"Madcap Logic is thrilled to partner with BrandStar Entertainment's TV popular morning show "The Balancing Act" on Lifetime in their effort to address the complex educational needs of today's students."

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  Creativity Express selected as Best Upper Elementary Art Education Website   

      The ComputED Gazette honored Creativity Express as a winner of its 16th Annual Education Software Review Awards. The EDDIE Awards target innovative and content-rich programs and websites that augment the classroom curriculum and improve teacher productivity, providing parents and teachers with the technology to foster educational excellence. Some selection criteria are academic content, potential for broad classroom use, technical merit, subject approach and management system. Winners are selected from titles submitted by publishers around the world.

      Creativity Express Online was additionally selected for a comprehensive product review. The award committee summed up the review with this excerpt:

“In a time when budgetary cutbacks are impacting the visual arts programs in schools, Creativity Express offers a reasonably priced, enriching outlet for parents, schools, after-school and home school programs, addressing this vital educational need. Clearly, this holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to art education will help develop the well-rounded student needed in our complex world.”

    Madcap Logic is pleased to add the EDDIE to our portfolio of Awards. “We have spent a this year focusing Creativity Express Online to address the needs of teachers through enhancements to the Account Center. Our teachers work extraordinarily hard, and class management is critical to their daily success. We want the teachers to have the resources they need to foster creativity and self-expression through the arts, without having to call the school technical director for assistance. The EDDIE Award proves that we are on track to provide an engaging and enriching curriculum through a simple web-based platform.” says CEO Elise Ruiz-Ramon.

      Tickles, Furnace, and Ruby celebrated with snow cones. “We’ve worked hard lately,” said Ruby, “Furnace tends to slouch, and I was continually telling him to stand up straight! Then he almost ate the award paperwork. Fortunately we were close to refrigerator, and I was able to save the forms.” Furnace was unable to comment, as his mouth was full. Tickles was tickled, and tweeted all her friends the good news.

Madcap Logic's “Creativity Express” is awarded ComputEd Gazette’s BESSIE award for

Best Upper Elementary Art Education Website.

The Best Educational Software Awards “target innovative and content-rich programs and websites that provide parents and teachers with the technology to foster educational excellence.

Winners are selected from titles submitted by publishers around the world.”

For a full list of winners, and more information about the ComputED Gazette and the BESSIE Awards visit:

http://computedgazette.com/page3.html

For a compete list of the Creativity Express portfolio of Awards, visit:

http://www.madcaplogic.com/awards.php 

Leaving Colorado in late 2010, Madcap Logic, LLC has officially relocated to Florida. Our move is accompanied by a change in ownership and refocusing of Madcap Logic’s business plan.

“Our flagship sixteen lesson Creativity Express curriculum has been quite successful.” says the new CEO and Owner, Elise Ruiz-Ramon. “However, the CD-ROM delivery has caused significant frustrations from our customers – the operating systems are changing so rapidly that compatibility has become serious issue. We are at the mercy of Microsoft and Apple, and whatever upgrades or patches they may choose to place on any given computer at any time. Our Creativity Express Online product is free from those potential bugs, and is always on for any number of users from any web browser. The internet delivery of curriculum content is now widely accepted by home and traditional school students. Creativity Express Online is specifically designed to meet the needs of teachers and students alike, increasing productivity and creatively engaging the minds of children.”

The new CEO will begin by upgrading essential services within the Teacher Account Center, then improving the store front for greater product choices, pricing transparency and ease of ordering.

“We expect next year to be challenging for teachers and schools given the upcoming budget cuts,’” says Mrs. Ruiz-Ramon, “and we need to be able to provide a viable solution for art education to remain a core component of elementary curriculum.”

Affecting a generation of Americans, both children and adults,
"For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong – and how we can fix it."

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

If you have school-age children this comes as no surprise. Children are spending more time in front of televisions and computers, and spending days in school being tested rather that taught. The long term effects are now being felt by a society that needs innovation more than ever to solve long-term problems.

What can you do? Read the article, learn, and reach out to the schools and children around you. Stay involved, and use books instead of television. Force your children outside (weather permitting) without electronics. Let them fail so that they understand how to creatively find solutions on their own. Encourage individuality.

Furnace recommends picking up a paintbrush and finding out where your imagination can take you! It’s a great way to spend a summer day. Just try to find a brush your own size…

The Family Choice Awards was founded by the Family Magazine Group, America’s largest free parenting publication,    and is recognized as the premier resource for the very best in children’s and parenting products and services.

Wendy Rominger is currently teaching art in grades 6-8 in Jackson Hole Middle School in Jackson, Wyoming.  She first found out about Creativity Express through a postcard she received from an art education convention.  The program seemed to meet many of the needs she was struggling with in her own curriculum and mixed computer use with studio activities, assessment quizzes, written reflections, and creating computer images that could be stored in a portfolio.

We asked Wendy about how she uses the software in her classes and the kinds of art her kids have produced as a result. Here is what she had to say: “I have the kids create a handmade cardboard journal that houses all their Do Art activities.  I have expanded the chapter Messages in Art as a spring board for a T-shirt design using lettering for their own message. I see my 6th graders 2 times a week which limits how much time we spend in Creativity Express but I strive to have them all complete up to 8 chapters if I see them for a semester. It has proved incredibly helpful when I have a substitute in my room. They have commented how wonderful it was and how engaged the kids were during the class.”

Wendy has noticed that some kids take more readily to the software than others however, and that if she doesn’t keep an eye on them they will skip over sections that are more or less optional so they can get to the challenge (at least they are ambitious!). Some of the kids are also moving quickly to wait to find out more about the artists or concepts covered, but they really love working with Corel Painter and expressing themselves on the computer. Interestingly, some kids prefer the idea gizmo than their own ideas for completing their art activities while others prefer to challenge themselves to come up with their own solutions. The software is flexible enough to cover both audiences and their needs! One favorite activity for all seems to be pulling the handle on the machine!

When we asked Wendy what she would tell a new teacher who had never used the program before, she recommended working through how to log students in, then unlock the chapters, explore the features of the gallery, artist cards, and how to track student scores before exposing the kids to the program. A digital painter program is really essential if students are going to create images on the computer. If you are wondering about the images in this blog, they come courtesy of Wendy’s students, wonderful examples of the kinds of artistic expression they found through the software.

Thanks so much for your time Wendy, and give our thanks to the students for their beautiful work!

With thanks to Circumerrostock for the sign!

Encouraging the artist within!

This week we had the distinct pleasure of speaking withDr. Marianna Adams of Audience Focus, who has been heavily involved with designing the curriculum for Creativity Express.

Dr Adams was an arts teacher in a former life, and then moved into art, youth and education, finally working in evaluation and research for museums, primarily art museums and performing arts organizations. She works with free choice (voluntary, non sequential and learner centric) learning environments or learning when you don’t have to – where most of our learning takes place, by the way, to bring them into equal standing with formal education sites such as schools.

The arts have historically had a difficult time claiming their place in our lives, in terms of whether they should just be for the ‘talented’ or whether they complete the education of a whole person. It seems becoming an artist is almost a mythical experience in terms of career opportunities and as Dr Adams suggests, it is important to demonstrate particularly to kids in junior high, how to create a career in the arts. But this is not to say that our plumbers, doctors, teachers etc should be excluded from experiencing their own artistry. Indeed, it might be for the greater good if we were all reconnected with the role the arts play in our lives. Art is intrinsically good for us.

As the current economic crisis takes hold we may see a hard road for what remains of the arts in formal education. Many museums have stepped up in its place but can never replace an art teacher in your school. Family art programs at your museum work wonders if you can afford to go, but ultimately we as parents need to get in touch with our own creativity. If we remain curious about art, we encourage our children naturally to embrace it in a non-critical fashion. Young children take joy in simple forms of art, as we do.

So as Valentine’s Day approaches, take a Buddhist like simple view of the beauty around you and be curious about its form, shape and color in the moment. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing, just slow down to appreciate all the art we have around us. We hope you enjoy this wonderful conversation with Marianna as much as we did!

Unleash your everyday genius!

With thanks to carf for their art!

As promised last week, welcome to Madcap Logic’s second podcast, and this time with our special guest, Dr.Rhonda Robinson from Northern Illinois University. Dr Robinson works with educational technology and assessment as well as teacher training for technology and has spent her career working around ideas of visual learning and literacy.

Originally an English teacher in middle school, Rhonda was very interested in media literacy and language arts and began to pursue media production in

her masters and doctorate degree. Beginning with ‘old media’, Rhonda’s techniques now span into the digital realm, encouraging students to analyze imagery from newspapers and also video, tapping into kids’ (and their teachers’) natural creative abilities.

Rhonda has used our Creativity Express program to teach her masters students color and composition, expanding their practical orientation to consider the aesthetic dimensions of the images they and their students create. Rhonda believes that we learn first through vision but the verbal orientation of schools has privileged verbal learners. Whether or not we have natural inclinations towards art, these skills can be developed over time. Images provide us with an easy door to learning, and it may be that we learn more through them than more literary or verbal texts because we have a reduced resistance to them.

Dr Robinson therefore, believes that visual literacy should complement and supplement other forms of literacy in education to aid diverse learners in the classroom. Teachers of reading in particular, have embraced this entire collection of literacies, as have teachers of science and mathematics. Integrating technology into the classroom, as opposed to having it shut out of the lesson or considered something different, is critical as visual literacy involves not only encoding or the creation of the image but also decoding, that is, how we select meanings for the same image and messages. This is increasingly important in a digital age with our ability to manipulate images!

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Rhonda! There is much to be learned from this fascinating conversation around the renewed importance of art and visual literacy in our contemporary times and its contribution to citizenship.

With thanks to lakewentworth for his art!

During Randy Parker’s Seattle radio interview, the issue of age appropriateness came up.

Yes, we hear stories of eighty-year-olds having a grand old time with Creativity Express, but what about on the other end?  When is a child ready to play with the program?

This can be puzzling. The animated software program suggests ages 7-97. Dr. Toy, which has recognized Creativity Express as one of this year’s “Top 10 Creative Products” suggests 6-12. (Thanks also to Homeschool Blog for an award).

Really, when can kids get the most value out of Creativity Express and other programs? If we say Let’s Start With Art, when do we start?

We probably all know a family (or three!) that are all over tech. The parents are engineers or web developers. The kids are writing code by eight. They design games for each other for fun. But what about the rest of us?

Well know that you are probably not the first to ask. Daniel D. Shade wrote his oft-quoted piece, Developmentally Appropriate Software back in 1991. Some of us weren’t even “launched” then. He developed, with Dr. Susan Haugland, a criteria scale, that measures the value of software programs for kids.

Some of the criteria are obvious.

* Does the software offer clear instructions?
* Age appropriate in terms of realistic concepts?
* Appropriate methods?
* Expanding complexity?  “low entry, high ceiling.”

He also writes, “Please do not think, however, that we have reached the pinnacle of early childhood computer applications. The majority of software produced for early childhood is still drill-and-practice, software improvements continue to center on graphics and sound rather than content.”

So, as we have heard before, in other contexts, content is key. What are kids being asked to do?  Chase things around to groovy sounds and lights? Or is there value in the program?  Frustration or mastery?

Between the ages of 1 and 2, cause and effect makes sense to a child. They also start getting computer basics around now. Be gentle with the keyboard. Don’t sit on it. Don’t throw it. There are games that offer magic by simply touching a key. Since this age group can’t recognize letters, keyboarding is limited to forward and back arrows. Full-on assistance please.
There are programs like Baby Smash that don’t even ask for fingers. My boys loved this one.

At around 3 or 4, your child will start showing readiness for “real” software. Simple stories. Puzzles. No complicated scenarios. No timed games. They need to work at their own pace.
They also still need a helper, since few children are reading at this age. A parent or teacher on hand is a good way to learn.

There is software that supports learning numbers, colors, shapes, letters. It’s also a good age for music and artistic software. Make sure there is a  balance between structured learning, right/wrong stuff, and open play.
It’s all good.

According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, when used appropriately, technology can enhance children’s cognitive and social abilities. Computers are compelling. Colors. Sounds. Little people see us big ones working on computers, they want to do that too. (They want cel phones too, but that’s another story).

The right software programs engage them in creative play, problem solving, some sort of conversation. And control! How cool for them to control pacing. Repeat games as often as they want.

Again! again! again! heard that before?

NAEYC also recommends, “Just as parents continue to read to children who can read themselves, parents and teachers should both participate with children in computer activities and encourage children to use computers on their own and with peers.”

So they are on their own, but they aren’t. Be with them to offer help, encouragement, praise.

In terms of choice, Dr. Hoagland offers these sage words of advice.
“The instructions should be clear and easy to understand and the software should provide the kids with visual prompts and/or a help option they can refer to when needed, minimizing adult supervision. Software should contain no violent objects, characters or activities, and should include positive social values, such as cooperating, sharing, communicating and expressing feelings.   Advertisement is visibly reduced and the children are exposed to concrete representations of objects, sounds and settings that belong to the real world, since children tend to believe without much questioning that what they see and hear is true.”

And there will be merchandise targeting the little people.
There are scaled-down versions of mice that claim to work from ages 2-10.
Or why not just shoot for the whole FunKey Board Fun Mouse Bundle.
And what about a pre-school computer desk, “comfortably fits a child from 2 to 6.” But maybe we don’t need to shell out the big bucks to create our Mini Me.

Dr. Hoagland sums up by saying ” in their early ages, children need to engage in activities that require the use of their hands, hearts, bodies and minds.”

So true. Let’s not make the computer, like the TV, in Stephen Spielberg’s assessment, “the third parent.”

Also, don’t forget to introduce healthy computing habits.

* Posture (Did we all just straighten up?)
* Seat comfort.
* Take breaks to rest the body and eyes.
* No food or drinks within dangerous proximity.
* Clean screen. Just like grownups.

Also, realize that kids will be online more as they age. But don’t worry. That’s a good thing. According to a recent Macarthur Foundation study, it turns out that America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online. They are hanging out, but they are also learning. So that’s good, right?

It’s what we do.

So there is no right time to start with art. Just let the little bots play, explore, and see what happens. Years from now, who knows what they will be doing with computers?

But if we help them now, they will help us later, when the latest technology confounds us oldsters.

Photo by machado17