New Dimensions In Assessment

Today I gave a couple of first graders opportunities to tell me about their art while I recorded their voices and filmed their art with my JVC digital camcorder. At this point, I am able to view the recordings as email clips, which means the images are grainy and low resolution. However, the audio is pretty good. It is amazing the ideas the kids come up with when they are speaking (or writing for that matter) about their art. One of my kids created a scribble drawing with a square darkened in the middle and he proceded to tell me "this was a matrix and this kid who entered the time portal (the square in the middle) could be sent back into the past or up into the future." Then, another child came up to me and said, Mr. Gaw! I want you to film me! So I obliged him and he got out his new drawing of a simply drawn rectangular face and body on a simple landscape. He proceeded to explain on camera that this was an "alien and that he lived on the moon under a rock and he jumped up high in the sky to scare people in a friendly way." I thought to myself, "Eureka!" The art making-creative thinking process, generated these incredible stories! This is something my TAB colleagues and I had allready known, however it was so nice to see this creative phenomenon come to full circle on video! I would have prefered to have them write first and then read their work to me as I videotaped the works, however, the spontanaeity of the answers and the interesting stories behind the works gave me hope that as we continue to video, the divergent thinking and art will become even more complex and rich with detail. We shall see. My hope now is that I can convert the video files with a higher resolution so the images are better. For now, I am happy with this new dimension in digital video assessment.

My new assessment tool is a digital camcorder. I have been interested in using mpg files with our electronic portfolio program for some time now. I believe my students will be extra motivated to write reflectively about their art work knowing their voices will be made audible on the video tape. We can also record puppet plays, narration, critical analysis and possibly do some simple stop action animation projects. We will see what new directions this tool will take us. Now, as soon as I become more familiar with the editing software, we will really begin to "go to town!" I have done some experiments linking a few files onto our PowerPoint portfolio platforms with great success. I am very excited about this new development. Maybe even connect an mpg file to this blog! We shall see!

Each time the boys pulled a new monoprint they rearranged and reset the yarn into another configuration, repeated the process and pulled another print. The boys were very excited by their creative discovery and eagerly signed their names to each image.  

A group of third grade boys were experimenting in the artroom today with a bucket full of wet painted grey yarn. I said, "Hey, what are you gonna do with that?" They said, "We don't know Mr. Gaw but it looks kind of cool." I said, "spread it out over one sheet of paper and then press another onto the top of it, pull a print and see what you get." They pulled three monoprints by the time they were done. With each print were squeals of delight as they had discovered on their own the "magic" of printmaking!