Free Web-Based Software

This week I was introduced to a number of free web-based softwares! 3 of them were office suite sites and 3 of them were image editing sites. Of the 3 office suites, I use one of them daily during the school year; Google Documents. This paired with Google Drive and its capabilities, access-abilities, and comparabilities with my colleagues is unmatched by the other 2 sites. I found that I could create similar documents, presentations, and share information on all 3 sites, but that the Google Drive, due to being in place and used so frequently at work, was worth keeping. What these free office suites give us, is the ability to create documents, and presentations without having to purchase a software, and automatically save the work created online. I have a Drive folder directly on my desktop, and thanks to that folder, had minimal damage and lost work when my hard drive crashed this June. Thank you Google Drive!
The other 3 sites were for image editing. Being an art teacher, and naturally loving to explore these sites and play with how they worked, there were 2 that stood out; FotoFlexer and Phixr. I have been searching for free software that has image editing capabilities, was user friendly, and had similar filters and tools as Adobe Photoshop. I am a huge Adobe Creative Suite fan, and use it very frequently, however the software comes with a price tag, and for my middle schoolers it just wasn't practical. Each of my middle schoolers has a chrome book, which is a great advantage! Chrome books have little memory, and putting a program such as photoshop onto them would not work. Both FotoFlexer and Phixr both had great filters, with levels of opacity, contrast, color choice, and many other options that could be shifted for the viewers liking. At first, I thought Phixr was easier to maneuver, but the longer I played with FotoFlexer the more I liked how the filters were applied. I will be introducing both of these to my students this fall, to simplify images for drawing and painting! Check these 2 out!


FotoFlexer

Phixr

My First Screencast!

This week, I was introduced to a website (screencast.com) and download application (Jing) that allows you to easily create your own screencast on your computer! I created a screencast briefly teaching 1 point perspective that I plan to have my long term sub use, while I'm on maternity leave.
Here is the screencast:


The projects are ariel views of a city. The perspective of the viewer is looking down from high above the city and surrounding areas, as if they were in an airplane. When finished, the projects will look something like this:

Here is a link to the video if needed:

1PointPerspective

Concept Mapping

Another tool I was introduced to this week was bubble.us. It is a FREE, yes FREE, website that you can create a user account and make unique concept maps! The example I am providing is for a project that I would work on with my 8th graders. Families can be complex with many pockets of people related to other people. The project we would be creating, art-wise, would be a large rope that hangs from the ceiling with different sections of fabrics and yarns knotted to it, each representing someone on their family tree (about 8" of that material per person). Think of this like a weaving; we are all a part of the final piece, and stand out in different ways. All of these hanging from the ceiling together, would look like beautifully colored vines, with different sections of materials and color. I would have my students use bubble.us concept mapping to show the map of their family, who is related to whom, and what color they are choosing as a base idea to represent that particular person by. Here is my example:

Another area of I would use concept mapping for would be inspiration! I often have my students create a shared inspiration page, but a concept map would be another way to really see how the creative process took shape in their projects!

Creating a Map in Google: My Maps

I have just learned how to create a unique map for a project using google maps. The idea for the project would be for students to look up a map of a specific area of the 3 choices: 1.) Where they live (neighborhood or city), 2.) A place they have visited, 3.) A place they would like to go. I would have them create a map in Google: My Maps, and share them with the class. The map chosen should show the topographical lay of the land, giving the students a clear view of the high and low elevations of that specific map. It would also outline the area that they would be recreating. I would have them outline the area, and mark the site of 1 of the 3 choices above. Here would be my map example to share with the class:




I chose Saugatuck, because that is where I teach, and my students will know the general area. What I have taught before is about topographical maps, elevations, and the beauty in nature found in the geographical lay of the land. Once students have this map, their boxed in area will be their project. They must mark with a drop pin the specific place they are capturing, and the surrounding area. They will sketch this out as a topographical map with elevation lines, and areas of water. They will then paint to fill these lines each with an arbitrary color, choosing a total color palette of 5 colors, and tinting them. We will relate these to Traditional Aboriginal Paintings that show the landscape. We may even finish these by adding dots to reference Aboriginal Paintings, and creating movement in the art piece! Here are 2 examples of what this project may look like when finished:

Podcasting and Delicious.com

This week, I was introduced to a few new educational technology tools that were really interesting!
First, we were challenged to research a variety of podcasts and subscribe to at least 1 that would be beneficial to our teaching. After a bit of research, and google-wondering, I found MoMA Talks: Conversations. This is a podcast put on by the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). It has a variety of art podcasts spanning from studies of specific artists, movements, styles of media, and many more! I was impressed with all that was available! I accessed these and subscribed through iTunes. This link shares the list and previews of the podcasts:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/moma-talks-conversations/id154098266?mt=2

And this link will allow you to subscribe through other resources:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoMATalksConversations

The second new tool I was introduced to was delicious.com, and social bookmarking! Social bookmarking is a way of linking sites that you want to bookmark, and tagging them with key words so that you can easily find what you are looking for in your list of bookmarked links! Here is a link to my delicious page:

https://delicious.com/bboverhof

Enjoy!

Google Doc Sharing

Hello again!

I am sharing a google doc of ideas for our baby nursery! My husband has shared some of his ideas, in addition to mine, and even checked what was recently completed!

Dancing for the Arts!

This summer, I am on a  small committee planning the 5th Dancing for the Arts event! It is held every other year and is a fundraiser for the Art and Music programs at the elementary school where I teach. We have about 10 different groups and couples dancing. We have MC's, the event is catered, and has always (historically) sold out the theatre space that we rent! Here is the event add I recently made (on Illustrator) for a local paper:

One of our dance instructors, who is working with a group, has recently been inspired by this clip called The Evolution of Dance! I find it quite humorous and look forward to watching the group perform a rendition of this the night of the event!

Here is a map to the location of the event! It will be held in Saugatuck, at the Saugatuck Center for the Arts:

Quiz Making Maddness

I was introduced, through our educational technology class, to socrative.com where you can create a bank of quizzes!

Here is a quiz that I made for my 6th graders. We spend a couple of weeks learning about atmospheric color shifts, how our eye perceive color, and perspective. I would give this quiz after the presentation and 1 day of work on the project. It would be a summative assessment that I would use to see where the students are, what they know, and if they can use what was learned and apply it to the next part of the lesson.
The quiz is live and here is the room name:

Below is what the quiz would look like if I printed it, and copied it for my students to use!

Wiki Site Link

I recently created a wiki page for my educational technology class. Feel free to check it out!

http://orangeandblueartroom.pbworks.com

Technology in Education: Is it worth it?

This week my Educational Technology class was given 2 readings to reflect upon. Below is my response to both pieces:

"When you really think about it, our current paradigm of education is not designed for learning; it is designed for sorting (Reigeluth, 1992).” In some ways, education currently sorts students by comparing students to each other, grouping them by ability or mixing ability, encouraging different strengths knowing the potential career paths for success in an individual, and standards based testing. Are we really just pigeon holing our kids, allowing for guided success or failure? Throughout the article Beyond Technology Integration: The Case for Technology Transformation, the authors challenge the purpose of education and persuade that technology shouldn’t be used to support the educational experience, but instead transform it! I agree with this and believe I use technology as support and on occasion to transform. Powerpoint presentations, lets be real, supports by displaying images and information, it does not transform the way my students learn. Google forums and shared documents have a much different effect of connecting students throughout the process and building relationships in addition to the depth of knowledge learned. I want to get to a point where my,  “teaching methods might not only shift from passive to active learning, but also help develop initiative and responsibility in learners for their own learning,”(Reigeluth, 2002, p. 10).  There is an art teacher who I recently met, who is teaching in a much different way; facilitating her students learning. The number of successful students in her class, whose pieces went onto major art competitions, was outstanding. Her students were self directed, self inspired, and were highly self motivated, taking so much pride in their work, and this concept is exactly what the article is encouraging with the use of technology. I appreciate how this article challenged me to take a look at the tools I use and discern whether they are worth the hassle, and, “work on inventing methods that are consistent with key markers of the learning-focused paradigm, keeping in mind the new capabilities that technology offers,” (Reigeluth, 2002, p.11).

The second article was a much different approach to technology in education. I rather enjoyed the article because it challenges readers to view technological advances as either an efficient problem solver or as a useless tool that, “divert(s) the intelligence and energy of talented people from addressing the issues we need most to confront,” (Postman, 1993, p.1). He goes on to bash the intent of schools to educate, and instead argues that they prepare students for social society. This may be true, but I believe that since 1993, a shift has occurred and technology has greatly played a role in allowing our students to excel individually and in groups based on their own effort and motivation. Technology motivates students, especially if using the tools that push them to expand their horizons, share their experiences and gain new ones, and when used for more than just research, facilitates collaboration. I have always thought that more technology meant more available resources to gain more knowledge and information, however Postman makes a good point in that the excess of technology has us, “swamped by information, (that we) have no control over it, and don’t know what to do with it,” (Postman, 1993, p. 3).  In addition to allowing technology to transform our teaching, we need educate our students on how to use, not abuse, technology for its greatest purposes. The skepticism Postman presents encourages me to really think about the technology that I use, being able to strongly support the choice for using it, and its transformational properties, or abandon specific tools for their lack of solving a given problem, and instead overwhelming my students with more visuals, information, and unnecessary tools. 

Works Cited

Reigeluth, C.M. (1992). The Imperative for Systemic Change, Educational Technology, 32 (11), 9-13.

Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation. Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13.

 Postman, N. (1993). Of Luddites, learning, and life. Technos Quarterly, 2(4).