Where can I find a copy of the alignment tools?

I could not find an updated version of the alignment tools posted to this blog spot. If I have missed it please direct me where to find it on this site.

Visual Arts Specific VPAA Thread

This is a thread for posting questions, recommendations, strategies for addressing the VPAA guidelines specific to the visual arts.

Making VPAA "Sticky"

VPAA Design Team: How to make Visual, Performing and Applied Arts Courses "Sticky"

This post relates to an article John Kratus, Professor of Music Education at Michigan State University, has written a paper in which he attributes the decline in music education to its need to:

"become sticky, that is it must become potent and irresistible. It must also connect to the culture in meaningful ways to enable the epidemic to spread. There must be mavens to initiate the change, connectors to transmit the change to a broader population, and salesmen (and women) to translate the change into each school's own context."

I think many would agree that the same is true of the other visual, performing, and applied arts areas.

How do we help schools and teachers throughout the state make visual, performing, and applied arts credits "sticky?"

Reaching beyond the VPAA Design Team

At the December 15th meeting, each regional table was asked to brainstorm on additional folks who should be part of our outreach effort as we build capacity statewide to meet the VPAA Credit Guidelines.

Please continue to generate names, titles, and as complete contact information as you have, including email addresses.

VPAA questions from teachers and administrators

I have been discussing the VPAA with teachers in Macomb County and in other parts of the state. It seems like the response from districts has been a mixed bag. Some districts are taking the arts credit seriously and are looking for help in designing appropriate instruction. Most, however, are so concerned with assigning Merit Core values to their ELA, math, and science classes that they have not had time to think beyond the "traditional " curriculum. I think it is important for arts teachers to become schooled in the arts credit guidelines and help keep the issue in front of administrators. I'm sure many on our VPAA team would be more than happy to speak to teachers or administrators in their geographic area.

The purpose of this site

This is intended to be a site for members of the growing VPAA Design Team to work in private on draft documents and to pilot the usefulness of a site like this in the future for the broader community of Visual, Performing, and Applied arts teachers, partners, administrators and possibly students.

If you view the videoclip under Creativity Resources on this page from TedTalks by Charles Leadbeater, you'll hear him talk to the fact that these new technology tools allow us to work collaboratively and thereby build and create new knowledge exponentially - a la other Creative Resouces, the "Did you know" video.

So, let's play on this site for a bit and see how this can work for us.

I'm also reviewing another tool, "Zoho Notebook" and will probably invite a few of you to try that out as well.

I like the ease of use of Blogspot and working between it, Google Documents, and Zoho Show, I've been able to put this site together pretty easily. So, at this point it may do what we need. But, let's keep exploring.

Ana