Week 5 Thing #12 & Thing # 13

  Wiki 

  Looking at some of the examples of wikis one of the things I liked was that teachers posted assignments on the wiki.  I think this would be useful because in the art room we typically go over a project during one class but continue to work on it for more than one class.  It would be useful to give students the oppotunity to on and look at the assignment during their worktime  when they are ready instead of re-explaining the assignment every class time because it uses up a lot of time that students could spend working. Students would also be able to interact and ask questions using the wiki.  I think it would also be a useful tool to share assignments with parents. 
  
     Wikis are also a great tool for professional collaboration.  I am currently involved in a wiki that other art teachers I went to school with collaborate on.  We can share lessons and ideas using this tool.  It is great to have other perspectives because other teachers may think of obstacles or extensions that I may not have.

Google Docs

This application is interesting because it is basically an online document.  It has many of the same tools that Microsoft Word has.  There are multiple types of documents that you can work in also which is nice such as word documents, spreadsheets, even drawings.  It is also interesting to work in collaboration on the word documents.  It is similar to a wiki in that more than one person can edit on your work if you allow it, so you could create something collaboratively or even have someone edit things in your document for you.

Week 4 Thing 10 and 11

   There is quite a lot to explore on Diigo.  I think that this tool could be used for helping students explore web pages or doing research on assigned web pages.  You could easily place questions for students to think about within the text using the post its.  You could also draw student's attention to something you really want them to focus on by highlighting it. 
   This is a great networking tool for teachers because you can follow people.  So you can see what teachers in your same content area are researching and where they are researching.  This could be a very useful tool in the classroom and can really help you to organize your information so you do not have to go back to multiple pages looking for one fact.

  Wordle and Tagxedo would be great tools to use when teaching students to describe art work.  I made a word cloud in wordle that used texture words.  I made a word cloud in tagxedo that used the Colorado Art Standards as written on the CAEA website.  These are great creative ways to display writing and would be great for list poems.

Tagxedo with Colorado Art Standards

Wordle About Texture

Week 3 Thing 9--Twitter

  I am a little unsure of how to use twitter in a classroom setting still.  I am sure after really looking through a lot of the teacher pages listed on the wiki, twiiter4teachers, that I may find a way.  The ones I have looked at so far under the art section have not been super useful so far but I am hoping to find some better ones once I dig a little bit deeper or even find some on my own. 
  I also found that you can go directly to a website and many of them have links to follow them on Twitter.  This way was a lot easier for me to find things because it was very clear what I was following.  I am having a hard time getting the search feature to work though.  I have been trying to find the Denver Art Museum on Twitter and the search does not even bring up any Denver Art related items, so I am not sure why it is not working.  My husband searched for it on his twitter account and found it right away.  There is quite a bit to sort through.
   This may be useful if you were having a class follow a particular artist, a museum or event.  I am not sure that you could follow a person 100% of the time though because they may not post things that would be acceptable for students to be viewing.  This is why a museum or professional association of some sort may be the best thing to follow.  It may also be neat to make up a user and pretend to be a character in a story that students can follow what is happening daily or even put thoughts the character may have throughout a story in the tweet.  It would allow a chance for students to connect with characters in the stories they are hearing.  I hope that makes sense.

Week 3 Thing 8--Comment

  I took this opportunity to comment on Pam's blog about the Trading Card Application.  She heard about an idea like this at a librarian meeting.  I have also heard of Artist Trading cards and have seen various examples of them in books and at conferences, they even sell blank card decks to create these cards.  This class was not the first place that I had heard of Trading Cards like this either.  Pam wanted to use the Trading Cards to have students write book summaries which is a great idea.  Having the visual as well as a description to go along with it is very beneficial for students. 
  I would like to use the Trading Card Application with students to create cards about artist's they have researched or about techniques that we are learning about.  I also think this can be a very effective tool to use with our students.

Week 3 Thing 7---RSS Feeds

  I watched a video on google reader and that reall simplified it for me.  Then  I watched tutorial 2 which was very easy to understand also.  When I started subscribing to feeds it was very very easy.  It makes finding information that I check on frequently easy to access.  I subscribed to feeds that I check frequently of at least once a week.  It's  nice to have all the information in one place without having to go to 5 different sites to check everything.  I have seen the symbol for RSS feeds so many times and even have it on my toolbar at home and I never knew what it was for.

Week 2 Thing 6--glogster

Looking at the examples of Glogs they really are a lot like scrapbooks.  I These would be useful as class pages where I could post pictures of student's work and progress for the week without posting names or faces.  It would be useful to have a page for each class and update it regularly because then parents and students could look up their student's class page to see what they are working on.  Students could show their families which picture is of their artwork.
   It is so fun playing with these tools that it is easy to get caught up working on one thing for awhile. This is the Glogster I started working on:  SomeScribbles.

Week 2 Thing 5---Flickr App

   I started exploring some of the Apps for Flickr.  I used the link from D 20/20 Things to create a trading card.  Since my dog Scribble has been the inspiration for the name of my blog and is part of my avatar I decided to use him for my trading card.  I also created a Flickr account so that I could experiment further with the Flickr Apps.  I am really excited about the trading card App though because we have made artist trading cards in my classroom in the past but they take so much time to create that I have not decided whether or not we should do them again.  With the trading card App though I can have students take pictures of examples they find for assignments(like the elements of art) and make trading cards using those instead of drawing everything out.   This is my trial run example of the Trading Card App.  Cannot wait to further explore the Apps.

Week 2 Thing 4 Discovery Exercise A---Flickr

    When I got on to Flickr to experiment I was not sure about creating an account yet.  I took the tour that they offer on the main page and it really helped me to see all the different options that are available with Flickr, and there are quite a lot of options!  There are lots of different groups one type of group is classrooms.  I found a page that has teachers share their classroom setup with photos.  I really like this because I have a small shared classroom and art has A LOT of supplies so it is nice to see other teacher's rooms and get some ideas for my own.  Here is the link if anyone is interested in that classroom group: Classroom Design.

    Being the art teacher that I am the gallery link also interested me so I investigated that futher.  There are many many different galleries on flickr one gallery I found featured photos of Rust Squares.  There are 16 different rust pictures in a  square format.  I think this is an interesting gallery because rust is something that is commonly overlooked.  Rust is also seen as an annoyance typically because it can destroy things that we use such as shop tools, cars, bikes, locks, etc.  The photos in this gallery do not look at rust as an annoyance but instead something artful.  The picture that really drew me into this gallery was one that had three small square nuts and paint that was cracking away from its surface.  To view the picture please click Rust and Cracked Paint.  The composition is interesting because there is not really a spot in the picture that is not interesting.  I found the picture to be quite beautiful because I love pumpkin orange.  This picture just really pulled me in and held my attention.  Hope you enjoy it as well!

Week 1 Thing 3-Copyrights

   Copyright Law was a little bit intimidating to me.  After reviewing all these resources I do not feel that it is as scary as it was originally though.  I did not know there was an option to search on google for images and other resources that give you the right to copy them or reuse them.  This will come in great when I am making powerpoints.  I feel so much better using this search feature for images for my power points because now I will know that I am using resources that I have the right to use.  I also feel that it is so easy to modify the search on google that this could be used with students.  A great way to teach students about copyright law would be using the different search options.  I am a very visual and tactile learner and I think things are much easier to understand after seeing and trying them.  I think doing a search with students and explaining the consequences of using resources that they do not have permission to use versus the advantages of searching for resources they have the right to use would be beneficial in helping them understand copyright law.
   The you tube explanation of copyright law was so easy to understand.  Often times things like that are written out in language that is just so hard to comprehend.  Their description was so straight forward and clearly written.

Week 1 Thing 1

   I am very excited about this opportunity.  I am really excited to incorporate all these new things we are going to learn into my art classroom.  I did not have a great experience learning about how to integrate technology into lessons when I was in college, so I am very excited to get another chance!  I am especially excited about google earth.  I have already been playing with it a bit and I think it will be great for when I explain to kids where the things we are learning about originated.  I am very happy to have all these new ways to incorporate technology into my classroom and I think students will be excited too.

    Creating an avatar was a lot of fun.  There were so many options to go through.  Everything we have done so far has been so easy to access.  The experience has been really good so far and very easy to navigate.  I cannot wait to learn more!