A New Web Page!

For our last project in Instructional Technology, we were asked to create our own web page using Google Sites. This has been my favorite project thus far. Web page design is no longer rocket science with this program. In fact, Google Sites is very user friendly.
The only thing that is required to create your own web page with this program is a gmail account.

I am not finished yet, but so far here is my web site. I hand-painted all of the link symbols (ex: "home", "teacher bio", "welcome"....etc), scanned them, and linked them to their significant pages. See example below.


I am pretty excited about the results!

I hope to manage a web site similar to this one as soon as I start teaching. This could be a very helpful teaching tool. Not only would it help my students to stay informed and record some of their projects, but it will give some insight into my art classroom for the parents or guardians.

So here it is... (unfinished but getting close...)!

http://sites.google.com/site/luciegilot486/

Knoxvegas Cribs- The Premiere

Our last assignment was to create a photo story using IMovie. I decided to give my viewers a sneak peak into my apartment. I think you can find out so much about a person by their home. What do I eat? Am I messy? Who do I live with? Am I into decor? Is there art in my apt? Are there lots of books, is she a reader? Does she have a pet.... All these are answered in my short but fun movie story of "Knoxvegas Cribs".
This program was pretty fun to use, and I would love to be able to use this in my classroom. It would be a great tool for students to record their art work or to discover a way of sharing photos in a more creative way.

So here it is... dun dun dun.

Using Excel!

This week we learned how to make interactive spreadsheets (practice or quizzes) using the Excel worksheet program. This was a challenging task at first. After playing around with the program a bit, I feel it could be easy to get used to. It is great tool for any classroom including an art classroom.

Linked below is tutorial website on Excel spreadsheets for beginners.
Home & Learn Tutorial

I chose to make my spreadsheet on the design element of line with a focus on outline, contour lines, and hatching. My goal was for each student to practice in differentiating between these three types of lines and observe them within drawings. This is made for an elementary art class. After much trial, error, and success, I have finally finished my practice spreadsheet. Here is a screen shot of the spreadsheet.

Inspiration!

This week we have been learning how to work with programs like Inspiration. This diagramming software was very user friendly and is an important tool for creating diagrams, maps, and webs for students and teachers. It is typically used by students grade 6-12 and it allows them incorporate visual learning into their curriculum. I would highly recommend trying this software. Inspiration Software, Inc. does offer a free trial edition on their official website: http://www.inspiration.com/

I chose to do a web on famous Surrealist artists. The surrealist movement is one of my favorites, and I think one of the best ways of discovering an art movement is by discovering its representatives. The only thing I had trouble with was getting the footer (my textbook source) to show up on the GIF image of my web (pictured above). I had a good time discovering Inspiration, and I'm pretty sure I will be giving it another go in my future teaching career.

A Hunt for Shapes On Campus!

Here is the presentation for the scavenger hunt mentioned in the previous post.



Collection of photographs for scavenger hunt are organized in Hunt folder.

Scavenger Hunt and Google Presentations!

(Source of Image: WeHeartIt)

In class this Tuesday, Kyle, Alison, and I went on a scavenger hunt to discover shapes on campus. This would make a great project for many different classrooms including the art classroom. It would be a great way for students to practice using a digital camera, work together in teams, and take creative photos for their scavenger hunt. It also taught us to upload digital images, properly resize them and organize them. We learned how to use Google Docs Presentations in order to share our photos with the rest of our classmates during next Tuesday's class.
I thought the presentation program for Google was just as user friendly as Microsoft Powerpoint (not to mention very easy to share with group members and the teacher). I will most likely be using this project in my future art classroom.

Our hunt was based off of Shapes.
For example:

This clock became our Circle!

We had to find twelve different shapes on campus. I have to say, the hexagon was the most challenging.

Picasa!

Link to Picasa:
http://picasa.google.com

There are tons of photo sharing options out there when it comes to the internet. I have just opened my free picasa photo editing software account, and I love it!
Picasa is very user friendly. It is a great way to upload pictures to the web while having the option of sharing these photos with family and friends.

Is this a copyright violation?

This is a question I've asked myself many times...especially when it comes to using images and documents from the internet.
As a teacher, it is smart and safe to assume that images, documents, texts, video clips, or other outside sources are copyrighted. By making this assumption, we can avoid the risk of copyright violations and legally use these sources with the fair use guidelines.


Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs/3020966582/


Fair Use according to the U.S. Copyright Office
(Link: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html )

According to the U.S. Copyright office, there are four factors to be considered when determining whether or not a the use of a copyrighted work is fair.

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

Here are a few Internet tips from a University of Maryland article regarding Copyright and Fair Use:

• Always credit the source of your information
• Find out if the author of the works provides information on how to use his or her work (explicit guidelines)
• Whenever feasible, ask the owner of the copyright for permission, and keep a copy of your exchanges of request and permission.

Other sources that are helpful in understanding copyright violations and fair use:

- PBS Teachers-
Copyright & Fair Use
(http://www.pbs.org/teachers/copyright/)

-Stanford University Libraries:
Copyright & Fair Use
(http://fairuse.stanford.edu/)

Google Docs!

This is a great tool for editing a document within a group of people or just storing a file on the internet. It's nice not to have to worry about remembering a document when it is on the internet and available for editing from any computer. Just upload your document, share it if you would like (insert the viewer or collaborator's e-mail address for their Google account), and voila. You can even create folders to organize these files and documents.

TeacherTube Video: How to Use Google Docs


Example of Google-Docs interface:

Quartz Everywhere!

Kyle and I were introduced to a group project about Rocks. This project allowed us to learn all about Quartz ( our chosen rock) while learning how to use Word as a teaching tool. I thought this activity was a creative way of integrating research, collaboration, and technology!

WebQuest

This website is a haven for creative lesson plans in a web format. While there are some bad lessons in there, there are plenty of good ones! I will definitely be using WebQuest as a technology based teaching tool in my future art classroom, and I would like to create my own WebQuest lesson.

Link:
WebQuest

Wiki Wiki Wiki wooo

A Wiki is an online software that allows users to freely create and edit a Web page using the internet. The software is supposed to be user-friendly, and is a great communication database to use among teachers and students. '
Just sign in. Edit. and Save.

Some benefits include:
-It beats e-mail
-It is an effective way to communicate information back and forth and add on to this information
-It is user friendly for the most part.
-It can be fun
-It would be a great tool to use amongst teachers and co-workers to gather teaching sources.
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Not so Wiki Woohoo=
- Half the time I could not sign in
-I could see how it would be challenging explaining this to students
-Since information can be deleted any time, so could your work you have just put into the page
-It is user-friendly for people who are used to computers, not so much for newbies
- It can take away from actually physically meeting to discuss issues, projects, and act of communicating amongst one another towards group effort.

Organization is a must!

It is important to always stay organized even when it comes to naming files and folders.

Website Evaluations

There are so many websites out there, and it can be quite overwhelming at times knowing which websites are worthy of a click and which can be chucked in the "fail" category. So how do we, as teachers, evaluate the worthiness of a website?

Websites which can help one make that decision:

-Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators
- Instructional Technology Modules- Evaluating Websites
- The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources
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Personal Evaluation of Website example:

Website Evaluated: Field Guides: Natural Wonders

• Look for special requirements (browsers, plug-ins..etc) Windows 95 & Explorer 4.0 (minimum)
  
• Primary Purpose of website Virtual Field Trip, Interactive Simulation
  
• Reliability of Author - Contact, Author, and Credit Information Listed
  
• Reliability of Publishing Body- (I had a hard time finding this information)
  
• Is the website's information bias in any form? (political, advertisements...)- The Website did not seem bias in any way.
  
• Accuracy of Information - This was hard to say because all of the natural wonders are linked to different websites with their individual sources and information. Some of these links did not come off as professional websites.
  
• How current is the information? The website was created in 2007. Some of the links were dead.
  
• Design, Accessibility & Usability Navigation was very confusing. Some of the links are not even in English!

I would not recommend this site because it is filled with random, dead links, and even non-English websites. FAIL
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3...2..1 Liftoff

Welcome to my blog! Although I am not new to the blog world (LuLu), I am new in the world of Instructional Technology. This blog's purpose is a way for me to record and reflect upon my growth regarding Instructional Technology 486.
Hope you like it!