The "Art" of Student Collaboration

John Burrows is a Bryan High School Art teacher, and a participant in a recent Teacher, Teamwork, and Technology (T3) grant. John does a wonderful job integrating technology into his classroom lessons and he does this in meaningful ways. John shared his Art 1 Research Lesson below and a few comments about how this is truly a universal and 21st Century lesson.            

"This project can be used easily in any classroom. Anybody who does research could do this. It uses tools that we all have access to but don’t always use. It also allows for the kids to have a choice in how they create the presentation." "It got kids working in a more real life situation. In reality, we can’t always be right there with the individuals we are working with. Students learned proper ways of talking on Twitter, and how to communicate to each other effectively. The tools allowed me to monitor student progress and input, forcing students to contribute to the group. "
                                                                     

Artist: Melanie Savala

Lesson Description/Overview:

Students are each given 1 artist to research. They collaborate with 3 other students from three other class periods, write a paper, create a presentation, and recreate a work of art the artist had originally done. 
Students use twitter and hash tags to communicate with each other quickly. They use google docs for the paper and have their choice of multiple programs to create the presentation. Students will find the artwork they want to recreate, print it out, and redraw it.

Materials/Resources: Computer, Twitter, Google Docs, Digital Camera, Photo Booth, Internet, Blogger, Paper

Presentation Options: Pages, Keynote, Prezi, Comic Life

**Students also communicated outside of class using their phones and ipods to connect through twitter.**

Procedures:

Introduce the assignment
Assign artists to each student and give each student a HASH tag to use
Setup Twitter account
Students research using the internet
Students communicate with each other and find out who they are
Students share their research documents with each other over DOCS (as well as with the teacher.)
Students write their paper
Students create a presentation
Students recreate the artwork
Students put it all together
Students share

Activity (taken from John's Blog):

• Sign up for twitter using your BHS google account. You must use your name as your "screen" name. Twitter. You will use hash tags to communicate with your partner from another class.
• Write a paper in Google Docs that you will share with your partners, through your BHS google account and myself (john.burrows@bryanisd.org). Each partner will pick one piece of art to discuss in the paper. All partners need to contribute to the research paper.

• Biography about the artist.
• How he/she used the Elements of Art.
• How did he/she use the Principles of Design.
• Was there meaning in his work? How can you tell what the meaning was?
• How successful is the artwork that the artist produced? Was it done well?
• Where did you get your research? Bibliography
• Keep track of all resources. All information must be tracked.

• You and your group will create a presentation that talks about the artist, his style, what medium he worked with and examples of his work. Presentations can be made through; video's (quick time), prezi, Audio (quick time), pages, or comics. Your presentation must be cohesive, publishable, and shared with the teacher.
• Each partner will need to reproduce a work of art by their artist. You must have your picture selected by Thursday, October 6th and printed. You will not have to use the same medium the artist used but you will be asked to know what the medium was.