Sidney High art students doing "happy dance" after receiving technology grant

A combination of creativity and technology won a $5000 grant for the Sidney High School art department.

Sidney was one of seven Nebraska schools awarded the Century Link Nebraska Educational Technology Association Classroom Technology Integration Grant this year.

"We get to do the happy dance today because we got a grant proposal of $5000," said Ann Darling of the Sidney High School art department.

The purpose of the grant was to recognize Nebraska elementary and high school teachers who are using technology in innovative ways as well as to show other teachers how technology can contribute to learning in the classroom.

"This is a big deal," said Sidney schools superintendent Jay Ehler. "It's really cool."

Darling wrote and submitted a grant proposal which was awarded by a competitive proposal process by a statewide panel of educators and business leaders. Sidney was awarded $5000 to buy Ipads, cases and equipment for a Visual Art Student Portfolio Assessment project that was started last year. Darling thinks that because the project was started before she submitted the grant proposal, this helped Sidney's chances of winning the grant.

"I think that also helped us get a leg up on the grant proposal because we already had things ready to go," Darling said.

When she started the project last year, the art department only had two Ipads and a droid tablet that had to be passed amongst the students. Previously, the kids wrote an artist statement and took a picture of their artwork and bundled it into a portfolio. It's good to let the kids get his or ideas out on paper, Darling said, so she can see exactly what those students are planning for their artwork.

"We did OK passing it around and working on that process," Darling said. "But this will help us quite a bit."

This year students will work to create their own digital content. They will research virtual museums and art collections and curate the results of these searches into a digital portfolio to share.

"They're creating their own content and writing about it after they're finished," Darling said.

The grant gives the department one Ipad for every two students.

"We have been spending the money on a set of Ipads for the art room," Darling said. "I think we're up to 10 right now."

The Ipads also help to make her class more interactive and interesting for the students. If she stands at the front of the room and projects images of different kinds of famous art work, some of the kids zone out immediately. When they have tablets, the students can search for artwork online themselves and share artwork they enjoy with the class.

"It's what we call a flipped classroom concept," Darling said. "Where they're creating the content and then they're also writing about it after they've finished it."

The school board congratulated Darling at last night's meeting on the grant award and her efforts to keep her classes fun and up to date.

"Ann's classes are kind of special," Ehler said.

Her classes contain traditional teaching, but are also modernized.

"She integrates technology," Ehler said. "It's kind of amazing."

As part of the grant requirements, art students from Sidney High School will be recognized at the Fall Educational Technology Conference of NETA, and will submit reports and present the work the students have done with the new technology at the Spring NETA conference.

"We are also required to present the student learning that we are going to be doing, at a poster session in the spring conference," Darling said.

The school has sent several teachers to its conferences and yearly conventions in the past.

"It's been very beneficial for a lot of us to go to," Darling said.