Teacher Tom!

I just made my first post on another blog..Teacher Tom! He is a preschool teacher and artist living in Seattle. He has amazing ideas, really fun and different. I am definitely going to use some of his messy ideas if the custodian doesn't kill me first...paint with their feet? Pour paint down over wooden posts onto canvas? Corrugated cardboard constructions with glue guns? I want to bring fun back to schools!

As for the technology challenges so far....great in some ways because it is making me try new things I probably would never have done like Pandora, video searches, other teachers' blogs. And since I am not paid to go to curriculum days, I miss the speakers and larger instruction days, I really appreciate that we "specialists" could be a part of this by doing it on our own time. But I probably should have used this DLC time to get a more solid foundation under me. I think the vast majority of teachers need more help with hands-on time like iphoto, imovie, Skype, Powerpoint, etc.

Pandora!

Love, love Pandora! Not so much iTunes....If one were to have an iPod, then downloading from iTunes makes sense. I just borrow my husband's if I want to use an iPod. Pandora is free and full of some of my favorites ( Habib Koite, Michael Franti, Los Lobos, Toni Price). I use to bring my Boss radio and disk player in to the classroom if I wanted the class to hear something specific. This Pandora business is way better!

DLC # 4

I found Richard Byrne's School Tube site for videos full of student work that wasn't very well done. Does he just put anything on this blog without editing out the weaker ones? Elementary kids may be inspired to see older students' videos but I don't think it is helpful for them to see poorly done art from anyone! Also, his focus is NOT on the arts. His selection was very limited.Global views was better....

But I did find a video on Teacher Tom's blog about abstract painting. The Mass.Standard that this would be is Visual Arts 3.1 or 3.2.

DLC #3......Love Lexipedia as a way to improve my report cards. Instead of saying the same thing over and over again, I can use Lexipedia to find new ways to tell parents what their kids are doing in art. I've bookmarked it and will try to remember to use it in June.....