My first experience using technology to learn was when my parents bought my brother and me a personal computer — a TRS-80, to be precise. It was heavy, and beige, and I totally thought I was getting an Atari. When I asked my Dad where the games went in he handed me a book of code that I could type into the computer to create things; a face that winked, a “Pong”-style game, or even an 8-bit rendition of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.” More often than not, the result was absolutely nothing, followed by hours of looking for the character I missed.

OK, so my programing capabilities never caught up to the awesomeness of Atari games, and I may have been a little perturbed that my friends were all playing Star Wars and I wasn’t, but I also really enjoyed playing around with these pages and pages of Basic code to try and figure out how to make it do new things. I started to see how computers could be tools to get jobs done, and not just for games.

My first teaching job came almost 15 years later. I was hired to teach art and computer apps, but I found out a week before school started that the job was actually art and computer science. The principal didn’t see what the difference was, but I was pretty freaked out at having to teach C++ programming. I definitely wasn’t prepared, but I needed the job. I had taught myself HTML in college, so I sat down with some books and learned everything I could learn. I probably stayed about three pages ahead of my students, and I don’t think anyone was fooled into thinking that I was any kind of expert in C++, but there was a certain benefit to learning along with my students. I noticed that not very many girls signed up for this class, so I started a club to encourage more girls to consider careers in technology.

Throughout my teaching career, I have worked in both public and private schools, with different views of what technology should and should not be used for in education. Because I teach art, I have always been on the periphery of technology access. In my current role as an elementary art teacher, I had difficulty at first even getting my district to give me a laptop or an iPad because I was not considered a full-time employee at any one school, but rather a part time employee at many. I bought an old iPad on eBay just to be able to check my email and pull up examples of artwork for my students to see, and within a very short time, I was using it to create meaningful things to use in my classroom and within my schools. Soon, I learned that I could hand it off and let my students create meaningful things, too.

The next year, I applied to be an Apple Distinguished Educator, and I was chosen as my state’s first (and so far, only) ADE. I was completely overwhelmed at the Apple Institute. There were so many amazing educators there, and I wanted to talk to every one of them. Even the elevator conversations were inspiring. I started to see a pattern in all of these educators, that they all did really amazing things with their students, but they also handed a lot of the ownership of the learning process to their students. I loved the idea, but knew I had a lot to learn from these great educators. 

I tried working with the iPads my students brought from their classrooms, but that didn’t work well. Many of the teachers needed their student iPads during art class (their planning time), and since I did not have administrative rights to them, I could not manage the devices or add apps for my students to use. Often, the iPads had the cameras turned off (too many selfies) or students’ artwork got deleted by teachers to make more room for classroom work, so I realized that I would need to get a set of iPads for the art classroom. I started knocking on doors to try and find funding for a set of classroom iPads. It didn’t take long to find someone who could connect me to a grant, and the State Cabinet Secretary for Education and The Arts was very excited to support my program.

Last year was my first year teaching with a set of classroom iPads. I learned very quickly that the best way to integrate iPads into an art program is to encourage students to create a workflow between both digital and traditional media. Instead of teaching lessons about technology, I taught art, and encouraged kids to find ways to experiment with adding digital media to their work — kind of like “app smashing” but with traditional art media. The kids were much more adept at finding cool ways to include technology that I probably never would have thought of. But what I learned from this experience is that giving kids choice and letting them use their own voice to demonstrate what they learned resulted in much more meaningful and beautiful artwork.

I was asked by our local PBS station to create some instructional materials to go along with the “In the Making” and “ArtVoiceWV” series about West Virginia artists. Each video was about a specific artist, and then I created a video art demo, along with a standards-based lesson plan for teachers to use through the PBS LearningMedia website. I then applied to be a PBS Digital Innovator, and was chosen to be the lead Digital Innovator for the state of West Virginia. The leads got to attend the PBS Digital Innovators Conference in Denver, CO, along with a day at the ISTE conference. This was another amazing experience. Though this conference was shorter than the Apple conference, it was just as intense, with so many experiences to network and find inspiration. I got to attend my first Edcamp, hosted by the founder of Edcamp, Hadley Ferguson. I also got to meet up with other educators that I collaborated with on Edsurge’s 50 States Project. Visiting the ISTE conference was over the top. One veteran told me not to sign up for anything, and to just take time to pop in and out of sessions as I found things that interested me. That was great advice, because if I had signed up for everything I wanted to see, I would have missed so many opportunities to network with other educators, pop into sessions that appealed to me, and try new things in the vendor area and “playground.”

This year, I’ve gone through the process to become an Apple Vanguard Coach, and I’ve been spending some time doing professional development with teachers. Though I really love teaching art, especially at the elementary level, I am considering moving toward doing more work helping teachers learn the things I have learned. There is so many educational products being pushed into schools and not all of it really leads to better learning. There is a need for teachers who have experienced the good and the not-so-good of classroom technology to provide professional development and support for teachers who are trying to incorporate technology into their programs. It has been so rewarding working with teachers throughout the state of West Virginia this year, and I really want to do more of it. This experience drove me to pull together some of the best teachers I know and launch EdcampCWV this year. Our first Edcamp was a huge success, and we are already planning two more.

One area in which I see a huge need is in arts education, especially at the elementary level. Many students only get art or music once a week, and for only 30 minutes — if they get it at all. But the arts are a great way to reinforce core subject learning while encouraging divergent thinking and creative learning, and robust arts programs foster more participation in school. Many school systems and educational industry groups like to throw the acronym “STEAM” around, but it is difficult getting school systems to embrace the “A,” especially when it comes to funding technology. Many just leave the “A” out and nurture their STEM courses. But, as one of the Apple Professional Learning Specialists pointed out when I showed up with my obsolete tech handed down from a previous teacher, “it’s really the creatives who should get tech first, because they’re the ones who are really going to do amazing things with tech and lead the way.” It think that is also true for creative students. When given the opportunity, creative learners are very effective at inspiring other students. I would like to help arts teachers advocate for more technology and more visibility in the educational system, to provide creative opportunities for all students, not just in arts programs.