TL:DR: IÂ haven’t banned fidget spinners yet, and I don’t expect that I’ll have to do so. Long version: Spinners: Kids love them, teachers demonize them. They’re a distraction! They’re disrupting the classroom! They’re fine for autistic kids, but to everyone else, they’re toys! I won’t have them in my classroom! We’ve banned them on …
Author Archives: theartguy
Why You Should Try Mastodon
Friends, teachers, life long learners, I come to bury Twitter, not to praise it. OK, with apologies to Shakespeare, I don’t mean to imply that I’ve found a “Twitter killer” service. I’ve thought that before, and I’ve been wrong. Instead, I think I’ve found a service that can fill some niches that currently are occupied …
10 Commandments of Media Arts
Teachers all have their pet peeves, rules that are not to be broken at any cost. At this point I think I’ve taught enough Media Arts curriculum to list mine. I plan to print these out and put them on my wall for next year. Respect the intellectual property of others. (Cite sources, don’t use …
OpenShot: Open Source Video Editing
TL;DR: OpenShot is a free video editor that supports multiple tracks and chroma key. Try it out. I’ve been an off-and-on-again fan of Linux for years (decades?), but one of the things that always had me come crawling back was the lack of decent video editing software. (And video games, but that’s another blog …
The Curse of “Good Enough” (#BYOTchat) | TheArtGuy Vlogs
Come by #BYOTchat on Twitter! This Thursday at 9PM EST! More exclamation points!
Too much work! | TheArtGuy Vlogs | January 8, 2016
In this case, it’s a student doing too much.
“You See More When You Draw”
I used to have a book on  Paul Cézanne (which I have since donated so it is difficult for me to look up its exact title) that told the story of Cézanne’s early years in Paris. One of the things he did was take trips into the museum with his paints so he could make color …
Photographers Are Running Out of TIME
It’s a pun! Get it? Er, OK, maybe I should explain a bit more. TIME and its publications (Fortune, Sports Illustrated, etc.) are trying to enforce a new contract for its photographers. PetaPixel reports: TIME’s latest contract for photographers has been at the center of controversy for about a month now, and many photographers are …
Money Problems | TheArtGuy Vlogs | November 23, 2015
If you’re so inclined, you may want to check out #BYOTchat
Media Day! | TheArtGuy Vlogs | November 20, 2015
Co-starring my students! We had a lot of fun at Media Day this year, and I thought I’d give them an opportunity to share what they liked.