The ripples project. (New Technologies).

A pebble is tossed into a quiet pond and ever-expanding ripples result. When Lessenger Elementary School received a Palm[TM] Education Pioneer grant to use palm pilots as sketchbooks, a rippling effect took place throughout the school. Other curriculum subjects, staff members, parents, and even the community began using handheld computers

The basis for the grant was that the portability of the palm pilots made it practical for the first time to use computers as on-site sketchbooks. The grant provided a palm pilot for each of Lessenger's fifth grade students plus the two classroom teachers involved in the project, the naturalist from the nature center, and myself, the art teacher. As a teaching team, also including our computer specialist and public relations coordinator, we met weekly before school to plan our lessons and curriculum.

Software, Hardware, and Functions Used

The semester-long project had the following three components: art (drawing leaves at a nature center), creative writing (composing nature poetry), and science (leaf identification and developing observational skills), connected through the technology of handheld computers. Each component necessitated learning a different function found on the palm pilots. We all learned together as none of the teachers or students had ever used a palm pilot before the project began.

Drawing was accomplished by installing TealPaint[R] software on the palm pilots. TealPaint[R] is a basic drawing program with the familiar icons of a desktop paint program. Most of the fifth grade students found it easy to learn and use the program.

To compose poetry it was necessary to learn Palm's[TM] Graffiti alphabet. This was like learning a secret code and again, most students had no difficulty mastering it. Some students chose to use the onscreen keyboard, writing in a hunt and peck fashion. Each of the staff members had the luxury of using a portable computer keyboard, purchased by the district, which snaps onto the palm pilot.

At the nature center, students received factual information about the leaves and trees through "beaming." Beaming is a method of transferring information from one palm pilot to another through infrared technology. The naturalist prepared the information, which she beamed to parents, who in turn beamed the information to their group of students.

Practice, Practice, Practice

When we learned we had been awarded a PEP grant, we didn't wait for the palm pilots to arrive at Lessenger to begin the Ripples project. I began teaching a series of drawing techniques that would help the students capture the realism of a leaf. With each lesson, I presented a different artist who had used nature as a source of inspiration: da Vinci for his realistic nature studies, O'Keeffe for her close inspection and enlargement of the subject, and van Gogh for his rich, vibrant use of color.

When the palm pilots arrived, our lessons focused on learning how to use them. We allowed students to keep the palm pilots with them between the weekly lessons so they could have ample time to practice and play around with the technology. After sponsoring a parents' night where the Ripples project was explained, parents signed a permission contract and the students were allowed to take the devices home, offering even more time for hands-on usage.

The Field Trip

We were fortunate to have a beautiful day for our field trip to the Madison Heights Nature Center. The students had about two hours to accomplish three tasks: draw leaves, record sensory information about the leaves (later to be used when composing poetry), and get beamed information about the trees. I was amazed how quickly they were able to accomplish these tasks.

Connecting to Existing Technology

In the computer lab, the fifth graders imported their leaf drawings from TealPaint[R] on the palm pilots into Photoshop[R] on the desktop computers through the means of a "cradle." A cradle is a device that is connected to the desktop computer and allows synchronization of information between the desktop and the palm pilot.

In Photoshop[R], students drew lines through and extending off of their leaf drawings, creating radiant designs. I showed the watercolors of Lyonel Feininger as an example of how lines can be used to break up a composition. Then students selected and applied colors from the color palette using the paint bucket icon.

From Computers to Ceramic Tiles

The students' computer leaf drawings were saved on a disk and then sent to Urban Clay, a company that creates ceramic decals from computer images. When the decals arrived, I soaked them in warm water, releasing them from the paper backing, slid them onto handmade, glazed tiles and fired them to fifteen hundred degrees.

The finished tiles were radiant. I was pleased that the pixels showed on the tiles, making it obvious the images were drawn on a computer. I was also pleased with the inventive charm of the leaf drawings created by uninhibited elementary students using cutting-edge technology. The tiles were glued and grouted to a framed piece of plywood that now hangs in the school as a permanent, colorful reminder of the journey we pioneered together with the Ripples project.

NATIONAL STANDARD

Students intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of their experiences and ideas.

Craig Hinshaw is an art teacher at Lessenger Elementary School in Madison Heights, Michigan.