The beauty of technology is, sometimes it fails. I am certain I saved my blog that I entered last night, I edited it and then published it and wollah,,,,, nothing was there…
Reminiscing about what I wrote will be challenging especially at 5am on a Saturday morning. I chose my research paper, and hope to find a good deal of information regarding the “Arts and Technology” in the classroom. I try to incorporate technology as much as I can. I have found very few art educators do incorporate technology, either because they do not physically have the technology, they don’t know how to use it, or simply how to incorporate it. Most art educators use the DVD to show a movie, that is pretty much the extent of technology I have seen so far. This past semester I had my students research employers who incorporated drawing as part of the employment. Most of the students presented with power points, some did that and made a game of it. It went pretty well, although it took up allot of time and this is where I think some “played” more than others. I scrapped that lesson until I rethink the plan. This semester I am trying a few new tech usages. I created a “Moodle” which is similar to Blackboard. Our district has an initiative on saving paper, so this is my part in the process. Within Moodle, I have already created three assignments. 1) What does art mean to you. Some students were very thoughtful in their responses, some just added pictures, of course the guys rooted for their favorite football team, and one student even added a picture of a steak and said he liked to eat. Oh, yeah, one student said he loved me. ; ) 2) Safety Contract – this is a biggie. It is normal three pages we print and send home to have read, signed by the student and parent. Within Moodle, they read the contract, send a reply within Moodle and have their parents write a note saying they read it (We still need a signature). 3) Procedures and Rules – I covered the highlights on the 1st day of class, but wanted the students to read all of it. (another 3 page doc). I then asked them some questions of which they would have had to read to find the answers. All in all, I am finding it a great communication tool. Those who do not have the Internet (literally 10 students out of the 98 I teach) I supply hard copies for. This is a beautiful thing.
The Utube video on doc’s was very useful, knowing how to upload and download etc. prior to use will make it so much easier. I like the fact that you can store a document and have a collaborative effort on editing it. Adding links such as a dictionary, a movie clip, or an audio file are so useful with classrooms being so diverse in their learning styles. We are no longer in a classroom where we simply read and write and all “learn the same way”, or maybe should I say ignore different learning styles? We now recognize our diverse learners and try to differentiate our lesson’s. Art is pretty easy I must say, most of what I do is “visual” and unless a student is blind (I have had one), we do pretty well. I did have a Boces class where all but two were in wheel chairs, they were all non-verbal, had very low IQ and all had an aid with them. We made some cute projects, mostly they enjoyed finger-painting, messy yes but wow did they every smile. Nothing replaces their smiles when I see them, that hits me in a special way rite to my core being. I wonder how long the service will be free and how much space you are allowed before you have to pay. I would be skeptical in only storing the document in “Docs”; as a safety I would download it often.
Well, thank goodness for pushing the “Blog” date to Saturday. I honesty wrote quite a bit last night and just lost it all.. Joy… Joy…
The new tools we are learning to use is making me think way to much.. That is what I find exhausting about technology. It moves at the speed of sound,, I move at the speed of …. well sound isnt’ a word I would choose. I am pretty savy but seriously the people who create all of these tools are unbelievably gifted. I can’t wait to use “scribd”, I have so often wanted to convert a document to another type and couldn’t with the program… Thank you!
Listening to the class audio file was so useful. I think I took more notes while listening. Flying from a Professional Development Class to Naz. was not much fun. The joys of teaching full time, meeting school requirements (for new teachers) and the states requirements (Grad. School) is sometimes every challenging schedule wise. Four more grad. classes to go… I definitely want to see Dr. Ransom’s son singing to the Sound of Music.. He sounds so darn cute.
One tool I learned and am thrilled about is holding the “shift key” while drawing a shape.. I always wondered why there was no circle. My students recently had to tell my my color wheel was not perfectly round… Ahhhh… such love…
I use watermarks in allot of my documents, I think it adds a bit of an artistic flair… hmmm… Ohhh… the Utube conversion program… This is terrific.. My school is banned from Utube for obvious reasons. There are some really useful video’s out there.. even our principal can’t use it and has often wanted to show clips during our prof. dev. meetings.. I will tell him about this,, I know he will be thrilled.