Summer 1 2006 EEV Questionnaire

EAST END TEAM

EEV Questionnaire

Due June 18, 2006

• The initiation of creative ideas

o Did your EEV collaboration evolve from creative ideas? Whose? How did this happen?. I thought to unite our cause with a bigger idea that included the community using the Artists/Writers game as a metaphor /symbolic structure and the Pollock Krasner House as a hub. The game slowly faded out of the picture and the focus sat solely with the idea that the PK house would be central. Linda and Dawn were instrumental on pushing the educational connection generating excitement. The idea evolved as we collaborated. The ideas it evolved with the class- full class discussion on the change we all have witnessed on the East End. Linda and I shared an ironic amusement about the “two worlds that co exist out here.” The celeb party photos that appear in the local papers and the “Artist Writer Game” seem like a metaphor for the whole experience. On several fronts easy solutions rose up and I was relieved we resisted. Meeting with Helen Harrison gave us direction and the hopes of producing a useful document - authentic document. We ultimately learned that the web was more then a directory and that the opportunity to do so much more for kids and then community.

• The purpose of ideas

o What is the purpose of your EEV collaboration? Did it have special meaning that went beyond curriculum or a good project? If so, what was its meaning?

The purpose is to produce a web site that will be a “real” source for people interested in the people, culture and arts on the East End. It will also serve as a resource for the Pollock Krasner House. The purpose is also to learn the technology by doing and will actually teach me how to make the shameless self-promoting websites I seek. A living lasting document that can serves as a directory, and an educational tool? I viewed it more then a school function but as a bridge between ages. Culminating with a yearly festival that brings kids into the fold of the “ Artistic Community.”

• The creation of small learning/leadership cohorts

o How did your collaboration team come together? Are you bound by a common shared vision? Do you team learn? Do you explore your core values within the reasons you created your collaboration? We were a splinter group, (an underground organization that grew out of our dissent beliefs. We were the  few who cared passionately about the arts. We sought to use the potential energy and excitement generated by collaboration with the PK House. We all saw change as a unifying theme. Our splinter group focused on the arts and drifted away from the PK House conception for a  bigger ideas.

We have a shared vision, often blurry but shared.

• Evolution of collaborative groups with successes/challenges faced and met.

Our personal lives have superceded the group. Our vision is great and idea potentially unlimited but our productivity, frequency, commitment and communication is human.

o Was your collaborative group a success? Did the members of your group share the vision, the commitment, the energy, and the production? Did you communicate with one another frequently online? Did you meet in-person? What did not work well in your group? How might you either do better with this group in the future or avoid your problems in your selection process in a next group? Does your project have a place to grow in the future? Will it? If so, how?

We were a success and a great success. We shared a common goal, a mental model and got an enormous task near completion. The ball is set in motion for the next team or segment to begin.

• The redefinition of participant roles in traditional organizations as they partner in EEV collaborations

o Have you stretched beyond your day-to-day organization? Have you created something that works within your organization but extends beyond it? Does existing in the EEV free you from some every day constraints of your day-to-day organization? If so, how? I am burdened enormously by the work and the task. It frees me short term it frees me from nothing. Long Term it   has sent in motion the use of technology that creates a vibrant  fulfilling alternative to tradition class activities. Possibilities  are endless and an exciting  climate in the class room has been created. tTe days fly by.

• The development of actions

o How did you decide what actions to take to accomplish your goals? Are your actions consistent with your goals? What did you hope to accomplish? Did you?

By June, I anticipate that our Pollack/Krasner based, “Artist and Writers of the Hamptons,” site’s evolution will be completed. Our site altered and adjusted, some parts came and went, while we linked to many new pages and sites. Although we feel the development has been painfully slow going. Our team did eventually develop a unified mental model- a shared vision, a sense of each others strengths and the part in the system we all play and a clarity of vision of where we should take the site and what it will ultimately become. We are therefore confident and feel the idea/conception is so big and dramatic that although it has required vast emails, phone calls and meetings we can see it to fruition.

For me it was a vehicle to begin thinking about web design and applying the skills that Faye and Donna helped to foster. I have tried to embrace differentiated instruction in my class and apply Costa’s Habits of the Mind to my own meta-cognition and to my students’ learning. I have learned that through repetition and “doing,” - I learn. I set to the task of “Doing” - page after page out of necessity. I needed to develop a sense of what it was exactly I needed and wanted to do, What could be done and what these programs would allow me to do gave me a more precise vision. Like students, I needed to relate these programs and the site to my own life.

• Grounding

* How is your collaboration linked to ideas, research, information, and people in the field?

The attempt to address the visual nature of today’s students, create a comfortable virtual environment that student would use often as a resource and a place  of interest addresses the issue of relevance. (Kyle Peck) The digital natives are restless and need  the classroom redefined. Our site  is at the starting point  of attempting to bring/ bridge the gap between the community’s art world and the students  restrictive mental model of the art world as it relates to the forty minute class and the confines of the school day.

David Weinberger’s statement that the Web is “many small pieces loosely joined,” seems to address a way of looking and thinking about our culture here on the east end. A system with systems existing inside of each other –small pieces loosly joined. The site we hope will attach the fabric that are the students to  this web so they can benefit  by what the ”whole,” can offer.

He speaks of the complex social relationships and perhaps it is these social network that can stimulate and nurture. As Peter Senge  refers to the ”System.” why not use and  tap in to the systemic nature of the community. Working together for the benefit of the students and the community as a whole.

 In the article “Remarkable Transformation” article http://www.edutopia.org/php/article.php?id=Art_1017

 regarding a NJ Schools’ attempt to educate itself and find the what we at TEAM have heard  over and over again. They found we as educators need to reach students in their own language, integrate tech in a real way… This we hope to do.

 

o Did you assess throughout the collaboration? If so, did you use what you learned from your assessment in the project itself? If not, why not?What did the assessment of your EEV Collaboration show? Did you accomplish your goals? Was your assessment procedure effective? If you had to do it again, would you repeat what you did or change it? Why? If changed, how so and why?

We were constantly assessing and thus constantly changing directions reevaluating and  altering the  site in terms of design and  focus a small extent. Our original  ideas evolved to  their present state .

We assessed as we learned the  nature of  the webs educational value and possibilities. The notion of  a directory was way too simplistic and  useless as was the idea  of serving the Pollock Krasner House.