United States. The organization aims to deepen and spread the presence of learner-centered education across the country such that it becomes available to each and every child in the U.S., regardless of background or circumstance.
Informative blog post put out by The Art of Education. Seven Reasons You Need a Photo Booth in the Art Room. A Lightbox is one and a studio photo setup is another. The ARTICLE expands on these two topics providing you with useful information.
The Art of Ed University provides resources in a variety of ways. Check out the WEBSITE to learn more.
Argy Nestor
Arts Educator, Blogger, Artist, Connector meartsed@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/view/anestor/
Argy’s Blog
The purpose of this blog is to share stories about people and places; and to celebrate the amazing work (and play) that students, educators, and organizations are doing in and for arts education. In addition, the blog has a plethora of resources and innovative ideas. This forum gives blog readers the opportunity to learn from each other. It is essential that we listen, learn, and collaborate in order to build on teaching practices for the benefit of every learner in Maine and beyond.
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