Response to question about the class

This class opened a whole new world for me and I think it will take a while to digest all of the possibilities. Ten years ago I began surfing the net to get information, lesson plans and ideas on art education when I started teaching art. I joined a chat room-which quickly became a huge pain because I could not keep up with the dozens of messages per day, essentially about trivia. So for a long time I have used the web to gather information-but not interactively, except for e-mail to staff, parents, friends and family. But taking this class, while simultaneously going to the National Art Education Assn. convention and sitting in on workshops on Using Web 2.0 in the art room, reading Jason Ohler's article in Schoolarts and ording his book and other Tech books on line-all of which converged converged into one big "Eureka" moment has convinced me to press onward with this-read all the books, take another class when offered and continue "technology integration into the art classroom" as a teacher goal for the next few years. I still very much feel like a tourist in this "brave new world"; a bit confused, in need of good maps and guides, and overwhelmed by the alien culture and language I am experiencing-not unlike I felt in New Orleans-which is about as different from Fairbanks or North Pole as one can get! I do wish I had not been gone for a week-I felt really far behind. I also wish the class could have been longer or more lab time, but look forward to another class in the summer or fall and in the meantime will work with Leigh McDonald at school who has a much better understanding of all of this than I do.

Tuesday Night Class Response

We were introduced to "Flicker" a site which has Public Domain images that can be used to create slilde shows and may be annotated by the author of the presentation. I think this would be a great site for art teachers, might save many steps in searching for artwork on the web. It looks pretty user friendly also. I have also been reflecting on the advice from Craig Roland for introducing technology into your art program. The ideas that struck me the most are:
1. Collaborate-don't do this alone-like I did with John Schauer when we developed Digital Portfolios.
2. Take small steps-an idea John stressed also.
3. Stick with the art program-don't change your content or get so carried away with the technology that you forget the ultimate goal is to teach art! Also model artistic behavior in your tech. presentations.
4. Find ways to share what your students are doing with others using Teacher Tube., Flicker, Twitter, etc.
5. Enjoy the Ride! Which means to me-don't get so bogged down in trying to learn the technology that you forget to enjoy what you are learning. Don't use something that will increase, instead of decrease your frustration level.

Art Education 2.0

Found this wonderful site for art educators. I became a member and sent one blog to Craig Roland the author of "Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet". This site has all kinds of links to other internet sites for art teachers, lesson plans, discussions and many resources for teachers. The only downside is that I cannot access this site from the district server and have to use it at home. But I have spent a lot of time at home exploring this site.

After Conference Blog

Wow, just got back from the National Art EducationAssociation Convention in New Orleans, where I was the delegate from the state of Alaska to the Delegate Assembly. We worked on policy statements for the national organization. I worked in the Curriculum group. This was a fascinating discussion of what art education curriculm should contain in all grade levels from K-College. It was very general of course, we had to narrow it down to three main statements. The interesing thing to me was discussing with college art teachers what they expect our students to be able to know and do at that level and with middle school teachers what my expectations as a high school art teacher are for their students when they come to me. I would like to have this discussion with art teachers in our district and at UAF.
Another wonderful aspect of the conference is the workshops/lectures and the new knowledge I came back with. One presentation in particualr by Craig Roland, author of The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet, was terrific. I was introduced to his interactive website-Art Education 2.0 and have become a member. I haven't posted any blogs yet, but have been eagerly reading posts such as the ones recently on Creativity and how to teach and grade it at the high school level. The site is also linked to many other great sources of intformation on Web 2.0 use. A gold mine!

Why learn to blog?

Blogging is a wonderful way to communicate with students, art teachers and other artists. I look forward to hearing from other art educators who use this resource.