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I Never Would Have Thought...

I am enjoying 'Power Searching with Google.' And in some cases I am
enjoying the subject of the searches even more than the content
covered...
In Class 4 (Find Facts Faster) the activity asked us to find the title
of a book published in the 1880s.
Found it... Published in 1888... But the feedback offered by Google
said the book was published in 1883.
I sent an email with screenshots from the google search and the feedback box.
Wow... I got a reply.
I never expected one.
(side note... How could all of the people participating... Not to
mention google... not find it?)

Frames and more...

I've been organizing my apps recently - a true undertaking.
Wow... How many ways are there to present multiple images?
I began the summer with two... and you can see my collection has grown.
I had PicCollage and Picture Frames, and added one or two after seeing
them on Pinterest, and the rest were picked up from Tweets.
For the apps that display multiple images in a grid, there are slight
differences... Shapes, color, text.
There may be more on my phone!

Old dog, new tricks.

Really - 2 1/2 weeks since my last post?  How did that happen?  What have I done in the last two weeks?
I know that my twitteracy has improved.  I am not new to twitter, and yet I am.
I created my first account when I read about it in Wired several years ago.  But it was blocked at school, and while I think I have things to share - I didn't have anyone in  particular to share them with.  So without the ease of an app, nobody to play with and the fact that I just didn't get it... nothing happened.
I have had accounts for my son's travel team, high school team and now college team... but they aren't interactive - just reporting scores for parents who aren't able to travel.
I created one for parents to receive updates... no takers.

So 41 days ago I tried it again and it became my self-directed PD for the summer.
I am learning.

• I wish I had someone to guide the process, and in a way I guess I do... thanks to everyone that retweeted, followed, replied and added me to lists.
• I am still hesitant at times, and yes I seem to be following the 'laws of twitter' and progressing through the stages nicely (mass follow, lurk, retweet, favorite, reply, chat....) 
• I am navigating the tangle of tweets - reading rapid-fire tweets during chats.  I understand what a hashtag is (literally and figuratively... it was included dictionary.com's word of the day recently), and learning how to use it.
• Twitter has actually led to other investigations - my app a day, sites, blogs.  Participating in my first real MOOC - Google Power Search. Articles to read.
• I am still just e-mailing tweets to people I really want to share articles with - they don't tweet....but I am working on converts.
• And I have to say that everyone has been kind, receptive, and inclusive during my explorations.

Thanks to everyone for helping with my PD this summer.

Added today - for work and play.

Thanks to a tweet by Tony Vincent (@tonyvincnet) I picked up the Word Collage for IOS app free.  

Then I followed #iosedapp and scrolled through some recent tweets and picked up the app Easy Assessment (thanks to @mrrobbo...  pegeek.com) to try out.

While some schools are just winding down, I have spent the last two days in my room getting ready for the next year (August 13 will be here soon.)

I need to work on my digital organization - while I have enjoyed learning about apps and sites, I need to figure out how I will use them in the coming year.  Just having them won't help much.  I need to make sure they become tools for the classroom, and not just 'stuff.' 

It's time to get to stop playing so much and get to work.

Or not.

Qwiki

Just under the wire - for today:

Qwiki Creator: Create the textbook of the future with a few clicks: Play the Qwiki: Anastasis Academy What it is... bit.ly/MarTkl
— Ed Tweeps (@Edtweeps) June 29, 2012

Sounds interesting - thanks to Ed Tweeps (!) for the heads up -
Read more about it at Free Technology for Teachers -

Read on EdSurge today....

Most retweeted tweet at ISTE:

 @sjunkins: I have yet to have a student tell me they can't use technology in class because they haven't received any PD on it. #ISTE12

Play2Learn - SoundCloud

Yesterday I played with ImageSpike after reading a tweet by Richard Byrne.  In the accompanying post  on his blog he referenced thinglink, so I thought I would look at that today.


When I was looking at the gallery of finished projects I noticed someone had included links to sound files powered by SoundCloud.  So I signed up and am thinking of ways to include SoundCloud in the classroom next year.

Two birds with one stone today -

Play2Learn - imageSpike

Thanks to Richard Byrne (and his blog FreeTechnology for Teachers) for sharing information about imageSpike:

ImageSpike allows you to upload an image, place pin marks on it, put text and links into those pin marks, and share your new interactive images. 

this is different...

Saw this tweet this morning....

Here is what I believe should be standardized for every student bit.ly/KWjDVr #iste12
— Michael Kaechele (@mikekaechele) June 25, 2012

How cool is this tag cloud?  I can't believe I hadn't seen it before.  I signed up - Tagul 

Looks interesting...

I just signed up for Remind101... from their website:

How does remind101 work?

Great question! First, a teacher adds his/her class, which generates a unique code. The teacher then shares that code with students or parents. At that point, any student or parent who sends a text message with the code will be "subscribed" to the teacher's class. Any time a teacher sends a message from remind101, all the students or parents subscribed will receive it. This short videoexplains it A-Z.

How did I get here?

Sometimes I don't even know where I find things to play with...
I should take screenshots of my browser history just to remember how I got from point A to point B...

I read a tweet over the weekend... that took me to top sites for teacher productivity....that had something about pearltrees... so I signed up to play later and did a search....nothing much on art ed... so I must have tried technology... and that took me to apps in education...which took me to a wiki page with a Glog "Welcome to 60 in 60! This site is a presentation created by Brandon Lutz.  60 in 60 is a fast paced presentation that goes over 60 technology tools in 60 minutes."

But that's not even what I noticed.  It was the little flag on the side that allowed voicemail comments.  Which I hadn't seen before, so I clicked to find out what 'powered' it and ended up with a SpeakPipe account for my blog.

So - it's not that I was looking for that, it just found me.
I need to take a screenshot.

The highest solution doesn’t come from your mind but through it. 

Who knows where the inspiration originates? 

Will I be ready?

iBuildApp - playing 2 learn

I started playing with iBuildApp a couple of weeks ago and decided to try one for my classroom next year....
... and 2 days later I have one 'almost complete'.
Whew - what took so long?
I forgot what I did the first time.
Background art?  Had to take an image and play with it a little.  I ended up using Creative Kit (Picnik) and just fading over and over.
Banner?  Don't have one - started out by playing in Word, saving as a jpeg.  Again - just added text using Picasa and Creative Kit.
Then had to decide what I wanted to include.  Dug up an old wikispace account to reuse (ouch - need to work on display/colors.)
Then couldn't remember how to add photos.  Frustrating when I can see the directions, follow them, and still not have it work.
So...
here is what I have so far:

Frame X Frame - playing 2 learn

Right before school was out I started playing with the app Frame X Frame by JOBY.  It is just too easy to use - even I figured it out.

We played with it a bit in class - changing the number of shots, interval and frames per second.  To learn a more about what it could do I played with colored ice on watercolor paper.  Sounds easy doesn't it?  Well, it took a couple of tries.  Initially I wanted to try the time lapse feature, but it kept crashing (fixed in a June update?) so I just used the stop motion feature.

I used an organic food dye to color the ice and I was surprised at how quickly it melted. I wet the paper before I started, but the end result wasn't very exciting... just a puddle on the paper.

My biggest mistake was not making more than one dyed ice cube at a time -

So I tried it again - wetting the paper, 'crushing' for texture, changing the interval/frames.

Again - meh.

An accident made it a little more interesting.  The next cube of ice shattered (the organic food dye prevented the ice from becoming solid - I will have to test that later) and when it broke in pieces I left them on the paper where they fell.

Results (even I lose interest after the 1:00 mark-  but I was playing with it to learn more about the app):

How could I use this in the art room?  Easy to capture and share with my phone or touch.  I can see using it for demos for the student wiki -
Have fun -

Hello... goodbye...

June 6th - my first day off this summer. And our oldest son's birthday - 2 reasons to celebrate!
Why hello/goodbye?
Hello to a new blog (I have had several over the years  - tailored to the subjects taught), hello to new families as I switch to K-8 after many years of 4-8, hello to a summer of planning.
Goodbye to a class I loved - a 7th grade class that began as a supplement to the LA class... but grew to an arts-based literacy and numeracy class with a highlight on technology. Goodbye to the collaboration of my 7th graders and K-3 students on Anchorage Trail, the iPad lab and bookmaking activities... and let's face it after over 30 years, this is probably the beginning of my personal good-bye.

So... hello.... goodbye....