Become a Calligraphist Steps One & Two: Buy the materials & drawing even lines

Updated: Here is the video, as promised:

Last week during one of my three snow days, I ventured out into the cold, ice, and snow of Grand Rapids to take a co-worker to pick up her car from the mechanic. (I owed her a favor from a few weeks ago when she did the same for me.) This, I thought, would be the perfect opportunity to stop and pick up some materials for my Networked Learning Project I introduced to you last week. I watched this video on YouTube CalligraphyArtVideos to help figure out some supplies. In several other videos about materials I watched, they recommended I use what are called “dip pens,” which require the writer to dip the pen in a jar of ink and wash it off afterward. Since I’m a beginner, I wanted something a little less messy, so I liked that the video above showed pens with built in reservoirs that can be changed when they run out of ink. It seems a little safer for the accident-prone (me).

I did a little research on Michaels.com and figured out that, yes, they do carry calligraphy materials (you’d think I’d know that as many hours as I’ve spent wandering around that store). Lucky for me, there was a Michaels near the auto shop where I was taking my co-worker, so I popped in and picked up a kit by Sheaffer. It came with a little “how-to” booklet, which I promptly put away in a drawer because that’s against the rules of my assignment. 🙂

Here are some pictures of my materials, my first attempt at writing with the pens – it’s not pretty (yet), and a fancy little picture light box that I made for posting pictures of my work. The idea for the picture light box came from a blog called “flax & twine” that I found on Pinterest. You can get instructions on how to make it here.

From Sheaffer Calligraphy Classic Kit

Getting the pens to write is a challenge. I will learn more about the proper angles and positions for the pen as I go.

Photo Light Box

Finally, I am working on editing a video of me actually doing some calligraphy. It’s filmed. I just need to get it off my iPad and onto my computer to edit. Check back for the video soon!

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Better Ways to Get Things Done

This week I was given the opportunity to learn new ways to make my life a little easier. What a welcome relief this was, as I feel a bit like I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off on a day-to-day basis. I’m bad about keeping my planner updated, and it seems like I’m always responding at the last moment getting things done just in the nick of time.

This week I watched a “Ted Talk” entitled “The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” by David Allen (Watch it. Seriously. You will re-think the way you live your life.) His main point was about writing down EVERYTHING that needs to be done. Don’t let even a tiny bit slip past. The rule is, will it take less than two minutes to do? If so, do it now. If not, put it on your list and base what you do at any given moment of the day on the following criteria:

1. Context
2. Time available
3. Energy available
4. Priority

I desperately have needed something in my life to help me hold myself accountable for my productivity, so I decided to explore the application Evernote. It’s absolutely fantastic for a number of reasons.

What I love about Evernote:

1. I can make lists with check boxes! I love lists.
2. I’m a huge fan of snapping pictures of things to remember them, and this app allows me to organize those pictures and even include them in my list of to-dos.
3. It syncs with my calendars, one of which is my classroom calendar, so it helps me remember everything I’ve planned for the week for my students, thereby helping me to plan out what nights I’ll be busy grading and when I can get other things done.
4. If there are things I don’t get done one week, I can duplicate them into the following week’s to-do list so that they don’t get lost in the shuffle week after week.
5. The iPad interface is easy to maneuver, and I can also put it on my iPhone.

What I don’t love about Evernote:

1. Typing on an iPad or iPhone is not my favorite (but I can also do voice memos, so that makes up for this.)
2. While it does sync with things I use every day (like my photos and calendar), it is a separate app that I need to open up every time I need to add something to it. Its wide array of features are all wonderful and will improve productivity as long as I remember to use it. Getting into the routine is the tough part.

Here are this week’s to-dos. I need to add more of the steps for each task , but this is a start of getting it off my mind and onto my list.

 

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Making Connections With My Personal Learning Network

Today, fellow learners, I’d like to discuss my PLN. You may have heard this acronym before in the world of education, but since there are maybe 5,000 new acronyms introduced to a teacher’s vocabulary every school year, I’ll explain. A PLN (or personal learning network) can be described as the web of resources that one goes to for information. As a teacher, I feel like my web goes on and on forever and ever, and will only continue to get bigger the longer I teach. This week in CEP 810, I was asked to think about my own PLN and its various facets, and to use a website called Popplet.com to create a graphic organizer of my PLN. I liked this assignment because, as teachers, we find there is always so much new information coming at us, and breaking down my go-to resources opened my eyes. Seeing this visual representation of my PLN made me think in a couple ways. First thought – I really am using a great deal of resources to supplement my knowledge and practices in my classroom.  Second thought – There are probably way more resources out there for me to explore. The questions are what are they, and where do I find them?

I had fun perusing some of my classmates’ Popplets, as well, to see what their PLNs look like, and, I must say, everyone has some great resources, and they are all a little different. It was a great chance to get a peek at other’s worlds because I, like many others, get into my own little routine, and it’s great to find that there is so much more out there. That’s not to say we shouldn’t rely on our good old standby resources for information – colleagues, academic organizations, and professional development will always be important places to go. However, as 21st century educators, we should remember that good knowledge can come from anywhere.

Take a look at my PLN that I created through Popplet.

 

My PLN is slowly starting to grow in the area of technology. Soon I’ll be adding Twitter under the Social Media category because it’s my next assignment in CEP 810. 🙂

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My Road to Becoming A Calligrapher: The Beginning

This week, I’ve been assigned the task of finding something that I’ve always wanted to do. Immediately, lots of things came to mind: how to scuba dive, brew my own beer, and crochet, among others. However, the one that I was most excited about was how to write calligraphy. It may seem a little archaic and impractical, but, when given the opportunity to explore any of my interests and have it be an assignment, I thought it was the perfect choice.

I like the idea of being able to write calligraphy because I’ve always found it so beautiful, and I’ve never known anyone who could actually do it. This will be something entirely new to me. There are so many styles of calligraphy out there, and I get to learn about as many as I want. Yay.

There is, however, one caveat to this assignment that might make it a challenge – all of my learning must be done via YouTube videos and help forums. I’m somewhat familiar with learning in this way, as I learned how to make and decorate cakes through spending many hours online searching for tips and tricks, which included videos and help forums.

Thus far, my search for resources has led me to a number of great videos on how to write calligraphy. I found a user, videojugartscrafts, on YouTube who has some great videos explaining everything from the materials needed, to how to set up the area. Other resources include this video by OvernightArtist.

I’m looking forward to this learning experience ahead of me. Please continue to follow me to be updated on the journey. Maybe it will inspire you to learn something new, as well.

 

 

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Learning, Understanding, & Conceptual Change

This week, I had the opportunity to learn about learning and understanding. I was given the task of responding to the following prompts:

1. How do the learning processes of experts and novices differ?

2. What teaching methods support learning and its related concepts — understanding and conceptual change?

What I found was that experts are able to organize their knowledge around larger concepts, while novices know simple, disconnected facts. To support the type of understanding that we as teachers want to develop, we must consider students’ prior knowledge and model how to think through problems for them. These practices are necessary to result in a clear and deeper understanding characteristic of expert learners.

Want to find out more? Read on here.

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