Resources Galore

So many resources, so little time

DANCE AND MUSIC – THIS WEEK

• Virtual dance concert from Thornton Academy. The link below will take you to the streaming site, you have to ‘buy’ a ticket but they are FREE and does not require a credit card, it will just ask for your email to send you a unique streaming link. It also gives a peek into the Thornton Academy dance class set up and combines pieces filmed in person and at home.  http://our.show/thornton-academy/59055
• Virtual (Winter) Maine Fiddle Camp – Feb 19-20 The cast and crew at Fiddle Camp have organized another weekend of workshops, concerts, special surprise guests and more Virtual MFC replicates the offerings of “real” Maine Fiddle Camp in a pandemic-friendly virtual format. Recognize music teacher Steve Muise in the video below? 

WEBSITE RESOURCES

• Digital Maine Library – Helpful tools for every subject
• Massive List of Museums, Zoos, and Theme Parks offering Virtual Tours
• Virtual story time for Kids: Authors and venues go online amid coronavirus
• Maine Download Library
• Storytime with Brittany! from The Strand Theater in Rockland
• Solve a mystery with Jazzy Ash! Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons, audible book for kids with original jazz music from the creator, Ashli St. Armant
• Broadway Babysitters Playhouse – a variety of activities (nominal fee)
• Okie Dokie Brothers, 3-40 minute films filled with music and adventure
• Learn the basics of partner acrobatics with teaching artist Marisol Soledad, then throw on some costumes and put on a show with your new skills! Sponsored by Shakespeare in Clark Park.
• PBS Teachers, Virtual Professional Learning
• Biodiversity Heritage Library – Digital archive dedicated to life on Earth. Comprised of animal sketches, historical diagrams, botanical studies, and various scientific research collected from hundreds of thousands of journals and libraries around the globe. Collection of more than 55 million pages of literature, some of which dates back to the 15th century. At least 150,000 illustrations are available for free download in high-resolution files.
• Musictheory.net – Free online content
• edpuzzle – Make any video your lesson
• pedagogy://virtual – A teacher support program that connects a teacher to a virtual pedagogy mentor who helps the teacher find ways to boost student engagement in their virtual classroom.
• The Atlantic Black Box Project – This project is about “understanding history through story and building community through conversation. Maine stories on the site.
• From a Maine music teacher: Thankful for YouTube, Google Classroom, Smartmusic, Sight Reading Factory, Sibelius, Band in the Box, Laptops, Facebook Groups, and Zoom.

BOOKS AND ARTICLES  

• New Text – Teacher as Curator, Formative Assessment and Arts-Based Strategies written by Lisa Donovan and Sarah Anderberg, forward written by Beth Lambert. The book launch is scheduled for February 26 online. Join on Zoom, 3:00 p.m. February 26 – book launch https://www.tcpress.com/the-art-of-curation-to-deepen-practice-in-teaching-and-learning
• I will survive teaching online article written by Colleen Flaherty for Inside HigherED

Media Arts: Stand Alone or Integrated?

Let’s chat

Please humor me… I know you’re busy and some days you barely have time to eat lunch and use the rest room let alone read the meartsed blog. This is what I need from you… your thoughts, your wisdom, your ideas.

Please weigh in on this topic since it is important to the standards future and could impact your future arts education curriculum …. Should “media arts” be a stand alone topic, like dance, music, theatre, and visual arts, or should “media arts” be intervowen into the 4 arts disciplines as we now know them in the Maine Learning Results and National Arts Standards? I think it is a simple and challenging question that needs your best thinking, especially in Maine where MLTI has helped us “lead” the technology conversation in Maine and beyond.

Periodically I get emails and questions like these: My high school has put in a media arts course where students are receiving fine arts credit. Can that be done? Usually the teacher is upset since students who would normally take the arts courses are taking the media arts courses. My question in return is: have you incorporated any media arts into your traditional courses? If the answer is no, I ask why not? And add that perhaps the reason students are taking another arts type of course is because they are looking for something that contains more 21st century tools and opportunities.  Don’t get me wrong here I am not suggesting we eliminate those traditional experieinces however we need to do business differently.

To help you think differently about education, how you teach and how students learn… I suggest you read the following books:

Inevitable, by Bea McGarvey and Chuck Schwann, both makes the case for mass customized learning, but also lays out a vision of what it might look like and how we might do it. Commission Bowen had all of us at the Department read this book. Our books were passed on to the superitendents in the state and each group is reviewing the book and have been asked to pass theirs on to a school board member or another administration. It would be great to hear what you have to say about this easy read.

Another approach to customized learning is student-designed standards-based projects. The Minnesota New Country School is given much credit for developing this model, and their work has been recognized by the US Department of Education, and others. Ron Newell has captured this work and makes clear the student-designed project approach in Passion for Learning. I haven’t read this one yet but it is on my list.

What books have you read lately that you recommend to others? Please make suggestions in the “comment” section below. And what do you think… Media arts a stand alone or interwoven into the other arts disciplines for delivery of education?