Ahh - Voicethread. I've used it before, and kinda like it but kinda not. Last year a small group of art teachers used it as a way to have a book-club discussion. However, I found that it wasnt a good fit - each chapter was a pic or two and we each said something about the chapter. My suspicions are that there's some other tool that would better fit our needs. I think it would be great to comment about an artwork or series of artworks, tho. In the tutorial, using VT as a device for sharing instructions caught my eye. That's something I should think about altho again, I'm not sure it's the best tool for that. One of my early experiences with VT was in an online art course, where we were discussing an artwork. It was great for that!
Fotobabble looks like fun - I could see using it to add info to a pic - HA ! What if I had various artworks which the kids could pretend to make talk! That'd be an interesting way to explore meaning in artworks, and the kids would love it. Would need some cows for that. It could also be a way for them to add an artist's statement to a photo of their own work.
LittleBirdThreads was also fun, a way to string together works. Maybe I can figure out a way to use this with the 5th grade on their upcoming play based on fairy tales.
Voki - found some lesson plans using Voki, and checked 'em out. The down side is that the voice is very computerized - not so great when compared with LBT or Fotobabble. Some of these tools seem to overlap so I'm not sure what criteria you'd use to select one over the other. My guess is it 's things like how many frames the site can accept, or as previously stated, the sound of the voice.
So off the top of my head, Voice Thread and Little Bird Threads seem like they'd be the best fit for things I'd like to do, usually with many or all students from a class. I also prefer the student's voice to a computerized one. If the student wanted to mask their voice, no doubt they could figure out a way to do that.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling seems like it would be helpful in the art room. One of the tools I like best is HelloSlide which I could imagine would be wonderful for combining art projects with artist's statements. I like Flipsnack, but am not sure how often it would be used in my classroom. Last year, some of the 3rd grade created and illustrated their own books, so it's a possibility. Could I incorporate both kinds of 'digital storytelling' into an art show?
One of the big stumbling blocks with these storytelling sites, from the perspective of the art room, is the illustration, since that's an aspect that we focus on in art - creating your own illustrations. Most of the sites provide illustrations - yes, they are varied and beautiful, but they are not the work of the student. That's why the two sites mentioned above work for me - they allow the student's storytelling as well as their artwork to shine. Altho I tried and tried, Grabba Beast wasn't on the web (?) so I could only learn about it from other sites. The concept is a fun cross between drawing and writing a description - it'd be fun for an interdisciplinary lesson.
Recently on my listserv one of the teachers was talking about flipping her classroom by creating demo videos which would be accessible by students at each studio ( guess that requires a number of laptops.) The beauty of that would be that the demo could be repeated, as desired, by the students, freeing me up to help with other situations. Maybe with Creaza? or Flipsnack (definitely Flipsnack for origami.)
An aside, Jason Ohler's site on Digital Storytelling has extensive assessment notes on digital storytelling which could be helpful for me in considering how to refine rubrics for my studios.
One of the big stumbling blocks with these storytelling sites, from the perspective of the art room, is the illustration, since that's an aspect that we focus on in art - creating your own illustrations. Most of the sites provide illustrations - yes, they are varied and beautiful, but they are not the work of the student. That's why the two sites mentioned above work for me - they allow the student's storytelling as well as their artwork to shine. Altho I tried and tried, Grabba Beast wasn't on the web (?) so I could only learn about it from other sites. The concept is a fun cross between drawing and writing a description - it'd be fun for an interdisciplinary lesson.
Recently on my listserv one of the teachers was talking about flipping her classroom by creating demo videos which would be accessible by students at each studio ( guess that requires a number of laptops.) The beauty of that would be that the demo could be repeated, as desired, by the students, freeing me up to help with other situations. Maybe with Creaza? or Flipsnack (definitely Flipsnack for origami.)
An aside, Jason Ohler's site on Digital Storytelling has extensive assessment notes on digital storytelling which could be helpful for me in considering how to refine rubrics for my studios.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
21st Century Brains
HA! Vision trumps all other senses!!! Flipping thru the info passed out the first day, I've been slowing down to read the notes from Brain Rules a bit more carefully. Even tho we know that vision is important to learning and many, many folks are visual learners ( are there more visual learners now than ever before because of technology?) I feel as if school art so often gets short shrift. However, the 4 C's of 21st Century Skills - Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Communication, and Collaboration are very closely tied to much of art making. Additionally, information fluency is now a increasingly critical skill,very often tied to the visual aspects of what are anticipated skills necessary for our futures.
It's all about visual memory and visual processing skills. How can I bank on this in the art room?
It's all about visual memory and visual processing skills. How can I bank on this in the art room?
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