“You Suck at Photoshop”: Paragon of Creative Project-Based Learning
Monday, 4 January 2010 Clay Burell 
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I just discovered the 2008 Webby Award-winning “You Suck at Photoshop” series on YouTube. While it may not succeed at making me a Photoshop ninja, it does succeed at convincing me that this kind of project would make the classroom an awesome place.
Here’s why: the series demonstrates a mastery of content knowledge — in this case, Photoshop technique — while at the same time adding a creative element that makes the content-master stand out from the equally masterful but unimaginative competition. Point blank: in the hands of this guy, something as dull as “how to use layers” becomes a vehicle that screams, “Hire me to write for ‘30 Rock‘!” He proves he can turn lead into gold, which is a real-world skill not many people have. Alchemists like that deserve the chance to display their creative magic in school.
The Mental Work is Hard….
“You Suck at Photoshop” displays that creative magic in the form of fiction (see the Wikipedia entry on the series for more). The host of the tutorials is a persona named “Donnie,” a loser stuck in a lousy life with a lousy wife. We learn about Donnie’s life through a series of such sometimes-subtle details as his choice of photos for the tutorial — “Say you want to use a photo of the Vanagon your wife meets her high school boyfriend in on Friday nights….wait, I’ve got one right here” (scroll past other photos of — gulp — handguns, and one of the high school boyfriend labeled — gulp — “douche-b.png”) — and such sometimes-over-the-top details as the wife barging in to kvetch at him in the middle of his tutorial, or his loser friend Skyping in with a loser-emergency while Donnie is making his screencast.
The creator of this project not only demonstrates his literary creativity by creating the fictional “Donnie” persona and populating his Photoshop folders with props like the pictures mentioned above; he takes it further with his dramatic creativity as he acts out the role of that persona with his voice-over. The vocal acting covers a broad emotional terrain, from dude in his basement chillaxing with his laptop to powder-keg psychopath struggling to keep the flame from his fuse. The acting is just awesome.
….The Tech is Dead Easy
The beauty of the project technology-wise is that it requires nothing more than a screencasting program like the free Jing or Screencast-o-matic, plus a webcam and microphone — your standard kit in most computers today. So the technical hurdles for students to do such a project are basically nil.
That leaves the whole of their energies to devote to the other two aspects of the project: mastery and critical understanding of the content, and creative concept development to deliver that understanding.
Too Beautiful for School?
So I’m wrestling, as usual, with the ways this wonderfully simple approach to creative learning will be complicated by the forces of schooliness:
- Do I have to make a rubric for it, and if so, does that kill the creativity with its prescriptive check-box drudgery, or limit the infinite creative possibilities by dictating “it must be this and not that, and that and not this”?
- Is it sustainable in terms of watching and grading and giving feedback to 100 students doing such an assignment?
- How do I define satisfactory content mastery and creativity for this assignment?
- How do I encourage experimentation and the healthy embrace of possible failure when I have to slap a low grade on it if it does indeed “fail”?
- Should I make it optional, in following with my increasingly elitist impulse to definitely not “push” the unwilling to attempt genius, and not even “pull” them, but only to “attract” the three percent of “roses” in any student population who might blossom in the attempt?
I don’t know.
Nor do I know how to adapt this for a history classroom. Can “You Suck at Photoshop” become “You Suck at History”? How? How can this be used for Europe from the French Revolution to the present, or the complete history of China?
My recent brainstorm on giving a conceptual purpose to learning Chinese history by “interpreting it for historically-ignorant Westerners” seems to have some openings. God knows, there are ample websites of Chinese and Western art, literature, philosophy, religion, politics, and more that students could tab through on their screencasts as they provide their commentary like “Donnie” does to his open Photoshop on his desktop. But the maker of “Donnie” has the luxury of revealing that persona through the image “props” in his folders, while history students wouldn’t have as easy a task of revealing persona if they were forced instead to work with history websites in their screencasts.
One solution I’m considering is making it a summative, end-of-semester project, in which students have most of the semester to let their creative juices stew and come up with their own ideas over the first few months. Then give a couple of weeks of class time to a workshop in which they design and execute those ideas.
Otherwise, I’m mostly adrift. Maybe you can help.
But if you watch the three-minute first episode below, you should see why I’m bewitched by the idea:
Do yourself a favor and watch the whole playlist. Then help me figure out how I can make this work?
- Networked Learning Class Reflection 1: Basketball without Borders Project
- World-Changing Project-Based Learning at Mabry Middle School
- Basketball without Borders Slam Dunk: Networked Learning Class Update and Video
- Daily Diigo: "Reinventing Project-Based Learning" and Student Press Initaitive
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Tags: acting, drama, voice-acting, You Suck at Photoshop Print This Post
No. 1 — January 4th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
What a find… I love it.
(Just like I’m loving tumblr now thanks to your conversation with Roberto. I was needing an easier/cleaner way to post how-to videos.)
Some current thoughts on your questions….
# Do I have to make a rubric for it, and if so, does that kill the creativity with its prescriptive check-box drudgery, or limit the infinite creative possibilities by dictating “it must be this and not that, and that and not this”
Yeah – I wouldn’t make a rubric. I would make the assessment process as raw and real as the project. I’d have the feedback come from the peers needing it – ie: those who suck at photoshop… Post it at school – see how many hits it gets. See how others in the class improve. Assess the project on how well everyone else does with it. I’d also have a couple professionals/parents look at it and give some feedback… some people the kids are going to want to impress. [I guess depending on the topic - that type of career/professional might use a rubric. Whatever - it needs to be authentic.]
# Is it sustainable in terms of watching and grading and giving feedback to 100 students doing such an assignment?
I think – done like above – yes – if it’s a more authentic feedback process. Certainly not the way we have been doing it – where we all sit in a room and watch each other present, etc, not in real context.
# How do I define satisfactory content mastery and creativity for this assignment?
I think – for me anyway – I use *something like this video series as a model (*maybe you could make a cleaner school version for us all to use Clay…?) My kids are so good and motivated for these projects, but rarely do they hit both content and creativity. I think that’s my favorite take away from this series – that it models that balance perfectly. Not too stuffy with content so as not to be entertaining and not so entertaining that it has no meat. So I guess I’m saying – set high standards for balance – with a good model beforehand. I think focusing on the balance rather than the topic/form a rubric usually focuses on – will allow for more freedom and creativity.
# How do I encourage experimentation and the healthy embrace of possible failure when I have to slap a low grade on it if it does indeed “fail”?
Maybe don’t make it an end of the year assignment. Assign it from the get go…with several due dates throughout the year. I think we have really messed with what true assessment and feedback are. Kids and parents believe assessment is a marker – if you’re good or bad. When it should be an ongoing iterative process… continually pinpointing areas that need tweaking. It should be freeing to the kids… rather than – I failed – I understand nothing.. they have maybe 2-3 specifics to work on. I love that we’re living in a publish then edit period. I hope that lingers forever. And I love that we now have the means… via skype and blogs, etc to have experts help give that feedback.
# Should I make it optional, in following with my increasingly elitist impulse to definitely not “push” the unwilling to attempt genius, and not even “pull” them, but only to “attract” the three percent of “roses” in any student
I think you make the choice of topic/platform/mode/medium optional. The goal being… they need to make something that will live on and help others learn. If a kid can’t do that successfully by the end of a course… (with ongoing feedback from adults and peers) then I guess we all fail…
Once again… grazie.. for cranking my brain.
.-= monika hardy´s last blog ..the ideas project =-.
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Monika, read and marked as “return to” after I finish my four days in Thailand visiting an old college friend. Thanks for the input. Gotta pack now!
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No. 2 — January 5th, 2010 at 3:56 am
Clay – a rubric does not have to be a checklist, and it doesn’t have to kill the creativity and risk-taking factors. Why can’t you build these two areas into the rubric? (i.e., those projects which demonstrate more creativity and risk-taking get better grades) This can easily be done by working in some kind of thoughtful journal / video / other constructed response as a reflection justifying choices and process.
It will no doubt take you much longer to mark than a “regular” project, but IMO, well worth it.
.-= Adrienne´s last blog ..… and, that’s a wrap! =-.
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 5th, 2010 at 7:40 am
Maybe I should start a blog called “I Suck at Assessment.” I’m taking a grad course in it next month, so let’s hope it helps.
Extra credit if you bang out a mock-up of the kind of thing you’re talking about.
Happy New Year!
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Adrienne Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Clay – I haven’t forgotten about this reply. In fact, I’ve been thinking of it ever since. I’ve just been swamped with studies the last couple of weeks. Apologies. I *am* going to get a mock-up to you, come hell or high water, as this kind of stuff is so important (assessing for creativity but not making the assessment dry). I’ll post to your email when I do!
But in the meantime- did you know that the “You Suck at Photoshop” series has morphed (evolved?) into an entire project? Visit http://www.bigfatuniversity.org for some real genuine learning and laughs. My favorite is the series on Music and Garageband. A must see, I think.
.-= Adrienne´s last blog ..… and, that’s a wrap! =-.
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No. 3 — January 6th, 2010 at 6:00 am
I love the way you’ve approached this. I’ve only got a few minutes spare, or I’d fill your comment page up!
My immediate thought was to suggest that you co-construct your project WITH the students. Work with them to define and agree the success criteria, the assessment methodology and to peer & self assess the project from planning through to end product. In this way, students not only get to design the assessment process and agree the project outcomes but also reflect on the learning process itself.
Just a thought…great idea and I love the way you’re grappling with assessment of mastery & creativity. Look forward to hearing about what happens next!
Happy new year!
@fullonlearning
zoe
Zoe
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