Racing ahead, falling behind.4

From the networking class I learned a very basic idea of how the network at our school worked and with that knowledge came the opportunity to fix every ones computer problems. Ooh didn’t see that coming. But also by having to solve many different problems gave me the confidence to include technology more actively in my lessons.

I created a web page that students could access at home. They were encouraged to work with their parents on writing about different artworks that I posted on the web site. Once a month I collected the “home work” and had the students discuss what they wrote in class. Some parents enjoyed the time working with children while others viewed is as a burden and just one more thing to do. OK this was using technology but this could have also been done with a handout that students took home and wrote about. I was doing something with tech that I could have done without tech. I still wanted to have the kids do things that they couldn’t do any other way.

One thing that I did was with a first grade class and their teacher. We created a claymation animation. This was doing something that could not be done any other way. In their class the students wrote the story or script. In my art class we created the clay figures then working during an enrichment time we all worked together photographing the figures and recording the students telling the story. The students actually photographed and moved the clay figures, with a minimal assistance from me. But I still did the computer work of putting together the animation.

Then earlier this school year I discovered the K12 Online Conference. This was a great resource of information of how others were using technology in education. I learned about other teacher used wikis, blogs and other web 2.0 tools with their students. Soon after that I began to create wiki web pages for my students to work with. I also used this blog to record and report on the FAEA State conference. I hoped that my fellow teachers that were not able to attend the conference could share, virtually my experience there.

http://blissthink.blogspot.com/2007/10/faea-state-art-conference.html

http://blissthink.blogspot.com/2007/10/faea-state-conference-day-2.html

http://blissthink.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-create-large-public-artworks-for.html

http://blissthink.blogspot.com/2007/10/drawing-from-students-perspective.html

http://blissthink.blogspot.com/2007/10/jive-foil-puppets.html

To be continued…..