Finding and Utilizing Creative Digital Tools (Ep. 469)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for our teachers. This show is produced by the Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz.

Earlier this year, I went to the NAEA Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a great time. I went to a ton of presentations just trying to learn as much as I could, try and see as many people as I could. And the guest that I’m bringing on today had a presentation that really, really stood out to me. Oscar Keyes and Erika Ogier, they had a bunch of great ideas for tech, but also a bunch of great ideas that made everything accessible for both teachers and for students. And it’s all about digital art in the classroom. And I thought it was great because I know so many people feel overwhelmed by tech or they’re not sure where to start, or they’re limited with resources.

And let me say, a lot of people are feeling that way. And so this episode, I’m hoping to get their perspective and their help on how to deal with those things. So they’re going to walk us through some strategies on integrating some digital tools, and we’ll try and do it in ways that feel approachable but also effective. And so we’re going to talk about how to identify platforms and digital art tools that actually work, particularly when you are in a classroom that is lacking in time or budget or access or any of the million roadblocks that we know teachers face.

But we’ll talk about how we can build some digital lessons that don’t necessarily require starting from scratch. But we’re also going to talk about the importance of digital literacy in the art room, not just in terms of creating, but also how to manage files and how to navigate platforms, and how to just help students develop that technical fluency that they’re maybe not getting other places. So I know that’s a lot. There’s a lot to cover, a lot to talk about. So let me bring on Keyes and Erika and we can get started.

I am very excited to welcome Oscar Keyes and Erika Ogier. Keyes, how are you today?

I’m doing pretty well. How about yourself?

Good. I’m great. I’m just thrilled to talk to both of you. Excited for this conversation. Erika, how are you?

Doing great. Thanks for having us.

Yeah. All right. So I guess to begin, I love to have all of our guests give us a good introduction. So Erika, can I have you go first and can you just tell us about yourself, your teaching, whatever it is you may want to share?

Sure. My name is Erika Ogier. I teach in Chesterfield County, Virginia. I’ve been an elementary art teacher at Salem Church Elementary School for the last 10 years.

Very nice. All right. Keyes, what about you?

Yeah, so I’m Oscar Keyes. I’m the multimedia teaching learning librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University, where I’m also affiliate faculty in the art education department where I did my PhD. And basically I like to joke that my job is just making people less afraid of technology by teaching them.

Nice. That’s a great description. That’s a great job description. I feel like that’s something that’s keen. So now I talked in the introduction to the podcast about how came to see your presentation at NAEA and loved everything that you both were talking about. One of the things that I was really excited about that I think transfers well, that makes people less scared of things is just the evaluation criteria that you’re using when you’re looking for tech tools or creative tech tools that can be used in classrooms. So I guess my question is could you talk through that criteria and just talk about what makes a tool a good fit in a classroom?

Sure. I guess I’ll take that one. So within the public K-12 environment, there are a lot of limitations when it comes to technology. And this is all on top of we’re managing traditional materials, so we really need resources that fit with what we can afford budget-wise, time-wise, and even within the structures of our IT departments. So when we were putting together this project and Keyes came to me and we really were trying to hone in on what I, as a boots on the ground educator, needed from these tools, we developed this five-point list. So to start off with, all of the programs that we have on our resource are free. A lot of our programs don’t have those extra funds for extra software or extra hardware, so you can’t beat a free price point.

The other thing is they to be easy to use and learn. I like to say in our presentation if I can’t learn it, neither can the kids. So being able to not have to spend a lot of time going through and learning how to use a tool is really fantastic. We also look for web-based. I’m not looking to download anything, especially because we use Chromebooks at my school. We do have iPads, but I prefer to use the Chromebooks just because the kids are, they’re readily accessible to the kids and you can’t really download anything on Chromebooks anyway. So for it to be web-based is way more accessible.

Number four is no logins, which is a requirement by my county. I know a lot of school districts do this to protect student data and privacy, and some of them have the ability to be logged into, but for us it was, as long as it’s not a requirement to actually use the program, we’re fine with that. And then I needed a wide range of tools. I don’t need 12 image editors, no matter how cool they are, Keyes has a knack for finding really cool stuff, but I don’t need 12 of them. But yeah, so those were the five points that we honed in on.

And I think one thing to just mention too, for folks who are trying to do this kind of research work of curating those tools, one of the things that as someone who’s very tech oriented, I had a tendency I think to lean towards the cool tool or this would be fun to bring into the classroom. And it really took this partnership with Erika and getting that honest feedback of that’s super neat, but that just cost me a six-month headache and it didn’t go anywhere to realize I really needed to change how I was even thinking about searching for tools like this. And so something is like it’s not always the newest shiniest thing that’s going to be the easiest to bring into a classroom. And you ultimately want the thing that the kids can use and that the teachers feel confident to support. And I think that was really what was beautiful about putting these criteria together through the art collaboration.

Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I think those criteria are super effective. I think they’re a great starting point for teachers because we have all these concerns. We have all these logistical issues that we’re dealing with, like Erika said. And so I think having just a clear vision of what we need can be so incredibly helpful as we look through those things. Now, Keyes, I want to come to you with this question too because as you said, you help people overcome their fear. And I know that’s a big stumbling block for a lot of people is that fear of technology or of the unknown when it comes to technology. So when I saw your presentation, you all were talking about suggesting, starting with what helping teachers start with what they know. So can you share how that mindset can help educators overcome the fear or the intimidation or just any other advice you have for people for starting where they are or getting past that fear of technology or fear of the unknown?

Yes. And that’s such a good question. I think sometimes we also make assumptions that the kids, because they’re younger, are already more tech-savvy. And actually we have found that digital art is a great opportunity for both teachers and students to learn alongside one another. One of the things I always like to mention in our presentation is that digital activity is a myth. It was a marketing ploy to try and sell more tech to kids, typically iPads. And so this idea that kids somehow have a better innate sense of technology is completely false. None of the research bears that out. And if anything, we’re actually seeing drops in tech confidence with younger and younger kids. And so one of the things that I think is so great about the digital art tools that we don’t get from things like Google Docs or Google Slides anymore is you have to know how to download and upload and change the file name all these digital literacy skills that a lot of cloud-based applications that they’re now learning in schools don’t teach as well because you don’t have to because auto saving into the cloud.

And so what I’ve told Erika is that I actually think these skills are the ones that are most important in that K-5 space. If they don’t learn it, then I’m going to get them as college freshmen who don’t know how to download things and save them to a different folder structure. So I think it’s like everyone needs those skills. I think for teachers who are worried that I’m not a tech-savvy person and I’m not a tech oriented person, I work with pre-service teachers and one of the things that I talk to those students who don’t see themselves as tech people, it’s like this is an opportunity to just tell your students and be honest about it, that I really want to bring this medium into the class. There might be things that you discover about it that I don’t know. And just inviting that opportunity to learn together.

And there’s actually a long tradition of digital art being a thing that does that. Even in the late ’90s, that was the proposed solution for teachers, the computers were new and bringing them into the curriculum that way. I think it still stands because technology’s got this weird element where it’s always trying to do something new. So we’re always having to learn as it updates. And so I think that’s actually probably just pedagogically the right orientation to that problem, which is like, “I don’t know, this thing updated today. I guess we’re going to learn how to do that again together.” And I think that’s part of what goes with teaching any digital tool is just being open to relearning it or learning something new again as part of that process and teachers being on board with that alongside their students.

Yeah. Erika, I want to ask you about a point that Keyes just brought up because I think that so many teachers are, like you said, just surprised by what kids don’t know when it comes to technology. And I talked to my high school teacher friends who are like, “Kids can do so many things, but they can’t resize a digital photo.” Things that we just assume should be basic knowledge for them absolutely are not.

They don’t know how to save anything. They have no idea how to save anything. And I blame the Google Suite, the fact that everything auto saves. When I was working with my digital art club this past February, and in a traditional art lesson, you have that you got to save that last 10 minutes for cleanup. I always say, “Save that last 10 minutes for saving.” Just showing them how to save, where to save, how to name a file.

Otherwise, when you get them submitted, they’re all going to be named the same thing. And talk about the importance of that, especially in the elementary space. I’m trying hard, people. I’m trying hard. So when they get to Keyes, they know how to save, they know how to organize files. But yeah, it’s really interesting because I was taught that too, that these kids know what they’re doing because they’re digital natives, they were born with iPads and Chromebooks, they can’t even type. So yeah, I think that this is a really great strong place to start is in the art classroom. It might be the best place to do this.

I have a really good librarian friend who does similar work to what I do. Her name’s Emily Thompson, and she actually uses this idea when describing her college freshmen, which is like she finds that they’re very technology dependent, but not necessarily technologically competent. And that technology is an interconnected part of their world, but they don’t actually know how those systems work necessarily or how to make it where it’s not driving their life. That’s something that’s supporting it. And so that to me tracks across the age groups.

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s an excellent point. And one thing that I’ve talked about on the podcast before and just I think about a lot is we as teachers, especially teachers who don’t know about technology, we just make that assumption. You both have talked about that kids know how to do everything, and so we don’t bother to teach that, and then they just go on further and further without ever having learned. And so I think, Erika, I love the suggestion of clean up time, but make it digital. I think that’s a really smart way to do things. And so I appreciate that.

And I think that’s part of the really beautiful thing with doing digital art, especially the elementary space because I have a lot of elementary art teacher friends and they get really intimidated by the idea of doing digital art with seven, eight, even six-year-olds, right?

Mh-hmm.

But starting them younger with this and really getting to the basics. I feel like when you’re a high school teacher, kids sometimes, or even the middle school level, you can be making assumptions about what they can and they can’t do, especially when it comes to basic computer skills, you can’t really make an assumption about what a six-year-old or a seven-year-old knows. They don’t really know anything. So we can really start at the basics of, okay, this is what a download button looks like. This is what a save button looks like. Everybody find the Windows key, everybody find the control key. Here’s what Ctrl+Z does, which is one of the basics because if you learn nothing else from me, you’ll learn what Ctrl+Z does. So I feel like especially starting at the elementary level, it can be a really beautiful thing to really get them working on those skills. And I encourage all elementary art teachers to incorporate some kind of digital art into their curriculum. It’s really cool.

Yeah, I love that. So Erika, can you talk about maybe some of your favorite projects? I mean beyond just teaching Ctrl+Z, what are your favorite things to teach? What projects have worked well for you? And I guess just thinking about those projects that have been successful, can you talk a little bit about what has made them successful?

Absolutely. I think starting at the very beginnings of my digital art journey, I come from a little bit of a digital art background. I was a digital photography major when I was an undergrad, and when I got a job as elementary, I was like, “Well, guess I’m never using any of that again.” But turned out to be completely false. So it really took hold during the COVID years, we were all virtual online, and I was like, “Well, now’s the time to really be getting them into the digital space because that’s kind of all we have.” So I started with this really great digital mural project where I literally had a photo of a wall at our school, and we used a program called Kleki, K-L-E-K-I. You can also use something like Paint Sumo for this as well, and have them download the file and upload it again, those skills and had them literally just… Kleki is something more robust Microsoft Paint program and literally just had them painting on a wall, a mural that they would like to make.

And not only was it really getting them in those beginning kind of digital painting skills, but also keeping them connected to the community and to the building when we were so far apart from each other. And I try to bring this one back every once in a while, especially when I do a digital art club or something like that. And it gets them really excited because it’s a wall that’s right outside of my art space and they really love being able to pass by it. And they all have those big imaginations as to what this could look like and what it could mean for our community. And again, our teacher loves those big mural projects and this is that, but without any of the paint or the fumes and all the kids get to do their own vision. So I like that one a lot. My favorite one that I’ve been doing for the last 10 years or so, five or six years or so, is actually pixel art animated gifts through a program called Piskel, P-I-S-K-E-L, app.com.

And I call this one animating the inanimate. So we actually start on graph paper. We start with from that traditional base, and we use our observational drawing skills to translate an everyday object into that kind of pixel art squares format. We talk about the limitations of the technique and building things out of squares and how that difficult that can be. And then we bring it into the program itself. And then once we have those built to the program, we start with the basics of animation because it has a really easy frames we can duplicate, we can move things around. And I like this particular program because it can get complicated, but you can also keep it very easy and very strong.

And kids love the fact that they can take this program and run with it. I just had a student who sent one to me and I was printing out a sprite sheet where it has all the frames on it, and I didn’t realize when he sent it to me to have it printed out for the art show that there was almost a hundred frames and almost crashed my computer. So I was like, “Wow, you really, really got into this, buddy.” He was like, “Yeah.” It was a really cool, really cool gift. But I think part of it, them also being web-based programs is they can actually take the programs and with their Chromebook, they can go home and they can work on things and make their own projects, which has been really exciting for them as well.

Yeah, that’s awesome though. Okay, I have two more I guess kind of big picture questions for you. Now, Keyes, I mean, you talked about this a little bit already with the collaboration, but you’ve done some research, like a partnership with Erika here. I guess I would love to know what insights have come from the partnership between your higher ed perspective and what Erika is doing in the classroom. And I guess a follow-up to that beyond the insights is just like why do you think it’s important to listen to classroom teachers when we’re trying to come up with new tech ideas, new tech initiatives?

I mean, I think one of the biggest… It’s like for me as someone who’s now so immersed in higher education and specifically pre-service teaching is I want to best equip those students who are going to be going into the field. And then there’s this irony of the less time you spend in the field preparing people for the field, you become more disconnected from it. So for me, I really see Erika as this crucial critical lifeline into making sure that my preparation of these future art teachers is going to be useful. I joke all the time that deep down I’m a dirty rotten pragmatist because I think at the end of the day, I really want the things I teach to be useful to students.

Erika knows all too well. I can go little big on theory out there in space sometimes, but at the end of the day, I want to make sure that the pre-service teachers that I’m charged with preparing for the field have these skills that they can take into their classrooms. And I think one of the biggest insights that’s really come from this process for me is that there can’t be necessarily this huge divide between highly theoretical conceptual work and that in on the ground practice, at least for me and the way I’m thinking about preparing teachers for the field, it might take a couple of iterations to get to something that is super useful. And I think the fact that I was off dreaming super big was important, but when it came down to what were these concrete ways to get them into the field, I think the big heavy thinking is really necessary to make sure you don’t get 12 image editors.

The fact that there was this brought up idea about 3D sculpting and video games and interactive art and programmable art, really, that came from doing lots of research on digital art media researching different artists, practicing as a digital artist going out into space and coming back. But I think in that coming back, Erika really put some fire under me to kind of say, “That is super great and very cool, and you can do that with your pre-service students all day in that fancy computer lab you have at VCU, but I cannot do that on these Chromebooks.” And I think it was a big wake-up call for me. I think I lived in a really lofty heady space of we can do anything with kids if we just dream big enough. And that’s true. And also can you dream with a Chromebook and what does that look like?

What I really loved about our resources and Erika’s openness too was like I might say, “Let’s do programmable art or let’s do video games.” And because the tools meet those criteria, I think that meant that you were open to bringing that into your classroom even if it wasn’t something you had done before. And so I think that was this really cool piece that came from it. And then the second part I think is just the fact that I have someone who can actually take that into the field and test it. One of the things that we really pride ourselves about the resource is that we say that they’re kid tested, teacher approved, because they’re all tools that Erika has tinkered with in her classroom or in art club or at art camp. So you have these different venues that you’ve been testing out different digital art tools. And I think that’s been one of the things that I’m super grateful for is just being able to say with confidence that we know these tools will work in people’s classrooms.

Yeah. Erika, do you have anything you want to add about collaboration, about bringing those ideas in your classroom or maybe just trying to tell Keyes that there actually are boundaries with logistics and budgets and all that stuff?

Yeah, I don’t want to speak for all K-12 boots on the ground educators, but I think definitely there is felt a gap between what we do in the classrooms and with higher education. I was told throughout my grad school career that theory informs practice, practice informs theory, which is true to a certain extent, but without communication between those who are doing this research and boots on the ground educators, the question is how can we make sure that the changes that practice are things that we actually need? And also address the limitations of a K-12 public school setting. You could bring me something really great, but if I can’t make it work in the 45 minutes that I have with the children once a week, can I really use it? Or we will even work on the Chromebooks? And also the idea of it being accessible in a public school and my school’s a Title I school and having these things be accessible to those with the greatest of limitations means it’s as accessible as we can possibly make it.

It’s not accessible to all, it’s just not accessible. So I think us having this collaboration, I always say that Keyes is the one that keeps it rigorous and academic, and I’m the one who keeps it practical and keeps it real and tries to keep it as grounded as possible. And I’m the buzzkill, but we got to make it work with what we have, but it’s what we have accomplished with this resource and how by talking to real educators, them being like, “This is a thing that I have needed.” And I was like, “Yeah, it was a thing that I needed too, and I’m really glad that we made it because it’s been really useful.” So that’s why I joined this project as much as I have.

Yeah. Very cool. And then last question for you both. I would love to know just kind of looking for what are you excited about when it comes to digital art in the future or bringing digital art into the classroom? And secondly, any advice you have for teachers as far as what they might be looking for in the future or how they can bring more digital tools into their classroom, how they can do that in a meaningful and effective way? Just wherever you want to take that. Keyes, can I have you answer first?

Yeah. I hope this isn’t a spoiler alert, but I know that one of the things that we’ve been prepping for this next year is sort of the creative tech tools 2.0, which is going to be slightly more workshop oriented, which is actually getting teachers to put their hands on those tools during our sessions. I think we will always have our song and dance in our back pocket, but I think we’re becoming more and more confident. The resource can stand alone as a thing we can point people towards. And that what we can actually do is get some of that first hump of putting their hands on the tools instead of just the information waterfall. I think we’re very entertaining when we do it, and we’ll probably always have a recorded version of that for posterity, but I’m really excited for that potential direction of designing more workshops with these resources and getting some teachers to put their hands on stuff because I think as Erika and I have talked a lot about that is that next big jump is getting teachers to feel like they can touch them.

And I know I see that in my own students when they are working with them. They’re like, “Oh, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it was.” It’s just getting over that mental block of this isn’t my thing, and showing them that actually with the right tool, it is totally your thing. So I’m really excited about what that next iteration of this looks like. I promised Erika, once I was done my dissertation, we would do this sort of big push, and so that’s done. And so I’m excited to get to work more directly with teachers who are in the field, not just pre-service folks and seeing how we can break down some of those barriers to accessing the tools.

Right. Erika?

Yeah. I mean, honestly, me too. I think through this process, watching folks come away from the presentation and showing them the resource and having that kind of spark and the excitement in their eyes, maybe I can actually do this to creating the workshops where we’re like, “Okay, here’s our advice for you. Let’s get our hands on this. Let’s again, start with what you know. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. You could start with a lesson that you already have and expand it either from the planning point of view or at the end with the presentation, or even messing around with some digital stuff in between.” It doesn’t have to be this big grant, “Okay, kids, today we are doing digital art.” It can be something that you integrate into what you already have built. It doesn’t have to be some big scary brand new thing.

You could start small and it might be better to start small just to bring in those procedures. I’m really excited for doing this in the future, especially working more with elementary art teachers. I’m trying to bring in a lot of the resources that are specifically for elementary art and best practices and how to, with this particular age, age group age range, developmentally help them begin to experience the digital art of the basic computer skills. And what really excites me too is even if we start from that elementary standpoint, elementary could scale up. It could scale into middle school, it could scale into secondary, but if we start at the beginning of it all, we can grow exponentially in the digital arts and really bring a lot of meaning to it.

Oh, very well said. Now, thank you both for everything that you’ve put together here. You have some amazing ideas. I really appreciate you sharing them, and I appreciate you coming on the podcast to talk about everything. So thank you both.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you so much for having us.

All right. Thank you to Keyes. Thank you to Erika. We appreciate that entire discussion. And I will make sure that I link you to Erika’s website, so if you’re interested, you can dive a little bit deeper and we’ll find other resources that can be helpful for you. So check the show notes for all of that. And I would say, just to put a bow on this whole discussion, I think Keyes and Erika really show us how digital art doesn’t have to be intimidating. It doesn’t have to be overly complex. It can start from what we already know and grow from there. And I think Erika’s emphasis on developing students’ digital literacy, whether it’s renaming files or uploading artwork or whatever, those ideas kind of point to the foundational skills that a lot of times get overlooked for our kids. Keyes talked about the rumor of digital natives and how we feel about that, and I think that’s worth taking some time to reflect on, worth taking some time to think about how we’re going to address that in the art room.

But everything that they talk about today, the tech tools that they recommend, are really grounded, I guess, in a real understanding of classroom constraints, which is another thing we talked about, and that makes them all the more valuable. So as we close things out, I just hope that this episode has given you some insight and some encouragement to take that next step, whether it’s just trying out a digital tool, adapting an existing lesson, or just starting a conversation with colleagues or your department or school about what digital art can look at. And I think above all, it’s good to remember that we are experts in creativity.

And when we give our kids the tools to explore that in different ways, that’s going to benefit them in a lot of different fields. So thank you all for listening and we’ll chat with you next week.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education University with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Please be sure to subscribe so we can join you again. And if you love the show, please jump over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen and give us a five star rating. Maybe even leave us a review. We’ll be back next week with the Mailbag episode with Amanda, and we will talk to you then.