Learning to Teach through Art & Technology August 19, 2008

Teachers learn podcasting at the Cisco-Smithsonian American Art Museum Teacher Institute, 2008

In June SAAM, along with its partner Cisco, hosted teachers from Louisiana and Mississippi, who came to the museum to learn how to use technology in their classrooms. We asked Dr. Elizabeth Eder, SAAM's national education program manager, to write about the week's activities.

When we talk about education we use and hear two slogans so often that we’ve stopped thinking about their meaning:  "Our children are the future" and "we must use technology to facilitate learning."  What do they really mean?

SAAM and Cisco, a company best known as a maker of technology that helps computers talk to each other, invited thirty educators from Hurricane Katrina-ravaged schools in Mississippi and Louisiana to Washington, D.C. in June to reflect anew about helping students learn to think and love to learn. The week-long teacher institute used technology and American art as a means to these ends.

Yes, corporate responsibility is another one of those meaningless slogans, but Cisco arguably does it differently.  The corporation’s executives created the 21st Century Schools ("21S”) initiative devoted to increasing student participation and improving learning outcomes.  Technology not only serves up voice, video, and data but serves as an "accelerant” of learning. 

Put another way: Cool apps like blogging and podcasting can put the pedal to the metal for learning awesome stuff.

More important than this or that technology are sound educational leadership, well trained teachers, engaging cross-discipline curriculum, and dynamite content. That’s where SAAM fits in.  We’re bringing American Art into our nation’s classrooms, where it inspires deeper, more critical thinking about nearly any subject. We’ve been working for decades to promote the use of primary sources to enhance twenty-first-century learning skills. We’re equipping educators to use Web 2.0 tools and artworks together to create learner-centric pedagogy and content. We’re building professional networked communities of educators across the U.S.  The collaboration with Cisco’s 21s initiative allows us to do all this . . . and more.

And what did this week at SAAM mean for the teachers?  Here’s a sample of their impressions delivered via none other than their own blogs or e-mails posted on the Institute’s collaborative website.

"Before coming, I really thought this trip would be a great opportunity to see Washington, D.C. because I had never been before, and that was really why I came. I thought I might be able to glean a thing or two from the training, but I never really saw a connection between science and art. But that all changed this week. I realized that this experience has really opened up a whole new world to me . . . the bottom line to all of this is that art can be integrated into science, and I feel like I have the tools to do it my classroom.  I hope I can make art come alive for my students."

"I will use art in my math and science classes as a springboard for concepts and as a piece to stimulate the writing and critical thinking processes."

"I cannot wait to utilize all the resources presented and show my students a whole new world."

"I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the 'art angle,' but everyone made it so simple and easy to do that how could I not enjoy it!"

"The students will use podcasting to complete the final stage of the writing process: publishing.  It will motivate them to do their best."

By partnering with schools in Mississippi and Louisiana, SAAM and Cisco have energized teachers to use American art and technology in their classrooms.  More than that, the partners have created new tools for teaching across the curriculum and making learning fun.

• Cisco, Art, Technology, education, K-12, Smithsonian American Art Museum