Art Teaching with a touch of Technology

     Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds via Compfight cc My wife hates it when I hover.  She might be helping the kids with an iPad, and it isn't working correctly.  I know how to fix it, and she can sense I want to help.  But I shouldn't.  You see, my wife wants to fix it, and learn what to do.  She does a good job, and seeks further help from me when she can't fix it, and she knows the basic iPad troubleshooting stuff.  In my home, I try to build capacity... but struggle watching my wife fix things. As part of my role as an EdTech Specialist, is that I assist teachers with Integration of technology in the classroom.  Some integrations are well planned, and others not so well planned.  I like to integrate technology, being involved in the idea for the lesson.  Plan, research, design, integrate, reflect.  I feel it is more of a coach's role. Reflecting on Jeff's post , he talks about embedding rather than integ...

 In the above Video, a student created a short clip about their feelings about Cyberbullying.  It's a short digital story, that shows some of the feelings that come out when kids are confronted with Cyberbullying. I work as an Educational Technology specialist, and one lesson I am often asked to help deliver is about Digital Citizenship.  The next time I work with one of these units, I'd like to do a Remix! Last year, I was at the Beyond Laptops conference, where we did a group remix of our takeaways from the conference.  Just one simple statement of what we got out of it.  In the above playlist, these are creative examples of what a short clip of a takeaway can turn into.  Simple statements, crowd sourced video, and lots of creativity. Students often tell stories of what they have heard about bullying online, share examples, and often know some things of what to do.  Why not capture these stories?  Let students CREATE rather than regurgita...

Break your chains from the photocopier! Spend your time of more important things! Maybe even save some trees! You Need Doctopus! Goal:  Add Doctopus to your arsenal of digital tools and decrease your workload. Fishbowl  Times: 8:20  --  10:30  --  12:35  --  2:05   What is the plural of octopus ? You might be surprised by the answer.

Photo Credit: ToGa Wanderings via Compfight cc In my Master's Program, COETAIL ,   I was assigned to do collaborative assignment, with another teacher, at another school.  I found a partner on Google+, in the same course.  My partner and I worked on Option 1 of the Assignment, to create a Responsible Use Agreement. "Option 1: In a small group that contains at least one cohort member outside your school, create a Responsible Use Agreement (RUA) for your division level (Elementary, Middle or High School). You may start from scratch or use a framework from some of the resource that are covering in the course or from what your school already has in place. Include a reflective blog post describing choices you made in developing the RUP i.e. choice of language level, topics covered, issues of focus, describe how it would be shared with students etc." I worked with a teacher in Myanmar, Ivory Chang, over a Google Hangout chat.  We looked at each other's school...

The Universe is expanding, but our world is getting smaller. The above image is an assemblage from the Cassini Space Probe, credited here. With the power of the internet, we can push into details of the world we could never find published in books, magazines, and other places.  We can learn to communicate in new ways.  We can find out about ideas and concerns that others have.  We can learn new skills, right at our fingertips.  We can find lots of things, and remix them into new things. I live in South Korea, and... I don't speak Korean, and cannot read Hangul.  But due to Web Apps like Google Translate,  I can sometimes make sense of what I see around me.  Here, translate my blog into another language. This is a translation example for Google Translate. I have a family, with two small kids, who love to get around.  Thanks to the power of the internet, We can get directions, find parks, and other great things to do.  Like thi...

  Some rights reserved I was reading this posted question on Louise Phinney's Blog , about removing the "Digital" that we associate with things like Digital Citizenship, and Digital Footprints.  I commented on her blog about this idea, and I thought I'd continue that idea here. Remove the Cyber from Cyberbullying.  Why? Because kids disconnect that what they are doing is Bullying. I think that Bullying is Bullying, no matter where it is done.  The problem is that most kids understand what Traditional Bullying is, and think it is wrong. There is a disconnect from actions online being bullying.  Kids think that they are having a joke, but the receiver doesn't think it is funny. Raychelle Cassada Lohmann discusses the proportions of kids that do Cyberbullying vs Traditional Bullying in her article . "Cyberbullying is a big problem, even more common than traditional bullying. About 25 to 30 percent of the young people surveyed admitted experiencing...

Photo Credit: bricolage.108 via Compfight cc Copyright is a difficult issue for today's youth.  As a teacher, I taught Media Studies, with a Radio production course.  Students would come to me with their plan for the program, showing me "their" content, and "their" playlist.  They would often look at me, shocked, when I asked them where the music came from.  And when they couldn't answer with what I wanted, I sent them back for more planning.   Post by RoxFM .  Above, one of my former students broadcasting with members of the local community. My students would take their plan, and go to the local radio station, RoxFM, next door to our school.  This would be all done, Live - on - Air, with a bunch of fantastic teenagers at the microphones and mixer at the Radio station.  When they signed up for the course, they thought that they could just play some random music off their iPod, and ramble on about whatever came to their head...