Instructors and LTP

Instructors:

Harold Olejarz is Art and Technology teacher at Eisenhower Middle School, Wyckoff, New Jersey, U.S.A. He began his career as a sculptor and exhibited in Soho, NYC, in the early 1980s. His work evolved into Performance Art and his living sculptures installed themselves in museums and public spaces in the US and Europe from 1985 to the early 1990s. He has been exploring digital media as both an artist and an educator since 1997. “Capturing the Moving Present,” an essay by Harold Olejarz, is included in Video Art for the Classroom, a National Art Education Association publication. Olejarz has made presentations on the use of digital media at state and national educational conferences.

Tom Chambers is Technology Applications teacher at Raul Yzaguirre School For Success [Junior Academy], Houston, Texas, U.S.A. He was Visiting Lecturer in Digital/New Media Art for the Fine Arts Department at Zhaoqing University, Zhaoqing, China, 2005-2007. He was Executive Committee Member and Juror (2003 - 2005) for the International Digital Art Awards (IDAA), and was instrumental in expanding the content of the IDAA to include New Media Art, and served as on-line New Media Director (2004 - 2005). Chambers has been a documentary photographer and visual artist for over thirty years, and he is currently working with the pixel as Minimal Art (Pixelscapes) which begins to approach a true, abstract, visual language in Digital Art.

Tanya Heard is Art/Photo teacher at T. H. Rogers School, Houston, Texas.

2007 - 2008 school year participant:

Dorian Gillespie is Art teacher at Southmore Intermediate School in Pasadena Texas. Prior to coming to Southmore, he taught at Bailey Elementary. He decided to teach and mentor students in the arts in order to give them an opportunity to learn and advise them of the many career choices an artist has. Although he did not teach art at Bailey, he was able to incorporate many art lessons into the curriculum. He has taught after school art classes for the University of Houston Clear Lake as well. Rather than become a professional artist, he decided to mentor as a teacher.

This blog was a part of the FotoFest LTP process:

2007 - 2008
2008 - 2009
2009 - 2010

Literacy Through Photography (LTP), the educational component of FotoFest International (Houston, Texas), is a writing program designed to help classroom students achieve better communication skills through the use of digital or film-based photography.

FotoFest has combined with the instructors and schools to pursue a pilot program ... blog approach ... for LTP.

Students increase visual and verbal literacy while building cognitive thinking skills, self-esteem, and awareness of each other. The LTP curriculum provides students with meaningful subject matter to help them write about their own photographs, their own lives, with confidence.

This blog, founded by Harold Olejarz and Tom R. Chambers continues to be a significant tool to help students with their written expression.