Parting is such sweet sorrow...

I have to admit, as happy and elated as I am that I am putting the finishing touches on my culminating experience project and getting ready to put on my cap and gown, I'm also a bit sad. I have been putting off this blog post for days now because---it's the last one!

My growth...

I just spent about 30 minutes reviewing all my old posts. It was funny because I can remember sitting down in front of my computer writing them and I kept laughing at how many times I wrote "overwhelmed". And at the time I really was overwhelmed with all this new information. Now having completed this program I no longer feel overwhelmed with things like social bookmarking, basic computer components, digital storytelling, e-portfolios, etc. I feel like I can navigate my computer, the internet, virtual classrooms, wikis, LMS, and blogs with ease. Sure there are times I am a bit frazzled with a new tool, app, or website but now have some excellent skills to troubleshoot.

I am very grateful for this program as it has helped me become much more digital literate. In my first post I blogged:

Tonight was the first class in my online Master's program and I am really excited. I would consider my technology skills very erratic. I would consider my technology skill strong and well developed in some areas and extremely uninformed and clueless in others. My school district just purchased SmartBoards for every classroom and have really revamped their expectations of technology integration in the classroom. Even though this seems like a daunting task and difficult for an art teacher to fulfill, I couldn't be more excited. I just wrote my PDP on integrating technology into my classroom to help promote visual and digital literacy. So when I found this program I was thrilled!

I really hope to learn a variety of new skills and strategies for teaching in my classroom that isn't focused only on the arts. I have a great background in Adobe's Creative Suite and other editing programs but, lack the education in internet applications. I can't wait to learn and use the information we learn in class in my own classroom. Maybe I will actually be able to "teach" some technology skills to my students! :)

I can honestly say that my technology skills have improved 10 fold, I can use my smartboard a number of different ways with a number of different applications, I have met many of my PDP objectives, and I in fact have "taught" a great deal of technology skills to my students.

I am also so much more confident in my use of technology in my personal and professional life.

My Accomplishments

I don't even know where to start. I have done so many wonderful things in this program as well as things because of this program. Here's my laundry list:

• able to maintain a blog (I now have a personal and professional blog)
• created an e-portfolio
• can use google docs, google calendar, other google apps proficiently
• went paperless in my classroom by creating a LMS and electronic worksheets/rubrics through google docs
• created a google reader and knows what an RSS feed really is
• can hyperlink and embed (and I know the difference)
• knows the different types of computer platforms and can use them correctly
• can create a number of different presentations using digital storytelling concepts
• created student lead critiques using apps like voicethread
• uses social bookmarking
• BACKS-UP! :)
• learning about creative commons
• developing a more clear understanding of copyright laws
• internet safety for children
• learning how to "learn online"
• facilitating both synchronous and asynchronous discussions.

This list could go on and on but those are some of my top favorites!

Need More Info...

I don't really know what I would have liked to learn more about because, I probably don't even know it exists but I am a little bummed we didn't spend too much time learning about pod-casting. I don't think it is something that I would have too much trouble figuring out but would have been neat to just try.

Parent Teacher Conference and the moodle

Well I just wrapped up 2 LONG days fo P/T conferences. Our district has the conferences set up so that Monday we teach all day and then have conferences from 4pm to 8pm. Then we teach a half day on Tuesday (7:20 to 12:45) and beginning conferences at 1 and go until 8pm. I am WIPED!

On a brighter more energetic note, I have never felt more prepared about conferences that I had this year. Since I just had my students submit all their reflections electronically I was able to pull up all the info at conferences if their was a question about a grade. (I tend to get the "How do you get a C in art?" or "How can you give an F in art, he turned something in at least, right?")

Since the google docs reflections are all shared with me and a picture of the project is attached, I was able to "show" parents how a student earns a C, etc.

Moodle was also an excellent resource for me. I had many parents say they were excited to see the art project we were doing, have the directions, see examples and look at their child's art work after it has been finished (via google docs and presentation). In addition, I was so much more organized for conferences too. I only needed my laptop! No more projects, paper rubrics, direction sheets, class rosters, etc. I had everything I needed in my moodle or linked to my moodle.

For all the hard work and time I spent putting this moodle together so far, I reaped some major benefits over the last 2 days.

--Update on my project. I have created all three of my curricular units, posted them, created project sheets, direction guides, presentations and rubrics. Now I am focused on the quizzes. I need to figure out how to create them in a more timely manor. I have an appointment set up with my tech dept. for next week Tuesday. I am hoping to hear some good news about setting quizzes up as it has been taking me almost 2 hours to create one 15 question quiz. (The quiz is automatic scoring and immediate feedback too, so that may be why it is taking so long. I have to have responses for all the correct and incorrect answers.)

I hope that by next week at this time, I will be able to say I have complete the quizzes and now just need the students to take them!

Tweaking the Proposal

After meeting with louis this week I feel like my proposal is sooo much more manageable now. I had one very large culminating experience set up and was beginning to feel quite overwhelmed!

The new proposal is similar to the old one but much more focused now. I am going to be focusing on creating a moodle as my classroom "hub" and developing/implementing 6 curricular projects by Thanksgiving. I will be focusing more on how to use moodle as an instructional tool now. I will be learning the ins and out of moodle, developing slideshows, tutorials, google docs worksheets, rubrics and direction guides for my moodle.

This week I focused on setting up the moodle so it was easy to navigate, organized and consistent. Since I teach 3 different levels and art classes (Art fundamentals, 2d concepts, 3d concepts) I wanted to make sure they all looked the same so that as students move through the art program at FOx RIver, they will be familiar with the moodle set up.

I spent over 7 hours figuring out how I wanted to organize my moodle pages--probably too much time, but now I LOVE how it is set up. I piloted it with AF classes and they found it very easy to navigate! They like how I created a "topic" box for each project, posted a picture of the project and created links to project directions, daily learner goals, rubric, project examples. I am using google docs to create all my online worksheets so that if i need to change anything on the file, I don't have to re-upload a new word document--google does it right on the web! woohoo!

I learned sooo much more about moodle from "play" this week that my colleagues are asking me for moodle help! I am still in the dark about using the assignment and quiz options but feel so much more confident in my understand of the layout and "resources" options for moodle.

The Beginning of the End

So I began my moodle pages and had my students submit their first electronic rubric/evaluation. Overall, I think it has been a great success. We had some issues with our server at school, which caused some of my classes to not be able to access the moodle and their google docs but still it was all online the students just did it at home instead. I really like having them submit their work to me online and have already been thinking about how I can make it even more successful. For instance, I have decided for their next project that they will complete the self reflection, unit questions and rubric online through google docs as well as insert a picture of their project too. I will NEVER have to take work home again! Just kidding!!

The idea of the photo is two-fold. THe first is that I usually spend hours grading at school to make sure I am grading the right project. I do formative assessments throughout he project so having the photo inserted on the picture is just a great way to "jog" my memory. By the time I get to assessing their project I pretty much already know how they performed on the project. The other reason why I want them to insert a picture is so I can give them "mini" photo assignments like turn in a color picture and a black and white or create a comic strip (using toon-do, etc) with your image.

Final Leadership Reflection

I don't think my definition of leadership has changed at all. I do think that this class has helped me organize my thoughts on leadership in a much better way. I guess I always knew what characteristics and qualities I thought a leader should have but know have a much better understanding of how to put these characteristics to use.

My definition of teacher leadership is someone that wants the best for their school, students and community by promoting and supporting positive changes. They are also a person that takes risks when needed, volunteers when they can, accepts challenges with an open mind and values teamwork and collaboration.

I completely agree with the books assertion about "improving education from within". To me this concept is very similar to the "you have to love yourself before you can whole heartedly love anyone else." If we as the educators don't try to improve the education system, who will?

I know that I try to make our school a better place for students, staff and the community. I am very involved with our building and extra-curricular. In addition I feel like i am the students best advocate. I see and work with them everyday.

I enjoyed this class a lot and feel like I learned tons about the change process in schools. I know that it is not an over night event and that real change (meaningful and successful change) is long term. This class also made me realize that many of the duties I take on in my school are leadership roles.

Leadership week 5

In chapter 6 tehre are a couple of things that really stood out to me and I would like to take minute to reflect on them.

1. Map the Curriculum- really cool idea for not just incoming teachers. I think this would allow teachers to be more flexible and realistic with their lessons, instruction and activities!

2. Use assessments as teaching tools- feedback, feedback, feedback! Students need to be assesses both formatively and summatively and meaningfully. Why assign something if you are not going to be looking at it or grading it? If we expect the students to take time to learn/study/complete it, we should also be expected to give them meaningful and effective feedback.

3. Teach study skill- in the middle school we are just starting out this process and I firmly believe we need to start very basic. If we tell them and model successful ways to take notes and study in school, they will be more successful. We can't just expect them to know how to do these things.

4. Communicate with frequently parents- I like the analogy the books used about being a team. If you only communicate with the students you are basically only inviting half a sports team to a game. I also think that its super important to communicate with the parents at good times in the students educational career as well. At my school we have positive parent contacts. This is a great way for us to reach out and an praise students when they are doing well in class and being to build a friendly relationship with parents. By building this relationship right away, parents feel like you are not just a negative person but rather truly concerned about their childs' education-the good and the bad!

CEDO 565 week 4

It feels like it has been forever since we last had class yet I feel like I didn't get a break! With the school year in full swing it was great to have the last couple of weeks off to focus on my classroom, instruction, new digital art lab and our new 1:1s!

It has been a CRAZY year so far with all the new technology changes in our building. We started all of our 7th graders with netbooks this year and have been attempting to go "paperless" with them. As a specialist, I also have 8th graders so this task is quite daunting. Many of my classes are "mixed" sections so not all of my students have access to the net books.

I am really glad this course landed in our cohort schedule when it did. I have found myself becoming more of a leader in my school for our technology and LOVE it. I enjoy being able to share new ideas, apps, & processes with my colleagues as we all make this 1:1 journey together. I am also seeing how neccessary change is to education yet how difficult it is for many teachers to make. I like being able to help when I can and stay positive about these HUGE changes. Many of our staff members are scared and overwhelmed with the new initiave and dont want to embrace it with open arms yet. I am hoping to help lead some of these colleagues and give them the confidence to just try it and jump in!

The game

This weeks class was interesting. We played one part of a simulation game on schools and change. I found it really interesting as we continued to move through the game that our players didn't move as fast as we wanted them too and were becoming frustrated. When I look back at how slowly change actually occurs in a school, I am actually amazed at how far our "players" got in their first year. We had everyone move at least one spot and some are actually advancing pretty quickly.

I also realized how important talking and learning to communicate with colleagues is. Our players eventually made progress by learning to work together and discussed issues. Change can only happen when everyone is part of it and whole heartedly believes the change needs to happen.

Another thing I reflected quite a bit on this past week was the In tune article. I graduated from college in 2008 and find many of the characteristics they used to describe Millennials to be very correct. In fact, my school district hired 21 new staff members the year I was hired (many of us being new graduates) and our entire district had an inservice on the differences between generations because they realized how important it is for all of us to understand where we all are coming from. Without this background, many of my veteran teachers would be put off by us "newbies" and many of us newbies would have very little patience for our veteran teachers. (ie. new technologies, strategies)

week 2

I really am enjoying the text we are reading for this course, How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader. It is giving me a number of great ideas for my own leadership qualities as well as how to continue to grow as a teacher leader. My favorite parts of the last 2 chapters (2 & 3) were:

1. Teacher leaders as part of the interview team *
2. Characteristics to look for in a new applicant
3. Learning how to prepare for being part of the interviewing process as a teacher leader
4. Keeping things positive

*In my district we have our teacher leaders sit in on interviews and also are part of the hiring process. Usually the new teacher is hired and then meets the principal and given a basic school tour and then the teacher leader (or chair) meets with the new hire for a more thorough meeting/tour. New hire orientation is done at the district and building level as well followed by a mentor/mentee program.

My leadership roles

While reading the preface and chapter one of How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader I felt as though my principal could have written it. She is very encouraging to her staff and allows us to "take the reins" when we feel we can. She also empowers us by creating a number of different committees that we can be a part off to create a sense of community, purpose and drive.

In my own building I would have to say I have a couple of leadership roles. First, I am on the team leaders committee. This committee is a group of teachers that gathers to discuss, problems solve and communicate for the entire school. We meet regularly with our principle, tech dept. and other administrators. We have also gone to a number of leadership conferences. Another leadership role I have is that I am "chair person" for our district art department. I go to our articulation meetings with the high school and other feeder schools (we are a k-8 district) and set up art shows for the community. In just this last year, I have also become an instructional leader for my building. We have been undergoing a big shift in our instructional process and have had the pleasure of working with Jane E Pollock. The instructional leaders are teachers that have attended a special summer workshop last year and are implementing Pollock's GANAG instruction in our classroom regularly. We are working with our colleagues and helping (coaching) them on ways to improve instruction by using the GANAG process.

I also served on the team communicators, a group that voluntarily meets every wednesday before school to "hash" out management type issues and relay information between teams for better school wide communication. We then email the entire school and other the administrators the minutes so everyone is up-to-date!

D-O-N-E

i can't believe another class is done and over with! Its exciting to think that only 2 more classes and this program will be finished!

Anywho...

So I was thinking about how daunting this e-portfolio seemed in the beginning and how I was hesitant to start it because I was too overwhelmed. Its funny how I actually enjoyed creating it now because it caused me to go back and take a sincere look at all the work we have done so far. WOW! I have really come a long way since last January. I also found that by the weekly blogging I was able to compare the work I completed and with how I was feeling to the present. Some of the reflections seem silly now and yet others, still very relevant.

Perhaps the best thing about this course was learning how easy putting an e-portfolio together can be. I feel so much more prepared for my PDP portfolio and can't wait to start my culminating experience!

portfolio progress...

I would have to say I am pleasantly surprised at how well it is going on putting this portfolio together. In the past i have had some not so great experiences with them but find the e-portfolio much easier to complete than its old friend, the paper version!

As for what I still have to do... I need to think of a culminating experience! I am just not sure what to do. I want something with digital storytelling or digital photography (since thats one of the subjects i teach) and/or also do an online critique or online gallery exhibit. Maybe use some web 2.0 tools? Could this be a culminating experience?

Any advice or suggestions welcome! :)

Thanks!

E-Portfolio? Yes please!

I have never created an e-portfolio, but have wanted to for a year or two now. In fact, my principle would like all the teachers in our building to create an e-portfolio for this following school year and am THRILLED to have such a head start!

As for how my school currently uses e-portfolio...it doesn't. One of the main reasons my principle is starting this initiative this year is so that the follow year all of our middle school students will be able to start their own e-portfolio. Our district just approved having 1:1 netbooks for all of our 7th graders (piloting a new program) and creating an e-portfolio would just be the next step for us. Since the students will have access to a computer 24/7, keeping their course work/ refections/ projects in a portfolio would be so simple. :)

I also think that it would be great for teachers to share their portfolios with one another to share ideas and it would be an excellent way for different content areas to "see" what each other is teaching and how they are reaching their standards (what types of activities, technologies, experiences are the students getting).

The end..once again

It's crazy that yet another class is done and over with! I feel like this class went exceptionally fast..bummer! I really enjoyed learning how to teach online. It opened up my eyes to the other side of online learning. I am now much more comfortable with the idea of teaching online but worlds away from being ready to start teaching online. I know that I will be able to do it and hopefully will have the opportunity to do so in the near future, but for right now, I am still just getting my feet wet!

I also feel like I had my eyes really opened to the possibility of teaching art online and not just art history or an art appreciation course. I have begun researching different virtual schools and online classes in the arts to find out exactly how these classes are taught. I really love the hands on atmosphere an art room has and couldn't really grasp how I could do this online. Now, more than ever, I am sure I could do it...it would just be "different". I have learned to be okay with different. I may not be able to physically be there with my students but can create videos and tutorials to do it online. In addition, they might not always have to be "doing" or "creating" a physical something...

student centered learning online

During this weeks session I reflected heavily on my units that are very teacher centered and wondered how I could change them to be more student centered. In doing so I found that most often it involved the use of technology. This really didn't surprise me since some of the most successful ways of getting students engaged and take control of their learning is to incorporate technology. With this in mind, I also realized how important virtual schooling is becoming.

By changing my Renaissance art unit into an online student centered lesson, I realized that it can be done and in some cases seems to make the lessons more interesting for both me and the students. I am excited to try this unit out next year in my face to face room. Although we are not an online class, I want to begin trying more blended learning!

the virtual art room...hmmm

I have to admit, I am a little bit on the fence with teaching art completely online. I know it could be done, but I still believe there are things students just need to "be there" for. Sure I could create a video for all my demonstrations (I already have over half of them taped already!) and put them on a wiki, webpage or virtual class hub. I could do live web chats with my students to "watch" them draw, paint, sculpt, but what about those times I just need to be there. For instance, when I am teaching value drawing, the students definitely benefit from hand over hand instruction when they are struggling. How could I do this via the internet? What about when i help them correct their pressure for painting, drawing, carving, and throwing on a potters wheel. I NEED to know how hard or soft they are pushing in order to give the correct, specific and timely feedback they need in order to learn. I do think there are a number of ways art can be taught online and in fact it would probably be a better learning environment for everyone involve (more independence, less classroom distractions, less peer pressure, etc), but still feels like not all art could be taught this way.

With that said, I am look forward to trying to make my room more of a blended learning environment. If I can begin to do this more frequently and it becomes part of my pedagogy, perhaps I will one day be able to see teaching art (ALL ART) online!

Week 3...

So I have to admit that I didn't realize how difficult it was to facilitate an online presentation or class. There is so much to prepare for that it can become quite overwhelming.

I am really happy to have been challenged to create a synchronous and asynchronous discussion for this week because it has taught me so much! I feel like a really am beginning to understand elluminate more from an educators perspective and less from a learners perspective. I also feel like I am growing even more comfortable with doing the facilitating. I am not "afraid" to speak in large groups, but did have an eye opening experience trying to create the synchronous presentation. I found that preparing an online discussion for a class is very demanding. I have to have everything ready to go and also have back up ideas for extra time and student questions. Although these challenges face us in the traditional face to face classroom too, I have learned how to do this without even thinking about it in my classroom. For instance, I have visual aids I can grab out of a cabinet or I can do a live demonstration (remember I'm an art teacher...this is a daily routine). I really don't have these luxuries online and have to learn new ones.

So, my biggest "ah ha"moment was that no matter how well you know your content you also have to know the platform for presenting just as well. I definitely need to continue learning online teaching strategies!

something new from week 2!!

The biggest thing I learned this week was when you hve online classes with group work, weather can shut things down pretty quick!! Our group ran into some weather related issues (severe weather on Sunday) but dont worry everything turned out okay.

This made me think about how technology has its pros and cons. For instance, this situation was a first a con. We couldn't all meet when we wanted to because the storm was reaching us all at different times, but we could quickly solve the problem and do some asynchronous work until we could all collaborate together again. So, although the storm hindered us initially, being able to collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously we were able to weather the storm and finish our presentation!

Online Facilitation: Taming the World of Online Learning

Week one was great! I learned so much already and am really excited to continue to learn how to faciliate a real online course. I always "knew" that teaching online would be different just like learning online was but never thought about all the little details that really are important. For instance, writing the welcome or initial contact email was a little bit more complicated than I thought it would be. I struggled with how much information I should be including and exactly what information I needed to include. I did not want to create a lengthy letter that is overwhelming yet wanted to provide a well thought out and informative letter at the same it. Another awesome thing we did this week was learning about some of the features Elluminate has as a moderator. The tutiorial we did in class was really helpful and it was nice to see it from a different perspective. I also really liked the activities about synchronous and asynchronous learning on brainhoney. The discussion threads were great to read through and it helped "sum up" what we did in class. I liked that we had to reflect on our class and provide real examples of how these strategies were being used.

week 5

I know I'm 2 days late but...thrilled to say I survived stats! I also think that I actually learned quiet a bit about stats in the process! I am also much more comfortable with the terminology and processes. :) woohoo!!

I would have to stay that discovering google trends this last week was probably one of the highlights in this class. I really enjoyed being able to see how certain things were trending over time. the way google set up trends was also really cool. I like to be able to change the region and time period to make sure the information is relevant to my needs. I am not sure how I can use this for my professional life yet, but do have fun with it in my free time. Maybe I will stumble upon a "prom dress" phenomenon myself!

Week Four

Statistics and Art...

Well now that we are over half way through class I have raelly been pondering how I use statistics in my classroom. I have never really considered doing too much data collection as my curriculum doesn't really have data collection assignments (tests, quizzes, homework) but rather projects and process grades. I am thinking that when I am back in the classroom next year (I will be out on FMLA for the remainder of this school year) that I will begin to track my students grades using some of statistic concepts we have been learning.

I know that my school uses data A LOT and we analyze it through a variety of different tools...MAPS, WKCE, Explore, AIMS, STEM, etc. but this data rarely makes its way into the specialists classrooms (music, art, p.e., health, spanish, face...) on a regular basis as we have such limited time with the students. We know the students scores and how/why the data is important but it is much more difficult to use it daily in our instruction.

I now know how to analyze data that come directly from my curriculum and students to make it relevant to me.

Week 3

Oops!! Having a baby last week has really screwed up my schedule!! :p I seem to have missed week 3's blog response.

Real life stats connection...

After having my daughter I was all of a sudden given tons of statistics about height, weight, breastfeeding, SIDS, etc. and I was thinking about how stats are everywhere in every profession (including motherhood!) Now that I am home and somewhat more coherent, I am wondering about how they get their statistics. Are they samples or populations? What does it mean if my daughter is not on the "charts"? (she was really chunky) How do they know that certain blankets and sleepers help lower the risk of SIDS? It just suprised me that there are statistics all around us that we don't even think twice about. I am now questioning how statistics guide many of our programs in schools and curriculum...interesting thoughts to ponder!

Week 2

With all the protests and controversy in Madison over the last week I find I am looking at the "statistics" of the situation differently. I have seen a couple of polls and it is interesting how different some of them really are...having some background knowledge has helped me try to find the polls, surveys or studies that are relying on accurate info.

I have to say that this week was less intimidating than last week and I am feel a tad more comfortable with my ability to actually do stats. :)

Week One...Stats

Well having not taken a math class of any kind since my freshman year of college I would have to say its a little bit scary. I like math but statistics seems to be a little bit different than most of the math classes I enjoyed!!! :) This week was a somewhat overwhelming and hard to navigate but am sure that things will eventually all make more sense.

I am really hoping to gain a better understanding of stats and its terminology through this course. I also am hoping to learn how to calculate results accurately.

SMART goal

I am really excited to start adding curriculum material to my google site in the next week or so before I leave on maternity. I really think this is going to only add to my instruction and student learning.

S - I will create, maintain and use a google site for all my art classes
M - I will be able to use it for my personal use this year. Next year I will have the site ready for students access and use for announcements, homework, rubrics, links and collaboration activities.
A - I will update my google calendar weekly and add any new annoucements as needed. I will check the site daily and make time afterschool to update.
R - I will be creating a page for each course (not class section) so that it will be manageable to update. This site will be a great way to "house" my important information for the course in a clear and efficient manner.
T- I plan to have the site ready for student use by the beginning of next year as I will be out on maternity leave in 2 weeks and will not be returning this school year.

Week 5

I am in love with my google site. I have been playing with it over the last 2 weeks and am really excited to get it "ready" for next year. I know that this will be a really cool part of my instruction next year and am exited to use it as the classroom "hub" for online communication. Currently, I haven't uploaded anything on it, but plan to post the videos and podcast on soon. I also like that it is so incredibly easy to use!

I know on an earlier post i mentioned using edmodo, which I still plan on trying, but find myself gravitating more to the google site for my classroom.

Some features that bother me about google sites are:

• limited creativity options ofr themes
• can't change background colors on specific pages
• limited layouts

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

Interesting video on technology and our students!

Week 4

So I have been really wanting to create podcasts of my lessons for my classroom so parents and absent students can check for clarifications, but never really set up a time to do it. I'm really hoping that now that I have some experience and tools to do it, I will feel more confident about it. My only concern is that in 4 weeks I will be gone on maternity leave and won't be able to really do any major podcasting this year. :(

Have any of you made podcasts of your classes before? Did your students like them?

I also think that the google site I am creating will be extremely helpful for me and my students next year. I wanted to create a wiki but have been having fun playing around with google sites this week and think this is a better avenue for me. I also think that by creating a google site I can show my students how easy it is and maybe they will be enticed to create their own google sites.

Anyone with a current classroom website you would like to share with me? I'm just looking for ideas and options!

Splish splash

Originally uploaded by rbergman33

Here is a photo I took this fall. It was taken at Whitnall Park in Franklin, WI.

This image is located on my flickr account.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58453241@N03/

Why didn't i know about this sooner?

Dear RSS feeds,

Thank you for making all my google searching and history tracking so much less time comsuming. I am a little upset that I was not fully aware of your power sooner, but will embrace our new relationship with a smile.

Love,

Rachel

Basically, I love this concept!!! It still is a bit overwhelming but nothing I can't figure out. I feel like I am constantly finding new tools that are just making my life easier and easier and I couldn't be happier. I am excited to use this to find new info on artists and digital art that is current to use for my classroom. I like to incorporate art news or recent events in my teaching but find it time consuming to "google" everything...not to mention the keeping up with it everyday. Now I click a button and BAM! Everything I want, filtered and ready to read!!

I don't think many of my students will be able to use this feature, but my co-workers would love this. I'm sure many of them have hear of RSS and some may even use it, but most are probably like me. I have seen it but never had the guts to look into what it really was.

Now I just need an extra 5 hours a day to explore all these tools and fully understand the features and abilities the RSS feeds have.

Photo sharing? Yes please!

This week I was excited to look at different photosharing sites and loved the video to explain it. I am finding that my students love to post things online and what a better way to encourage art then to have them publish there work online? I am hoping to have a project in Febuary about art and emotion for 8th graders that revolves around photography...maybe using a photo sharing site is the direction I should go?

What photo sites do you use with your students? Does anyone?

I was hoping to use flickr since thats what I am the most familiar with, but my district doesn't let students use it and I would need email addresses for my students.

Loving the blogs!

So after the articles and exploring the different collaboration sites I realized how much I love blogging. Although I have never really maintained a personal blog, I have started several over the years and feel like I might just have to give it another try. I alos love reading other peoples blogs. Its fun and a great way to get new perspectives and ideas!

As for what I want to bring into my classroom...I want to blog with my students. I think that it is a great skill to teach as well as a prefect way for them to display their artwork for the world. Learning how to become comfortable with sharing artwork can be an extremely overwhelming task, especially for insecure middle schoolers--perhaps having a computer to "hide" behind will make it a bit less challenging. I know that many of my students are on facebook/myspace and find comfort in the lack of face to face communication--I could show them how to do this will their artwork and feelings baout their artwork as a way to ease them into real public displays and critiques of their work.

My only question...which tool do I use. I have learned baout so many that now I have to figure out my main purpose of the blog to find the best fit. Wish me luck!!! Any suggestions? :)