Tech is Teach with an A+

How do you use your time most efficiently?  Search with skills!

Google has so many ways to increase your productivity and guide you on the path of least resistance.

Check out this helpful video guide for searching with the best results.

Using resources which already exist can help lesson planning, increase resources, and open the world of connections with and for teaching.

This resource has handy shortcuts to lead your searching needs at your fingertips.  Post for students, share with parents, and use as teachers.  

Some of my favorite aspects of Google searching is the ability to drill down on exactly what will help you most.  You can search quotes from books, similar images, files by filetype, unit conversions, weather in your city, movies in your zipcode... the options seem endless.  

Google is the best friend for all your questions and needs.

Technology used to be a scary idea when it came to education.  Now, with a little information, you have the power to build your knowledge, lead your students and modify old teaching habits.

Expand your knowledge with some of these helpful videos.

Creative Commons:  Your place for copyright free materials to use within your classroom without worries of copyright infringement.   Learn about it below:

Would you like to perform Google searches privately, without cookies attached, or history tracking?

Try using startpage.com 

My favorite teaching tool I discovered to help my students learn while playing different games is Flippity.com  

Have questions, hopefully this video can help simply explain this resource.

Whether you know everything about technology already, or are still learning from your students everyday, remember...

World's Best Tools in your tool belt!

This week we learned all about safe, responsible use of social medias in schools.  Each district in my area have adopted their own stance on the issue in regards to legal, acceptable and usable situations.
Be sure you understand your social media policy at your school district before you post images or discussions publicly.

Symbaloo

This great resource is perfect for organizing groups of websites, in an easy-to-teach format for students to use directly.  My school district uses this as a base in our computer labs for students to access frequently used sites.  I searched and found a very useful symbaloo for art teachers, linked here.  

If you want to look for mixes others have created, here is a great tutorial video.

You can search for links created by other teachers and shared for collaborative use.  This is especially helpful when you look for lessons or paths already created by others. 

Here is a quick video on How to find Learning paths in Symbaloo  

Click HERE for access to a great artist's search lesson for students.

PADLET

Another excellent organizational tool for teachers!

Check here for my padlet I created to help in lesson planning, and shared collaborative ideas with teachers in my area of expertise- Elementary Art.

Let's Get ORGANIZED!

This week I learned so many new great tips to coordinate with my current online file management system, lesson plan integrations and exciting innovations.

LESSON PLANS
Favorite sites for gathering, viewing and discovering lesson plan ideas:

1. Krokotak

This site posts an amazing collection of lessons, activities, and resources for me in my search for collages, drawing, experiments and more.  I appreciate how there are videos and images arranged simply, making it easy for sharing during class and with others.

2. The Art of Education

This site is my ultimate favorite for art teaching tips and lesson plans.  I have had the opportunity of utilizing a free subscription to the PRO edition for the past month.  This has provided me complete video plans for teaching and classroom management, in addition to access to ALL the lesson plans they post.  A TON! 

All lessons are categorized by grade and category, making it easy to find what you need, including links to standards!

3. Cassie Stephens (Art Teacher Extraordinaire)

This art teacher is the one, the only, the ultimate inspiration for us all!  Her site is filled with amazing blog posts with ideas on everything from art shows to setting up a classroom in addition to her lessons.  She leads the way for many lost teachers and makes us feel fine about small mishaps in the art room.

ORGANIZATIONAL TOOLS

ARTSONIA online art student portfolios and products

artsonia.com

I use this site for online student art portfolios.  Three years ago, I uploaded my school of 550 students to begin this process. Each year, I add the new kindergarten students and graduate the past year’s crew to their new grade and classes.  
One of my favorite parts of this site the instant emails parents receive when student artwork is uploaded.  Students can see their whole collection of artwork from their elementary career, including posted comments from family and friends. 

One additional advantage of Artsonia is the option to earn money for your fine arts department.   Parents can purchase items created with their students’ artwork, while the school receives a percentage as profit for other art supply purchases.  This is a remarkable communication tool to share the arts with others on my website and interact between teachers, parents and students. 

Planbook.com

I love this site for so many reasons. The customization options for this online lesson plan book are perfect.  I enter information once, then I can easily copy it from week to week or revise as needed.  As a specials teacher, it is crucial for me to track where my classes are at with completion, and what lesson will be coming up in the next 50 minutes.  

With planbook.com, I am able to easily attach art standards, google videos, links to websites, and have access to everything right there, online, anytime.

Adobe Spark offers more than just one format for creating.  Today, I learned to create a page, in addition to voiceover movies, and posts.  Here is a link to my latest page including more tips and tricks I learned. 

Try something new, dive in deeper and make the difference- all for our students! 

Fill it in, Draw it out, and Make it Magnificent!

Google Forms:

I learned a new feature: Adding custom images to the titlebar of the Google form.  I do enjoy the templates already available including flickering animations like fireworks or birthday candles, however it is nice to have freedom to completely customize as desired.

Google Drive Add-ons and Apps

PixLR Express:

Save images free for all usage, by copying URL, then pasting, ‘Save a copy’ rename the filename, and saves into drive like any other drive file.

Here are some of my Favorite Add-ons

Quizziz: 

This app is an amazing addition to the Google collection.   I love the ability to use and modify quizzes created by other teachers with the same standards to assess.  As an art teacher, my summative assessments are few, as I am constantly checking knowledge through discussion and formative assessments.  

I love the easy integration of pictures and ability to easily have the files integrated within Google classroom or be shared on a website.  

I am still thinking of exact usage for my needs in elementary, but I could easily see this as a possibility if I had technology for each student. 

Here is a link to the elementary quiz. 

Voice-Typing:

This tool adds options for students with low typing abilities to still get their ideas into a document.  My son struggles to gain speed on his typing skills and proficiency, but has so much to share.  I see this as a great tool for anyone in need of typing assistance, especially those with limited fine motor skills. 

For MORE add-ons, check out this amazing site filled with excellent options. Click HERE

Google Draw:

Google Draw has endless possibiities for use as graphic organizers, custom images, adn 

I created a shareable link to my color wheel graphic organizer. 

Click HERE to access.

Edmodo Schoology Google Oh My!

This week was all about learning how to organize online classrooms and resources to enhance our teaching and collaborate with students and teachers.

I experimented with setting up Edmodo and Schoology to compare their similarities and differences.
My preference for collaboration with other art teachers is Schoology.  I have used this online learning platform previously for some professional development classes provided by www.theartofed.com.  At that time, I thought the format was easy to maneuver and resources were organized into logical folders I could easily access.

SCHOOLOGY
When I set up my Schoology account as a teacher, I thought the organization of groups and courses was very easy to create.  I decided the most useful format for collaborating with art teachers was to design our group titled, Elementary Art Teachers.  Then the course is titled: Elementary Art Curriculum for Pre-K-5th Grade.

Within the course, I decided it would make the most sense to create a folder in the Group Shared Resources section for each grade level.  The goal of this design is for art teachers across the district to share lesson plans, links to websites, and images of art projects to teach.  Many times teachers get stuck in a rut without knowing where to turn for new ideas.  The beauty of this site is the shared, age-appropriate curriculum organized into useable formats for teachers to use directly with students, or in the planning stages of curriculum organization.

Follow this blog from Schoology to hear of innovative uses, schools who have benefited, and everything you didn't know about this resource.  You can even learn about flipped classrooms and how to do it for yourself.

https://www.schoology.com/blog

Need to know about rubrics in Schoology? Check out this site for all the latest on rubrics.
https://www.schoology.com/blog/5-great-uses-for-rubrics-youll-wish-youd-thought-of-first


EDMODO

My teenage sons use Edmodo on a daily basis in middle and high-school classes.  The design and ease of use seems very streamlined for their purposes also.  As a parent, I appreciate the grade updates that link directly to the computer-graded quizzes, complete with incorrect answers and correct answers displayed.  This helps me understand the misconceptions and how to best help my boys in areas they need help.

Here's a link to an excellent resource for diving deeper into Edmodo.

Advanced Edmodo

Tutorial for Teachers to begin using Edmodo:

Tutorial for Students to get started:

Whichever platform you choose, they each have their place.  My favorite aspect is the ability to link from either Edmodo or Schoology directly to GoogleDrive.  This simplifies processes of having to copy files from one platform to another.

Do you know what we need as teachers, as we learn about all the new technology?
GRIT!

Organize and Synergize

Teachers are busy folk! We search for inspiration, motivation and relevant lesson plan ideas constantly.  This post is focused on organizing your inspiration and learning to synergize your ideas using PLNs, or personal learning networks.

My favorite organizational tools for organizing blogs is Feedly.

This resource is unmatched in showing me the latest and greatest from my fellow art teachers.  Once you create an account, you tell Feedly which blogs you'd like updates from.  Since I am an art teacher, I have a select group of teachers I enjoy learning from.  I can easily see the newest, latest posts from these teachers on their blogs in one simple place.  In the image below, you can see how the new articles are displayed from the chosen followed blogs.

I find this especially helpful for catching up after a long week.  I don't feel as though I need to check each site, but learn from the descriptions which area is most relevant for me.

Let's talk about Twitter.

twitter.com

Twitter has been a tool I've avoided for quite some time.  I was afraid of oversharing, over notifications, and over stimulation.  With a twitter handle now, I am feeling more in control over my time tweeting, my moments enjoying others tweets, and figuring out how to make the best use of my time.  The best way to save time is to make sure you are following only the individuals or companies you actually want to hear from.  Extraneous follows simply get in the way of great inspiration!

One of my favorite ways to use Twitter is to receive quotes and images I can quickly scroll through.  I truly enjoy only having a few characters aloud.  I get lost deep in the depths of Facebook occasionally when I intended to simply read one person's quote.  I feel I have much more self control with my time and sharing with Twitter.  

It is true I have barely scratched the surface with Twitter's possibilities, yet my brain goes wild with imagination of real-time art critiques, student shows, links to art room needs, and amazing ways to share a connection with my students' families from home.  The beauty of Twitter is the instant updates and no need for sending paper newsletters home, but simply keeping families continually informed.  I dream of announcing an artist of the month for each grade level by tweeting the results including images of the students' artwork with permission.  I hope to work on this during the schoolyear to motivate quality results and grand imaginations in my students. 

For help on getting started with Twitter, check out this video on Twitter in Education.

 

Relevant Technology Tips for Teachers

This week I have learned a TON about simple, easy features to excite my students and enhance my communication.

First, I created my first RSS feed using Feedly.

I am impressed on the ease of use for checking on blogs I follow, and their updates that are so easy to see in the list format.

Adobe Spark is another great resource for teachers.

You can use this resource to create a single post, a page, or a video.  I love the templates provided which help inspire and show options for your personal creations.

Students would enjoy using Spark to create presentations including their writing, poetry, personal timelines, and even an interactive art show, showcasing their work with descriptions.

I look forward to using Adobe Spark with my students this schoolyear!