Using Magma studio: Erupting priceless social creativity in a time of despair.

Building a community in art is huge for students. Social interdependence theory using art in a time of covid can become a powerful tool for teaching. “The role of instructors is changing. They must design learning and assignments with student engagement in mind so students participate in active learning situations” (Reiser and Dempsey, 2018). In a time when we can not create this environment by force, you have to ask yourself what can I do? Students can just mute you or not engage at all by not coming to live sessions but doing the work. It's up to the instructional designer to win them over.

Sparking curiosity and creating a social goal in one.

The go-to things that align with this learner engagement strategy are based on making entertaining social skits and group murals. Which are pretty hard to do in a pandemic. These used to be the popular projects that would create a real sense of community and drive in my classroom. “It also provided support for indecisive learners’ overall development because although the decisive learners would take the lead, the indecisive learners would look up to them and learn new skills, knowledge, and self-confidence, just as Vygotsky described in his theory of social development” (Eloff & Ebersöhn 2004). These type of assignments have both the ability to spark curiosity and create a meaningful bond with the kids that are high achievers. In High school, social currency exists, and “Reaching Satisfying Outcomes to a Learning Task” (Reiser and Dempsey, 2018) can be linked if the students believe in the project they are creating. The best things in life are free.

Now I must find a way to replicate this with a possible hybrid student population with online and face-to-face students. I’ve seen a few social drawing applications but right now Magma studio is a popular solution for many of my students. You can even save out every one work separately so they can continue working. Photography can also be used to bring other interests into their work. Digital sculptures can be used from free online apps like SculptGL by Stéphane Ginier and rendered into place in that same social drawing app.

Erasing the pandemic of confidence

This works for visual art teachers because we are really teaching students to reach within for their own skills that they are trying to unlock. The biggest barrier to this is self-confidence. The restrictions of covid 19 have made this an even harder thing to deal with. The isolation has eroded a lot of confidence in many beginners starting my class. We will soon be back to face-to-face classroom settings that will actually hinder group work and the social community that an art teacher needs to build in an art class. Using only these two apps you can take a student from the simple elements of art to diving into digital art in commercial work. This app can replace so many functions I use to perform in the classroom but with way more power now and intention. Active learning can be support due to the sheer number of ways we can pour content into this free online tool. This also mirrors the real-world studios around the world that have to handle content from various disciplines.

The excitement is contagious when a student builds a positive interdependence that someone in their group is willing to learn something beyond the core content just so they can make something that the group all loves. “During the process of art-making, young learners often engage with others, whether it is through communication, observation or working together in groups” (Thuketana & Westhof, 2018). This also leads to my student learning beyond the core topic which can re-enforce those same core topics because they will now have a purpose. This builds social skills of accountability and teamwork also.

Perfect digital storms.

This is the one time where “technology can increase student engagement by students working together in a joint effort to solve problems” (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018). This strategy has to have covid 19 as a primary factor. Art room tools can not be community shared due to this. The social collaboration will be stopped due to social distancing. Money has already been allocated for laptops yet we may need more funding now that we are going back to face-to-face teaching.

Solving the money problem. After months of research, I've found that the tech community has donated some rather useful tools we can use. Many of these tools can even be used on mobile phones. Alternatively, 90 students will need non-sharable supplies for creating art in a traditional manner. This budget would balloon to $3,000 dollars annually in my district if students could not share tools. Magma studio’s free social drawing apps solve many of these problems and actually more. After looking around you will find an app called Aggie.io, which is the true free version of this app. Other tools that fall under the free but useful banner are ScupltGL, Tinkercad, some of Adobe’s cloud suite along with the free mobile apps, and ZBrush’s Zbrushcore Mini. By leveraging the phones and laptops that are already paid for by using these free apps along with LMSes that support feedback along with branching topic support an educator can provide the glue to make digital visual art useful and reactive for our learning communities. This may become a huge part of my teaching tools because I can also support traditional art when the money is available simply by using mobile photography. I've always tried to use commercial industry standards to glue each tool together for a cohesive educational experience.

References

Reiser, R. A., & Dempsey, J. V. (2018). Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed.). Pearson Education. https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780134237039/cfi/5!/4/4@0.00:21.3.

Eloff, I., & Ebersöhn L. (2004). Keys to educational psychology. UCT Press.

Thuketana, N. S., & Westhof, L. (2018). Group work during visual art activities to reduce indecisiveness. South African Journal of Childhood Education, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.4102/sajce.v8i1.447