BP15_2009123_OneMinuteMessage2

One of the best stereo types of teachers is found in the cartoon strip of Charlie Brown created by Charles Schaltz . Not a word is understandable in fact the voice is not even created by human voice but by musical instrument. Non the less people find it identifiable because, I believe, everyone has sat in lectures that sound exactly like that. Is this not the voice that we attack with web 2.0. Is this not what our students leaving school for or just falling asleep. Are we not trying to get out of hte Charlie Brown world and into the future?


Schulz, Charlie (2009). Clips of charlie brown's teacher talking . Retrieved December 12, 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUyLwXhqlWU

Original artwork by Mark West "Eggs and Apples" December 12, 2009

BP12_2009123_Tool#4_VoiceThread_Gimp

Art 2.0 web sites are hard to find! We still are locked in a texted based world even on the web but I did find a site for those of you

who are looking for something other than blogs, wikis, photo share, or something along that line.

http://artjunction.org/blog/?page_id=1024

This site gives me hope for the arts on the web. Altho

ugh it still contains

a lot of what the rest have as far as text-based apps. It also gives direction for the web in the classroom.

This site I find is needed because this is something that art teachers deal with everyday. Our students need to understand how important copyright is not only for those published artists but also for them. In this country and through out the world artistic rights are being violated all the time. Some violation are out of indifference to the artist and their product but I would like to think a lot of it is because of ignorance on the part of people. This site gives us a chance to open the eyes of our young people to the harm copyright infringement causes. I would encourage everyone to look at this site as a possible lesson to teach.

Voicethreads

How can a person use this tool in the art classroom? First an understanding of a VoiceThread is. It is an online media album. So how does that apply to an art classroom? First, the art student is creating a portfolio all year long. Each created piece of work must be saved and will to be graded as a complete body of work. The works therefore must stored some where. So this means that an art teacher will have at least one hundred fifty in that year with eight major projects, which equals at least twelve hundred projects to be stored. Wow that’s a lot to be placed some where in a thirty by thirty room where the students work. It can be a real problem because it is not only the space needed but it is the lack of respect an adolescent has toward other peoples work also. With VoiceThread the students can create an album that can be evaluated at the end of the year. Students can finis

h their work and take it home. Major storage problem taken care of.

Second is that the student must critique each of these projects. This is where they will explain how and why they did what they did. VoiceThread has 5 different ways for the student the student can comment on their art work. By using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video the y can describe, analyze, interpret, and judge their work inside the program. This program also allows classmates to also give feedback on the artwork and the comments.

The third thing that I like about it is that the teacher can place historical works of art for the students to go in and share their critiques of the masters to then be graded. All in all some great applications.

GIMP

The first art web site that I would like to share with you is a site called GIMP. One of the problems in education is having the budget to provide e-tools for the classroom. Licensure for products can run into the thousands and thousands of dollars. Adobe Photoshop costs approximately $700.00 per copy. When you multiply that by 35 copies, the number of student quite often in an art classroom, you have an expenditure of over $24,000.00. In a typical school budget the administration would laugh and tell you to find a grant. Well hope is on the web! This program, although not as powerful or sophisticated as Adobe, has the ability for the classroom teacher to teach a very strong web based tool. It in many ways mimics Adobe Photoshop. The tools are very similar and even have some useful tools that PS does not have. This would be good for private schools considering their budgets are even smaller than public schools.

The Art teacher can use this tool for any computer generated drawing project. The additional tool that I find exciting is the perspective tool. This tool allows you to manipulate the image plane into plane that fit the desired lines of angle. What else is nice is that any image that is on that plain also changes with that plane. This will be a great asset in perspective units.

MA West said...

Tom

I enjoy your mastery of this box. It is a totally new world for me and find myself very envious of those who have been it for years. Noodle Tools is something I am going to check into. If I can get a break from my school work I want to do some real concentrated work on my AR project. Would you know of a good source for survey questions. I have to develop a survey and I have never touched the topic before. Any help or people you can direct me to would be most appreciated. Mark West

BP14_2009123_PeerReviewKarenlove

MA West said...

Hi Karen, I like your positive attitude toward those of us who hunt and peck. I've been trying to leasrn some type of typing proficiency with no avail, I hate to say.I am working with my son to push him to obtain mastery on the key board. It is a must these days and now looking at web 2.0 it just drives the point home. It should be mandatory in every students educational journey and why schools don't it is beyond me. Well, I'll keep on trying. You can't tell someone to keep on keeping on unless your willing to that your own advise. Mark West

BP10_2009122_PeerReviewvela

MA West said...

Hi Vandy, I love you use of visuals to punctuate your blog. I feel that this pictures you so perfectly. Your words helped not only in helping us complete our last team project but also gave great encouragement in times when we got bogged down in the details. Your words have also helped to cultivate some great friendships over line. Here is one of them. Thank you for this blog it is great. Mark West

November 30, 2009 1:36 PM

BP11_2009122_OneMinuteMessage1

The need to break through the education platform barrier is here and now and if we don't we could lose a whole generation of learners. The future is the computer - it doesn't matter if we like that. It is what it is and it will be what it will be. I hope this will inspire those who watch to take the leap!

BP9_2009122_Flickrlesson

The App Flickr I find very interesting because of the make up of the format. I have a lesson that was very hard to do but through Flickr it can be pretty easy. I use images all the time in my classes considering that I teach art. in this lesson I have the students compare and contrast art styles. With the grouping abilities of Flickr I can easily group my selections for the students to comment on. I also see this app. as a wonderful tool for storing images according to historical art movements. When trying to teach an art movement it is always a lot of work to gather up images to critique in one given style. With this app. I can gather images as I go and store them within a group to be used as I need them. There are different things that you want to point out in a given style that are not present in every piece but if these works could be found all in one place then I can pick and choose the ones I wish to work with for that lesson. This also can be done with a given artist. Their works are spread out all over museums all over the world. To be able to accesses them as a whole body of work will be wonderful. Image organization is very important in an art class. Up until now I have had to rely on books and large folders of images taking up vast volumes of storage area that now can be used for other things.

BP8_2009122_Tool#3_ESL_Video

Youtube and other video applications have become very well known and highly used not only to document family outings but also for lectures, current events and historical commentary. This Web 2.0 allows the instructor to use these video internet assets to be used in actual quizzes and test. Just like an illustration the video is embedded into the test and the questions can be placed underneath it. It utilizes all the question forms from true & false to essay. Technology can now be used to even enhance the testing process. In art there are a great number of videos that are available for the class room. In the past these videos were seen and then not seen again not even when they are most needed during tests. This app. along with imovie allows the teacher to select clips from the movies that the students have viewed and embed them into the test. Student now have an accurate frame of reference and a great tool for remembering the content. Art needs the ability to use images when ever it can. It is visually based and to change the context from visual to written even on test I feel is quite unfair. This will give my students a fair playing field even on test. Multiple intelligence apply even when we do assessment doesn't it? This application is another one I hope to use in the near future.