Artventures: Book Bug Cards

 The community library has some brilliant ideas. Check out this machine:

When you've accumulated enough points from borrowing books. You can claim some book bugs cards from the machine. I received a card that's holographic! The illustrations and text on the card are professionally made. I didn't study the instructions as I'm not a fan of games but the free teaching resources are worth my time. 🙌 What are some unconventional materials you keep for teaching? 

Artventures: Art Teachers as Bloggers Part 2 Q&A

Hi Teachers!

The school holidays have officially started and I hope you'll have a well-deserved break.

I retrieved the Zoom chat history under documents in my laptop and I'm answering some questions here which I didn't have a chance to during the live Q&A during e-AEC.

How do you know what to post?

Your intentions matter because that is what sustain your blog. Otherwise, it's very easy to start with a bang and ends with a whimper. My early blogs are here and here. I had two blogs for multiple reasons. First, I was teaching English, Math and Art to different classes so I wanted a platform to consolidate my observations and learning. Another reason is to communicate with the parents/ caregivers. If the parents knew what the children were learning in the classroom, they would be in a better position to help their own kids without texting me every other evening. Here's an email from a caregiver after our meeting:

To answer the question, I know what to post because I know my intentions and my audience. 

How often do you post? How much content is in each post? 

Once a week. No fixed rule. It's your blog! I mainly talk about one idea per blog post but it could be a post that needed some time to write. For example, if I were sharing about a lesson unit then it would be after a period of time when I've ended my lesson and then consolidate my thoughts and photos to prepare a post. For units that are too lengthy, I would separate them into different parts such as Part 1/ Part 2 in the blog title.

What are the platforms to get started?

Wordpress

Wix

Blogspot

Tumblr

Medium

I'm sure that there're other platforms that I have yet to try. It really depends on your user experience. There's no need to master coding to be able to blog. Choose the one that suits your style. For blogspot, there are some changes to the interface recently so you just need to adapt to the changes once in a while when using the hosting domain.

How do you make time for the blog?

I really want to say that I have more 'me' time compared to teachers who are parents. But we are all in different stages of our lives so it's actually pointless to compare. I have teacher friends who are parents so I know the amount of work in parenting. That said, I also put a lot of value on how I spent my time. 

Since we all have the same amount of time to spend, it's important to have awareness of what keeps you going. Writing for me helps me to clear my headspace and is a therapeutic exercise. In fact, after writing, I feel more productive. I don't proclaim that I'm a writer or possess extraordinary writing skills, I'm still happy to able to express my opinions and do reflection. If you beg to differ, then look for another avenue that would sustain your interest. 

Other habits that I have are to limit binge-watching movies, TV programmes or scrolling through social media feeds. Even if I do post on social media, I would just post and exit. Rest assured that I do have friends, since I do keep in touch with my friends, why would I still need to keep up with the social media posting? So, I don't. Another habit is I don't hang out with my friends every evening. Personally, I think this is a very time-consuming activity and it's very draining for me. However, this activity can also energise you depending on your personality. Time is really limited during the weekdays so I need to prioritise by going for Pilates classes and having adequate sleep and nutrition to function well and keep myself healthy.

Will your colleagues think that you are trying to "sell" and market yourself? Will it create a competitive spirit within your unit if someone doesn't like it?

I don't think this has happened to me because my intentions are to help others understand my work. In fact, I think this is a good sharing platform for people who prefer to be self-directed or too afraid to ask for help. Having a platform like this means you're vulnerable to a certain extent and you've to be prepared to accept more criticisms. As long as there is clarity, you'll have peace within. 

That's all! 

Artventures: Art Teachers as Bloggers

Hi! It's the first time that I'm participating in the Arts Education Conference this year. My title for the conference is Art Teachers as Bloggers as it's something I've tried and tested for some years now. Each participant was appointed a mentor to give us feedback. I also have my critical friends to practise our online Zoom sessions.

The session that we were in was known as Pop-Up 10. They were interactive live-streamed sessions conducted via Zoom. Individual arts educators will “pop-up” in each virtual room to share and discuss key ideas, research studies or strategies on how to creatively engage learners in learning.

In my next post, I'll attempt to address some questions which I didn't have time to during the live session. Please check back! 

Artventure: Campus Party

Some time ago, I attended the Campus Party Singapore at EXPO. You can think of it like a Teachers' Conference except that it runs 24/7 for 3 days and they offer tents for sleepovers. For more information, you can view it here. I attended to hear the inspirational speakers and just be curious about the things I see. It could be a weekday when I visited so the event was quite underwhelming but at least there was some relevance in the presentations. What were some interesting places that you've visited last year?

Artventure: DIY Dress

School has started on 2 June and I'm happy to have completed some art projects during my break. Our school vacation is actually in June but due to the current situation, there was a swop to extend the circuit beaker. My favourite project has to be making my own dress using paper patterns since all the non-essential shops are still closed. It felt really good to make your own clothes. I bought the batik fabric in Bali last year and I knew I had to make something really useful. Not my usual colour scheme for work but I think it's a possible teaching tool when the time comes. 

It sure took a lot of time to make and I've learnt to take note of more details when looking at clothes😊. Besides the type of materials used, things like the type of stitch for different areas, the width/ tension of the stitch also depends on the type of fabrics used. Even though the dress looks alright, since I don't have a serger machine, the interior of the dress don't look professionally made. If I were to make this again, I will use a 50cm invisible zip and stitch my pockets nearer to the waist. 

Artventures: DIY Shrinking Plastic Crafts

Hi! Hope everyone is safe and well. It's term break now and I wanted to make something for my class. Here's the shrinking plastic craft video and I've underestimated the time needed to complete 26 of them. It would be faster if I feed everything in the oven but sadly it's out of bounds for non-food items. So, I had to heat these up individually with a heat gun. I made some twice as it didn't turned out as I've expected. 

Artventure: 3D-printed Tripod Mount

I've been looking for a tripod mount for the longest time. Browsing online catalogue and reading reviews about the various brands. I bought one that didn't really work too well and so I tried printing it at my regional library. I'm glad it turns out decent and workable too. The challenging part was looking for the ONE nut that's of the right size. All I needed to do now is to adjust the tripod mount and just slide my phone in when needed. So, now I could free my hands in my teaching demo videos!

Artventure: 3D Printing

Hellooo! I'm trying my hands at 3D printing. At the regional library, we have a maker space where 3D printers are available for use. I attended a compulsory briefing and given the resources, I'm trying to figure things out. The ground rules are reasonable for public usage. I was hoping to print something useful for the art rooms. Thinkercad was used to design my sign and while I was printing, a mom and her son were printing name tags for teachers' day gifts. What a resourceful and patient boy! As only one registered user can use the lab once a week, one has to return to the lab quite often. Sometimes, the printed object might have flaw(s) which require minor tweaks in the digital file and printing it again. 

Printing layer by layer

The % of infill determines the density. It's not a whole solid. 

The original blueprints are created using Computer Aided Design (CAD) programmes such as Sketchup, Tinkercad, Solidworks and AutoCAD Students. 

There are 3D printing designs that come from community digital file sharing such as:

pinshape.com

thingiverse.com

myminifactory.com

For technology that scans an object then producing a printable 3D file:

skanect.occipital.com

reconstructme.net 

Artventures: aedge 2019 art exhibition

A delayed post! It has been a month since the exhibition opening day on 5 March. I was one of the teacher-curators for the art educators' developmental and explorations (aedge 2019) exhibition. It was held in the art gallery of the School of the Arts, Singapore.

It was an intensive business and we had our meetings mostly in the evenings. Most of our communication was taken online and well aware of our responsibilities or at least complement each other. I was the only primary school art teacher so it was nice to hear different perspectives. I wouldn't think of swapping places with them when children's explorations are more fun and crazy (rest assured your kids are safe with me). I would also definitely miss the funny questions.

From the theme of the exhibition, Time & space, we gathered 3 sub-themes so that we could organise the selected body of work under each strand and we could have private communication with the artists whose work are placed under the sub-themes.

During this period, I pored over books to help me understand the concept of curating as much as possible:

• Rethinking curating: art after new media / Beryl Graham and Sarah Cook
• Ways of curating / Hans Ulrich Obrist with Asad Raza
• Curationism: how curating took over the art world and everything else / David Balzer

Curators build bridges in gaps between artists, the public, institutions and other types of communities. By building temporary communities and connecting people and practices, they also create conditions for triggering future collaborations and projects.

I'm thankful to be part of this experience and being able to learn so much from everyone in the team.

📷: Dorathy

📷: Amanda

📷: STAR

Artventure: Diving Deeper

Prior to our trip to Chennai, India, for the Arts for Good Fellowship Programme, our homework was to explore the purpose of our work. We were introduced to the ‘golden circle’ exercise developed and popularised by Simon Sinek, Author of Start With Why. This sharing session is facilitated by one of the fellows, Brydie-Leigh Bartleet. 

I displayed the organisation's purpose that I work in and mine to show the alignment between teachers and the organisation. 

We spent some time doing a gallery walk and leaving responses on post-its for others on their golden circle. Then. we stood in a circle and explain the purpose(s) of our work. The person next to us will need to reiterate and paraphrase what we had said before moving to his/ her own purpose(s).  

No prize for guessing which is mine.

Getting to Know About Our Practice and Motivations Exercise

Rather than simply sharing WHAT we do as arts facilitators, programmers, educators, researchers and policymakers, and HOW our Organisations/

programs/projects do it, in this session we’re aiming to have a deeper 

exchange. We’re going to share the WHY of what we do, in order to understand 

the real purpose behind our work:

a) WHAT your arts for good program, practice or organisation does. List as many things as you like.

b) In the next circle, list HOW you achieve the things in the outer circle.

c) The final circle, the one in the middle, addresses the question: WHY do I do these things?

And here’s the challenge: there can only be one WHY.

Artventure: Girls in Tech 2018

Happy New Year! 1.5 weeks of school just zipped by at the speed of light! Just a few months ago, I was a mentee in Girls in Tech mentorship programme(GITSG) Singapore 2018. GIT was founded by Adriana Gascoigne in San Fran in 2007 and GITSG had its first chapter in Asia.

British philosopher, Alain de Botton says that anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough. This is probably the reason I joined the programme - because it makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. It's usually easier to blend in with your own tribe and coming from a non-geeky background, I was asking more questions than having conversations. Their IT-lingo goes along UX/UI, data scientist, data analytics etc. For most of the time besides using language that I had to internally process for 5 seconds, there were common threads within the workplace which I could resonate with. For example, relationship management, HR matters or PD. 

During our first meetup session, we had ice-breaker games and something else that was new for me was the speed networking which we went for separate interviews with 3 different mentors. The shortlisted mentors for us were based on a set of survey which we did prior to the meeting. Then, we had to rank them in order of preference. Before the ranking, the organiser even told us to chose the mentor whom we dislike! I guess it's to get the most of the experience. When we were 'forced' to work with people who are unlike us, it creates friction and opportunities for our growth by struggling to find similarities and complements. 

We were assigned six one-to-one sessions with our mentor and my mentor worked in a multinational organisation based in Singapore. For half a year, we had our sessions and mid-programme check-in and also met and interact with other mentors and mentees. 

One of our activities that I would remember for a long time is 'fly on the wall'. It was so simple yet effective. We started by gathering in a group of 2 mentors (not assigned) and mentees. Each mentee shared a challenge (e.g. work relationship) with the group. Then everyone would clarify with the presenting mentee for a minute. This is followed by the mentee turning her back to everyone (we have the swivel chair) and the rest of them would take turns to discuss the challenge as though the presenting mentee is not present. According to one of the mentees, this exercise is used by UX/ ethnographic researchers for their work. When the presenting mentee had her back turned, she is to be an observer and not maintain eye contact with others to minimise any change in their behaviours.

I was enthralled to be part of the programme. While it has come to a close, I’m glad to discover more about myself. 

Artventure: Fellowship programme 2018/19

Hello friends! I've been involved in the A4G fellowship programme organised by the Singapore International Foundation. The focus this year is on how Arts can be harnessed to empower the youth in our communities. We had a webinar on 31 Oct where the fellows from 10 different time zones participated. The Singapore exchange happened between 20 and 23 Nov and we all met in person. The activities included trips to visit Singapore's Arts and Heritage, Katong and Joo Chiat. I discovered that there is an artist residency at Kim Choo Artiste Residency which I think is quite a brilliant idea! Who would have thought of a Bazhang* business would branch out into an artist residency?

📸: SIF

Ondeh ondeh 📸: SIF

Our Tree of Life assignment. Wonderful interpretation by everyone. 📸: SIF

Learning Journey of Esplanade led by Mr Ravi

At Playeum 📸: SIF

📸: SIF

📸: SIF

Although our days ended at 9.30pm almost everyday, the exchange was energising, spirtual and rigorous. In just four short days, I could see and feel the stoic determination of each. Everyone is positive and hopeful. Since the glocal issues are man-made, then only we can derive the solutions. Since nobody knows everything, it is only by learning to work collaboratively, paying attention and being forgiving that people can develop empathy.

*Bazhang is rice dumping.

Artventure: Lifewide Learning

Science fiction is one of my favourite genres. It mirrors certain aspects of real life and yet gives you a sense of anticipation. What's exciting is very often it depicts the downside of the future and because we are still living in the present so we remain hopeful of what we can or should not do to prevent the catastrophe. For example, in Black Mirror (available on Netflix), I like dwelling on the contemporary issues in the episodes Nosedive and Arkangel. 

Recently, I attended a pre-hackathon workshop and it felt like a fictitious event. The speakers include futurists talking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, deep tech, blockchain, future shock, future-ready, future leading, future-shaping, ambidexterity, proof of concept, longtail knowledge, just-in-case and just-in-time knowledge. They also talked about microlearning platform such as the SmartUp app because gone are the days where you were made to sit in for 8 hours of training. HA! I have learnt a lot in that evening and it also meant that I didn't know what I don't know. The consolation is that now I know what I didn't know. Sometimes, I wonder why is it that people who are not teachers are frontiers of education whereas I'm standing in front of the classroom.

Learning is becoming more ubiquitous. Joseph Blatt at the Harvard Graduate School of Education talks about lifewide learning which essentially refers to an explicit acknowledgement that learning can and does happen in every facet of life, particularly beyond school hours. 

Before the end of Semester 1, my friends and I conducted a workshop for zonal art teachers. For a day, our audience was adults instead of children. As facilitators, it's a totally different experience to facilitate adult learning. When teaching children, we use the word pedagogy. When it comes to adults, the principles of andragogy sets in.

These are some personal observations from my experience:
I wouldn't say teaching adults is easier than children but in the context of this 1-day workshop, our audience was very cooperative and peaceful. During our group's meeting sessions in preparation for this workshop, we are aware that teachers always look forward to applying what they have learnt in their job. So, incorporating hands-on activity was definitely on our list. Our art workshop is not about teaching a type of craft so teachers can bring back to their classrooms. We strongly discourage that as most craft ideas can be found online and self-taught. Second, since our workshop is bi-annually, it would be an ineffective way to teach. 

It was an inquiry-based lesson where teachers do ideas generation. Through making our thinking visible, we discussed our unique positions and the circumstances that we are in which affected how we think and plan. We also found that sometimes teachers are too eager to incorporate new art techniques into their lessons without knowing their purpose. It could be a coping mechanism and it also meant that the teacher might be surviving instead of thriving.

Next, it also dawns on me that children are often tasked to create an artwork in an artist particular style. Why? Techniques and stylistic problems are not the only way through artmaking. An example is Cubism, Picasso and Braque fragment forms and presents them from multiple perspectives. It's the issue of reality, how we or artworks perceive or represent reality. Not all younger children are ready to hold such a discussion but introduce a picture book: They all saw a cat by Brenden Wenzel about perspectives in reality and we can make Cubism lesson a more meaningful one. 

Artventures: Art Teachers as Teacher-artists

Hi! I was asked about my work in school and the filming was done in a few hours. Please enjoy the video! Thank you to all the students, production team and Ming for the hard work!

STAR Arts Educator Series: Art Teachers as Teacher-artists from MOE STAR on Vimeo.

Artventures: To Artground

My colleagues and I visited Artground for an art educator's learning journey. We saw spaces for triannual installation which children could enjoy by engaging their bodies. A few dancers giving us a teaser of what the children would experience in their drama workshop. Then we were divided into two groups with each playing the role of monkeys and kangaroos. They even had an outdoor garden and children who signed up for this workshop would learn about the environment, handle earthworms, its compost and do coffee painting.