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? :)

A Pecha Kucha and the Challenging Rubric

I think I am finally ready to start recording my presentation. I have storyboards and scripts everywhere, but think I have one ready to use. It is REALLY hard to talk about a slide for only 20 seconds. I am hoping I have managed to cut to "meat" of each slide without losing my audience. Let me know what you think. Is there just too much info jammed into it?

Also, how has everyone been creating theirs. I am going to use iMovie for mine but was curious if anyone went with movie maker? photostory? voicethread? I only ask because I would like to see which program is most convenient. My goal is to show my students this Pecha Kucha next year and have them create their own.

As for the rubrics. I figured this would be a no brainer because I create rubrics just about every week in my classroom and LOVE them. Instead I am finding that it is far more difficult to create a rubric out of my comfort zone. I make art project rubrics, not multimedia ones. It sounds silly but I am really at a loss for what I should be evaluating on. I am really happy that I am having this difficulty because it is forcing me to reflect on my own assessing process. Do I create generic rubrics and not know it? I don't think so but wow...I am having a severe case of "rubric block"!!!!