This blog is for me to document my process and reflect on how my semester is going with my classes. But there are other reasons I’m blogging about my lessons and sharing. I made a big change from elementary PreK-5th grade art to high school last year. I think it always seems like it wasn’t that bad when I started 8 years ago in the teaching field. How the mind forgets. How bad could changing grade levels be? The homeroom teachers at my elementary school were always change? Good grief! I was thinking it would be a simple switch. What I didn’t realize is that I’d spent 8 yrs cultivating a relationship with students, parents, teachers, and administrators. I had a reputation I think as being a good teacher. It isn’t anything you can see or touch, but it is worth gold. My students could  come into my classroom and tell you exactly how things are done and what to expect. I was really consistent. In turn they were great for me, and I could trust them to take care of business.

Why switch? Well I’ve been an illustator and graphic designer full time prior to education. I always really liked using software with my artwork. My personal site Nmillerillustration.com  and NMillerDesign. For me teaching high school means I’m doing more of my own design and illustration work. I’d watch students draw constantly and I wanted to go back to doing that and working. It’s harder in elementary I feel like because there is so much more prep work. Lesson plans are shorter in elementary, but I’d have to cut and make templates to help students of varying abilities, etc. Each of my grade levels I had different lessons. I never repeated unless my students wanted to do the same lesson again.

It takes time to rebuild that at any new school. I struggled last year because when I changed to high school teaching Animation and Game Design pathway I didn’t know any of the students. They came from 2 different high schools. The students didn’t even know each other or me. I think I realized you have to get them used to each other and to you. My classes were very long at 2.5 hrs. With that you teach fewer classes but it was the same group every day. No A/B schedule. I was planning like crazy. I’d never taught animation. I don’t come from industry. I played around with it at home video editing and animation. I have a background in Illustration and Graphic Design. I did a lot of learning on the side. Go figure I was the only person that applied for the job.

Thank goodness for Youtube and Lynda.com.  I also tried Pluralsight. I love youtubers Blender GURU & Born CG. I don’t get anything for recommending them. I used them when I was learning animation/game design. I spent most of the time learning Maya, Blender, and Unity. Maya didn’t work out because the computers couldn’t handle it. They have some great tutorials. I don’t recommend them for the coding part of it. I really think when the instructors cover that they always say “We assume you have an advanced knowledge of coding.” Like who really does? Maybe the people working in Silicon Valley making 6 figures. Little me had only taken HTML class in college. To me I get better the more I did it, but it was really memory and explaining it to a newbie difficult for me. C# is used in Unity and Python for Blender. I watched Microsoft’s video tutorials on C# from Bob Tabor 2 times. My brain hurt!

There were challenges that I didn’t realize that it would come with teaching high school. Student by nature when older they are pretty stoic. There isn’t the same interactions. It is harder to gauge feedback on how I’m doing. I have to do end of year surveys etc. Status checks. It like taking polls during election season. I think I do better for the students that really want to learn how or pursue the type of work I’m teaching. By nature I try and be honest and critique work to give them feedback. I think critiques are invaluable.

I learned very quickly that you really have to look at the work that students create. What they share and if they really like it they will come back and work on it. It’s really hard when many of my students lacked the transportation to and from the school. That bus schedule is KING.

I spent the year reaching out to other educators teaching high school animation and game design. My favorite teacher person in the world Reema Zoumut. That woman is an amazing teacher! I would have loved to have student taught with her. She is someone that gave me hope. She didn’t come from industry, but several of her students have gone on to work with companies like Blizzard. She is a giving teacher that spent hours talking me through and sharing resources. She had WAY more teaching experience than me and was so kind. I feel like I got through that 1st year because of her. She teaches at Bolsa Grande High School in high school. She has tons of free lessons and resources.

Here is her Graphic Design instagram
and Animation instagram.

I also reached out to Brain Ericson. He teaches in Utah animation and game design. He has some free short cut lists and then another site that he sells his video tutorials. I did purchase one of his video tutorials and they are short and quick. He was kind enough to allow me to use them with my students on Blender.

One of my local teacher friends Kimberly Larsen at the Effingham County College and Career Academy. She has been teaching over 15 yrs high school and has a background in graphic design. She shared her classroom management tips for a lab, and some of the lessons that cross over to animation.

I got lucky that talked with other teacher pros that were giving in their knowledge. I think I should try and give some of the information back to other people in the same boat. Trying to create something new like an Animation and Game Design pathway is a lot of work. It was new for Georgia that year. Standards are pretty vague. In the sense they aren’t telling you want software to use. Then you look at cost. There is some great paid industry software like ToonBoom. That would have cost $12,000 for use for 3 yrs. If I recall. I was overwhelmed relearning Adobe Animate and then delving into Premiere and After Effects post-production part of it.

This school year I’m at trying things out at a new school. I’m posting semester 2 lessons for those poor souls that are trying to integrate more digital art into their art program. Georgia added standards for the high school visual arts teacher that astound me. Looks like you have to really be a jack-of-all trades.

Even if you don’t have the same set-up modify, modify and make my lesson fit your needs. You might not have Adobe CC, so how can you use the files to change them for your software. Or lack of. In a computer lab technology can be your friend or worse enemy. When it works its great, and when it doesn’t well we all have to try and have patience.

Good luck to all my fellow visual arts teachers and getting their curriculums together. I have empathy and I hope some of the info can lighten the load. Best wishes on your school year.

 

 

 

 

       
I’ve been sketching away on my Wacom Cintiq Pro. I’m working on the something cute.

I got so much help from family and friends this year. I really appreciate it. I get so busy or caught with life I forget how grateful I should feel about all the help I’ve gotten. I decided to make some printable Thank you cards. The printable cards are free for anyone that just needs to say Thank You to someone. I always run out of Thank You cards during this time of year and I was teaching myself how to create Adobe Illustrator brushes. I’m getting better. Here is a to a year of more gratitude and empathy.  4 different color combos. I also tried using Coral Color. That is supposed to be a trending color.  Link to download below as a PDF.

notecardsnew2019

 

If you are looking for more elementary art lesson and ideas. Visit my old blog.
Simply Art Lessons Blogspot

Prior to this blog I had a blogger site. I’m sad to say I moved away from it because I tend to prefer using wordpress.com. WordPress I like that I can auto publish to my Facebook page. The interface for using wordpress is easier. That just me. I’m going to migrate my more popular lessons to this new site.  The easy why I’m finding to do this is switch to the HTML view in a post from Blogger. Copy & Paste it into WordPress in HTML view. Easy peasy.

I purchased a wacom cintiq pro 16″. I’m thrilled with it. I now have a full digital workflow. About time. I really needed to commit. I made a coloring sheet to celebrate my this happy occasion. First black and white illustration using my new cintiq and Adobe Illustrator.

Here is the PDF of it to download and use with your little ones or students! I included a section for students to write about what is going on in the picture.

DogIllustrationPrintout

I had lunch with a dear teacher friend of mine the other day, at the IHOP. She is an amazing teacher and I consider my photography teacher mentor. I started teaching photography with graphic design this school year. She has been so encouraging and broadened my scope of photography knowledge. We were talking about recording lessons for how to use software with our high school students. I thought I’d share how I set up at home. Now everyone has a different set-up. I’m a Mac person at home. I do all my video creations at home.

I currently have an iMac 2015 and then I use the following software to help with the screen recording.

Screen Record-Screen Recorder if iTunes store –  $4.99 I use this to screen record. You can also use Quicktime if you don’t want to spend the money. I’ve seen more expensive options like ScreenFlow for $99. Much more expensive option, but it does do that picture in picture, so if you want to show yourself talking while you are teaching that is an option. It also does video editing as well.

Key Castr – Free. Open source software. It will put on screen what keys I’m pressing. Super easy to use, and install on the Mac.

Adobe CC – $29.99. I originally paid $19.99 as a teacher. My previous school had the software on the laptop they gave me but I wanted it for commercial and educational use at home since I freelance. The 1st year you get the educational discount and the next year the jack up the price. With Adobe CC I’m using Adobe Premier to edit. I do have iMovie which is what I used to use.

Audacity – Audio recording. If I need to edit. I’ve also used Adobe Audition. Either one works. I started with Audacity first and it is free. Then I moved into used Adobe Audition. Some people will use Garage Band.

USB Logitech Microphone – $9.99. Not the best audio recording device, but it is better then using the just the desktop to record the audio.

I will start recording with the Screen Record-Screen Recorder app. Easy to use. I launch the app. You can add a logo and you can choose how to highlight your clicking action. I record at 30 FPS and full screen.  You can click and drag a custom size if you need to. I also have to turn on the KeyCastr so it will show my keyboard clicks as I’m giving instruction.

Once I’m done recording I stop the recording and it creates a MOV file. There is an option in the edit portion to select a different file format. Then I import into my video editor and then edit or speed up things, add my intro, fade-in and out. I export it then I will make a playlist in youtube for students to watch the videos in sequential order. I make a tinyurl for it and I post it in the system that we use for grading and showing assignments.

If I am making a video of myself I use my iPad 2018 to record. I owned a tripod and I purchased a holder for it. Yoassi iPad Tripod Mount Adapter works on standard tripod mount. It cost $13.99 when I bought it off of Amazon.

I could use airdrop or attach my iPad to my iMac to copy the files but I use a Scandisk 16GB iXand Flash Drive. It works faster.

If you have a high bandwidth for your internet go with that, mine is slow at home. I just try and avoid download and upload only when posting my videos. Once I login to my youtube account then I click on the video camera icon with the + symbol in it and upload my files. I set it for public. Once it starts uploading I select the playlist I want to add it to. Here is an example Boat Illustration playlist.

FYI, I don’t do affiliate marketing. Just sharing info if you want a budget way to make screen recording for educational purposes.  I find it really helps with large groups of students. Even younger students in elementary liked the independence of watching my videos and doing the work at a center.

 

 

I started teaching high school last year, and was given several ideas for dealing with classroom behavior. I posted them on my TPT for free. They is a behavior reflection worksheet and a student behavior contract. I used both of them with high school students. I don’t think it really gets students to think that hard on the behavior. I really used it to document their behavior. The students would write it down and then I would have a copy if I needed to address things with parents or administration. Save a teacher time from having to do the documenting. Feel free to check them out. Free to download.

Behavior Reflection Sheet

Behavior Contract

For elementary school I posted art bucks that can be used for rewards.

Art Bucks