My Reflection

My favorite tools are the mash-ups and generators, of course. I can see my students creating art projects with them and incorporating them into different mediums.

This entire process was very difficult for me. I don't use a whole lot of technology in my classroom. Many of the tools were new and I'm still confused about a few of them. I think I will be re-visiting the 11 tools quite often to review some of the material.

I really hope that we can get some PLN's started. That is another tool that I'm very excited about. It would be a real waste not to take advantage of it.

I'm off to visit Atomic Learning as soon as I have my password......

Tool #11

Digital Citizenship: Three things that I want to stress to my students are

1) They are responsible for they put on the web

2) Do not plagiarizer or alter the work of others and always give credit

3) We are ALL responsible for being for good digital citizens so if you are unsure....ASK.

I think I would teach about digital citizenship while making online student portfolios. That way it would be THEIR work and THEIR site. The student's may take it more seriously if they have ownership.

Tool #10

I love my iPhone so of course I downloaded some of the free apps just to check them out. I tried out My Coloring Book and Toddler Counting. They are so cute and colorful. Many of the apps on iTunes that I saw were only 99 cents. They had letter tracing, flash cards, math, counting, and entire preschool programs. I was really impressed. I never looked at the things they have for very young children. Of course, the problem is....do you really want to give you iphone-pad-or touch to a toddler????

I only found 1 app that might be appropriate for an art class of older children-I'm still a little doubtful.

Tool #9

I'm not so wild about Skype, but I can see many applications for opening the world up to students. How great it would be to meet with a Director of a museum and have the children see actual paintings, sculptures and different mediums that we are studying about. Heck, we could go to the Louvre!

Jing is really cool. I'm not sure how I would have students use it in the classroom, but I had a great time playing around with it. I found it really helpful that I could video and talk about what I was doing on the screen and then play it back. I guess this could be used to help with instruction for graphic design programs such as illustrator and photoshop.

Tool #8

Using instructional video is so nice because the student's are hearing and seeing the information from someone other than me. You can also pause the videos and have the students do the activities along with videos before they start their own projects.

How to Make a Collage



How to Mix Colors

Tool #7

This was so much fun. I enjoyed looking back at student art work from the year. This is such a great way for student's to showcase their work.

Tool #6

This is where having an established PLN would be SO great! I have no idea how I could use a WIKI as an Art teacher. I'm trying to think of ways for students to incorporate them into our class, but most everything we do is product based. Now if you can use a Wiki to generate graphics and designs and then have others edit what's been done...then YES I see the light. I guess I need to investigate this some more.

So much to learn....

Tool #5

I'm a little confused about social bookmarking. I like the idea of sharing bookmarks with colleagues, I but I'm a little confused as to just how much privacy you have. I think it is a great way to share resources. I could really see myself using diigo or delicious or whatever "my" PLN decided to go with. Why don't we just create district PLNs for each department? Then there could be a language arts PLN, math...etc. It would be so helpful.

While I was looking around I stumbled across this website: Art and Learning to Think and Feel. It is jam-packed with resources and information from teaching Art, using different mediums, and expressing emotion through art. I also found The Renaissance Connection. While it is geared for middle school children. I'm sure I can modify some of the lessons to fit in with my renaissance unit.

The tags I search with: art teacher elementary

Tool #4

I did not subscribe to any of the 11 tools blogs. I decided to use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs by other art teachers that I could as resources throughout the school year.

One very interesting blog is Mrs. Picasso's Art Room. The creator of this blog has put so much time and effort into sharing information for teaching children about art.

I created a Google Doc to share with my family for a special celebration we are planning. I'm not sure how well it will work as the other people you are using it with have to be able to navigate it as well. So it will definitely be an experiment.

I'm going to add some of the blogs I found to a gadget so that everyone can see them.

Tool #3

I love the text generators and mashups and all the other cool things that are available online to play with graphics, fonts, color, line and shape! What a fantastic way for students to experiment with forms of Art in a "RISK-FREE" way. If they don't like it, they can just make a new one or edit the one they made.

I had so much fun playing with different tools. I used Cool Text Generator to create my title and tried many words on Spell with Flickr.

Tool #2

PLN! I'm all for it. What a great way to share ideas with other teacher in the district. Especially since there is usually only ONE art teacher on each campus. It could be a very valuable resource and a way to exchange ideas or to get help.



About commenting on Blogs: "Being Controversial" to get more comments really stood out to me. I just don't think that in a school setting that is appropriate. Maybe a better word would be Adversarial. That might spark discussion without causing problems.



I commented on....

Tool #1

Ok I really thought I had saved this when we met as a group on June 23rd. But apparently, I only saved the design and not the post! I also did not email Vaughn to register my Blog! This has been a daunting experience. I'm getting lots of help from friends to get this 11 tools done. While I do consider myself computer saavy, this is very time consuming and takes a lot of effort.

I think students will really enjoy making avatars and creating blogs for other students to read. It's so great for kids to get feedback from eachother as long as it is constructive. As an Art Teacher, I need to help children learn how to accept constructive criticism.