Easy Rider.

Some things I see on the road are just plain funny.

Museum Cameraphone Workshop

This weekend I took a workshop at the Tampa Museum of Art led by Matt and Rebecca Sexton Larson of Boxfotos. While the art teachers that attended the workshop were of various skill levels Matt and Rebecca managed to work with all of them and we all came away with some very interesting images. 
I tried to imitate the style of Henri Cartier-Bresson in several pictures first in shooting from the hip as in the girl on the Segway and the pair sitting in front of the stage, second in pre-visualizing an image and then waiting for it to happen as in the couple walking past the corner of the museum. That one was difficult because of the delayed timing of the cameraphones "shutter". 

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Calling all Bloggers: Let's free slaves this Chris...

Cool Cat Teacher Blog: Calling all Bloggers: Let's free slaves this Chris...: No joke. You have some time off.  I'm asking you to: Take one blog post during the season to call awareness to human trafficking Make ...

Feeling Pensive

I love creating art. I love viewing others artworks, I love teaching children about art. I should love my job.

My New CR-48 Chrome Notebook

Don't believe everything you are told.

OMG all these people accepting one source of information about Shirley Sherrod. First the blogger Andrew Breitbart claimed to have only seen part of the video he posted on his blog. From that sound bite the USDA and the White House jumped to fire Ms. Sherrod. Now they all are claiming that it was all a mistake and are sorry for what happened. Okay Breitbart is a professional journalist and should be use to checking his sources. Then the USDA and the White House, do they believe what ever they read. Don't they have interns to check these kind of things out? 
Now I see why kids and adults are so easily sucked it to believing what they read on the internet.
AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!!!!!
Now I don't know a lot about Shirley's and Andrews political beliefs I'm guessing that they are far apart. But the story she was telling of her life up to that point is very interesting. She came from a rural souther town at a time of segregation and lynching. The part of her story that has caused all the controversy is about 17 minuets into the talk.



She tells of having power over a white man. Because of this encounter she realized her own prejudice. 
Know the whole story and make your own decision.

''Blissful Thoughts'' - by: Phillip Cordero (Original Composition) on th...

Found this while googling myself, it could be the theme song for my blog.

My Summer Project

DSC02094
Originally uploaded by blisschan

This is my summer project.
I use to ride in college and then I got married and had kids. So I became responsible. Now the kids are grown and out of the house so I decided it was time again for some irresponsibility. Okay not too much irresponsibility I do wear a helmet and other safety gear. I also took a 4 day motor cycle safety course before I started riding.
But it is fun and Jan says that it rattles the windows when I start it up in the carport.
I just got through yesterday putting a few additions on the bike, a windshield and sissy-bar with back rest for Jan when she rides with me. The next big step is that I'm riding the hog to our family reunion about 250 miles from here.

Okay I’m officially confused

In the Florida legislature we have had the very Republican Senator John Thrasher sponsored a bill that would effectively move the control of schools from the local level to Tallahassee. Today Governor Crist vetoed the bill and I’m sure he will be criticized by Republicans for this but it seems to me that Crist was holding to conservative thoughts by reducing the size of government and maintaining local control over the school districts.

Then tonight I was listening to the news and President Obama was announcing his plans for NASA. It sounded like he is proposing to reduce the size of NASA and encouraging private industry to take up the mantel of space exploration. Humm reduce government encourage private industry.

I can’t tell if they are following focus groups or their beliefs.  But I'm leaning toward politicians not having an idea what they are doing.

Writing about Art

Okay when I first decided to include a major writing component in my lesson plans for the first half of this year I thought "This should be fun!" like banging my head against a wall fun. But stubborn as I am I forged on with this idea.
First I had to plan on what the students would write about. I always do clay before Christmas break and knew that the kids would be very engaged with this medium. So that would be the subject.
One of the major pushes at our school and district wide is to improve writing scores and many of the teachers at my school have extensive training the techniques used to promote student writing. I decided to work with Donna Tippin a 4th grade teacher that specializes in teaching writing. She helped me design the lesson and created the handouts that I gave the students in class to help them write about their clay bowls.

As part of the design of the clay project I decided to have the students create "Story Bowls" This allowed me to teach both pinch pot and coil methods. I also had the students add a small figure to their bowl. I thought that the bowl and figure could be made by most students in one class. The figure also gave them something to create a story around in their writing.

So now I'm working on reading and grading all of these stories of clay. Each of these milk crates contains one classes writing, 18 to 22 students ceramic tales.

01-04-10

01-04-10
Originally uploaded by blisschan

Today I finally finished organizing my students art writing portfolios. One box for each class. I have to keep the boxes on the hall because my classroom is so small but I'm lucky to have one because not all art teachers in our district have classrooms.

365 photos 2010

I'm going to try again to take 365 photos this year, one a day and post then to Flckr and blog about them here. The first two were taken while on a visit to Jacksonville for News Year.
Jan and I spent New Years Eve with my sister Palmer Ann and her new husband Joe. We had wine and played games. Lots of fun.
1-2-10 was at Tim and Cheryl's house with other family and friends. Here the girls are raiding the refrigerator.

On 1-3-10 I received a very early text from our friend Leslie. At about 2am this Leslie while partying in Vegas she wondered what Jan was doing. I sent her this image.

Being as how I'm trying to keep this blog PG I can't show what was happening in Vegas, that will stay there.

By the Numbers

While reading Wesley Fryer blog he spoke about a widget that Gary Hayes made that is a "clock" that tracks in real time the growth of social media on the web. Some of the numbers are very impressive. In the 300 seconds that I have been logged on to his blog there have been 815,983,251 emails sent globally. 2730 new members of Facebook. $73,980 spent on virtual goods, that is paying something for nuthin'.
If you have not started exploring social media you will be quickly left behind.

in reference to:

- Gary's Social Media Count | PERSONALIZE MEDIA (view on Google Sidewiki)

Hat Day

This looks like a fun assignment. I'll have to get some of my parents to bring in old hats for the kids to use.

in reference to: Hat Day - Art Education 2.0 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Georgia O'Keeffe in Google Earth

Came across this lesson in the Teaching Pallette using Google Earth to show the life of Georgia O'Keeffe. This is a great way to use Google Earth. On the web page there is also an embedded KLM viewer. KLM is the Google Earth file type and this allows visitors to the web page to also see an interactive Google Earth window.I have got to try this.

in reference to: Georgia O’Keeffe in Google Earth : The Teaching Palette (view on Google Sidewiki)

NSO

New shiny object.
I have found that not only parents but teachers and administrators are taken with having the newest and slickest technology in their classrooms without thought to training and how the technology will transform the classroom. Teachers at my school all want documents cameras and interactive whiteboards but many that have been installed are used for no more than expensive whiteboards and overhead projectors. But for some as time goes by and they become comfortable with the technology they begin to use it for more. But I think with proper training and mentoring and the time to do those things more teachers would hit the ground running with these technologies.
Last year when we installed a dozen SmartBoards at our school the classroom set up did not allow easy access to the the SmartBoard by the students but I have noticed this year that teachers are changing their classrooms around so students can more easily access the interactive board.

in reference to: Interactive technology access does not guarantee good teaching and learning » Moving at the Speed of Creativity (view on Google Sidewiki)

Google Tool Bar?

OK I wanted to try Google Sidewiki but I'm not so sure about the tool bar.

in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)

Summer Fun

This summer I have been playing more with online social networks and PLC. Most of the tools I am exploring are ones that I have been using but now I'm trying out new ways to use them.

For example the image to the left is a screen shot of my Seesmic desktop. This utility allows me to better organize, sort and search my Twitter account. Using this I am able to follow "friends" who are attending the NECC this week. Using this tool I am able to learn about workshops and lectures that they are attending as well as ask the attendies questions about their experiances there.
I have also been discovering new ways to use Flickr. I can follow other users and see what they are posting as well as comment on the images. I have added as Flickr friends some of my Twitter friends and with this I can follow through both words and images what they are doing at NECC. That is pretty cool, next year maybe I'll go.
I have been using Flickr this year to document an image for every day of the year and through that I have met a few new Flickr friends throught their comments on my photos.
Now I have noticed that FaceBook has created a link between my "Whats on your mind?" on facebook and my blog. This is in addition to the to Twitter and Flickr link on FaceBook.

Google Wave

Wow, This will be something.

Picture a day

I have been taking a picture a day since the first of January without missing a day. Yesterday a took a picture that I'm not sure that I can post on flickr. Not because of the content but because of the way the image is created.
I just discovered a Microsoft site that allows you to have a group of images combined into one "Synth". With this you can use your mouse to move around an area. I did one of my classroom.

You have to upload a small viewing program which to me is a drawback but other than that it is pretty cool.