A couple of weeks ago I presented a lecture to some students at the university where I work on the use of postcards as an expressive tool for an assignment they were to be set.

The idea was that the students were going to create 5 postcards on which they were to tell of 5 incidents that stand out in their memory from their school days.

After introducing my REAL wall and talking about postcards in schools and how they had been used to tell stories from my experience, the students were asked to create their first ones and bring them in this week. This is by the first class and there are some cracking stories here!

The class was such a pleasure to attend. When the students came in, they dropped their cards into a "postbox" by the door. This mean that the students could remain anonymous if they wished. The lesson commenced and halfway through the lesson the students took a break, during which time the postcards were all put up on the board as you see them here.

On the return from their break, I took the students and we took a look at the postcards submitted. Students were asked to look at the postcards and discuss what they thought each one meant and if they related to any of them. They were told that they didn't need to say which was theirs if they didn't want to, but pretty soon we had explanations coming in from every student about what their postcards represented. It was GREAT! There were so many experiences, and so many nods from people who had been there.

In the flickr version of this photo (which you get to by simply clicking on the photo), I've done my best to recall which stories went with which, so if you hover over the images you'll be able to read the stories. If you don't read the stories, do just enjoy the images and ask yourself what they may mean.

At the moment the students are collecting these images up on a class blog, which is private, and at the end we hope to put on a little show, which should be a real gem. It would be really nice for teachers to be able to see the sorts of memories that the children go away from school with. I will also ask the students to upload any images they want to share with readers of my REAL wall so that they can share their experiences with you directly. You all have a treat in store believe me!

A little note for the Thursday group - I'm so sorry I didn't manage to get a photo of the wall at the end of the lesson as I was chatting and by the time I remembered the postcards had all gone! :-(

AD Magazine is the official magazine of The National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD).

This month, issue 2 is out and my REAL wall makes an appearance, complete with a pic by me of Elena browsing some postcards!

The write up is by a student on the course and is about the mailart project I helped run in my university for the Art and Design secondary PGCE.

You can read more about the project here

(Apologies for the scan quality, I'll try and get hold of a better one, this was sent to me by email and is horrible)

As regular readers of the blog now, in October, I presented my first ever mailart lecture to a group of secondary art teaching students, and worked with their tutor to get them sending mailart to each other through the course of their placements in schools.

These days it's not unusual for students to have to put together an electronic portfolio of their work, and we had initially planned to do this but when I happened to start talking about my REAL wall with the head of art and design education, we came up with a plan. REAL portfolios. Why would you let all this artistic talent go to waste, let's send mailart instead! This seemed a much more appropriate (and fun) way to put one together over the course of the term, while inspiring and supporting each other. And it seemed a pretty odd bit of advice from the e-learning advisor too...



After a term in schools we wanted to put the pieces together that came out of this project and put on a show to showcase how the REAL portfolio project went.

It went brilliantly.



I cannot begin to get into words how exciting it was to see all the students looking through each others works and going "WOW!" and the feedback I got from the students was phenomenal. It seemed that all the effects that mailart has had on me, uplifting, supporting, inspiring, developing and so on had all happened to the students.



It was so great to hear that people would actually look forward to doing their weekly assignment, they loved to receive this little personal snippet from another student and know that while they were out in schools they were not alone in their experiences. It was great.

That's quite enough chatter from me, but I wanted to include the blurb that accompanied this show, which was written by Jo Davies, the head of Art and Design Education at the university where I work

PGCE Secondary Art and Design 2010-11 Mail Art Exhibition

The PGCE Secondary Art and Desgin MailArt group has been set up in response or rather to counter the online networking communication that prevails in all workplaces and institutions of education and is inspired (ironically) by Andy Hoang, E learning advisor and artist, who is involved in a wider global mailart group himself.

The aim of the project is for students to keep in touch while out on school placements and boost each other's morale through what can be a very isolating experience in a creative way. It was felt that this practical, 'hands-on' approach to communication and sharing of ideas and experiences through the PGCE course would suit Art and Design students better than a social networking or other online form of communication. The personal time and attention given to this craft based task may be seen as a reaction against the distance and virtual forms of communication increasingly used throughout the rest of the students' training and a recognition of the need to acknowledge and support each other in a more meaningful and tangible way.



The PGCE Secondary Art and Design students sent one postcard to each of the rest of the group once a week throughout the Autumn term. A timetable was to make sure that everyone in the group makes and sends a postcard as well as receives one every week. The postcards are handmade or at the very least hand altered so that some art practice is going on as an antidote to all the other less inspiring paperwork they are filling in and include messages of support and inspiration to remind each other that they are 'all in it together'!

The exercise will be repeated during the Spring and Summer terms and the long term aim is for students to carry this oninto their NQT year and beyond. The group already has an offshoot with two of the students running a mail art club sending postcards between their two placement schools, linked to a self portrait/identity project! The project has also 'caught the eye' of the National Society of Education in Art and Design who will be including the project in an article in the launch of their new magazine, AD.

So that seems to have gone well enough. Want to know what it looked like?



Barely 2 years after starting my REAL wall I seem to have started something I could never have dreamt of. I can hardly believe it.

my REAL wall - Lunch break in the park, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

Over lunchbreak I decided to get in a REAL wall showing the grounds of where I work. I think that the university has really excellent grounds, and one of the reasons I chose to work here is that I came here myself to do my degree and fell in love with the grounds. It's easy to see why.

Mainly on show today are mailart pieces, they just happened to be at the top of my pile, so appearances are made by StudioN, Jennifer Zoellner, HeebeeJeebee, Eduardo Cardoso, David Berube, Barbara Cowlin, and Dummpsterdiversannonymous among others.

my REAL wall - All Sent Twitter Art, originally uploaded by andytgeezer.

I took this photo of all the twitter #mailart sent in June's #mailart project before I sent them all out

I took part in a mailart project run by @art_news on twitter in June 2009.

A list of 33 participants was sent out and we had a month to send a piece of mailart to every person on the list.

I received 23 pieces back and here they all are