paint – iLearn Technology

Bomomo

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3558 views

What it is: Sometimes students just need a place to get out some creative energy. Bomomo is the perfect place to send them. Bomomo lets creativity run wild with a new kinds of painting tools. Students imaginations will run with the possibilities that this site offers. There just isn’t any other painting program like it. Try it out for the full effect. Student masterpieces can be saved to the desktop offline, these would make great customized desktop images.

How to integrate Bomomo into the classroom: Allow students to create their own desktop images for classroom computers using Bomomo. Teach your students about abstract artists and art, then let them create their own with Bomomo. Ask older students to describe (in writing) what each tool does, how it works, what happens when they click or move their mouse. Have students compare their finished descriptions finding common language and differences. Students can come up with common definitions for each tool. This is a great exercise in descriptive writing, explanatory writing, and observation. My students asked if they could use Bomomo to create CD covers for the music that they created in GarageBand, of course I said yes! This is a fun site to explore as a class using an interactive whiteboard or projector.

This site is so calming and captivating, I wonder if it would be a good one for students to play with before taking tests?

Tips: There are two ways to save student creations: normal and high quality. Normal saves as a jpg and high quality saves as a png image.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Bomomo in your classroom.

Jackson Pollock Whiteboard

February 10, 2010February 10, 2010Kelly Tenkely12 Comments14690 views

What it is: Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter and a big name in the abstract expressionist movement. Recently, I was reminded about the Jackson Pollock Whiteboard interactive from the wonderful Techie Classroom blog. This website allows students to create Jackson Pollock-esque virtual paintings. Students click anywhere on the screen for splatters of paint, drops, and dribbles. As they are “painting”, students can press any key on the keyboard for a different background color, erase using the space bar, press alt+ any key to change the color of the drip, or use numbers 1-0 or left, right, up, or down arrow to change the color of the drip or background. Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas is also an iPhone and iPod Touch application.

How to integrate Jackson Pollock Whiteboard into the classroom: This site is just plain fun! Students will enjoy creating abstract works of art by clicking and moving around the virtual page. Obviously this would be a great way to introduce students to abstract art and to Jackson Pollock, students could start by creating here, and then study Jackson Pollock and his famous paintings. Put the Jackson Pollock website up on your interactive whiteboard and let your class create a Pollock masterpiece throughout the day. Take a screen shot of the finished painting at the end of the day/class period. This could be done every day over a week or month. At the end of the week/month collect all of your classroom virtual paintings into a slide show. Do the finished paintings convey the emotions of the days? The slide show of paintings could also be used as a backdrop for information that students learned on their Jackson Pollock study.

Students Pollock masterpieces can be used for adding some color to the classroom walls, as a desktop picture or screen saver, or as thank you notes for classroom helpers.

Tips: In the iPod/iPhone version of the Jackson Pollock Whiteboard, multi-touch capabilities are built in for even more fun!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Jackson Pollock Whiteboard in your classroom.

Canvastic dot NET

November 20, 2008November 20, 2008Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment15079 views

What it is: Canvastic dot NET is the online beta version of a drawing software program I have written a post about in the past. Canvastic is basically a Kid Pix type program without all the “toys” it lets students draw and write without being distracted by the ability to “blow things up” or “flush” their picture. Canvastic dot NET is the FREE online version of the program. The online version doesn’t have all the bells and whistle that the software version does but it is an excellent online drawing program that lets students save their work to a flash drive or computer and print out their work. It also has a great replay button that lets them replay and watch the picture they just drew.

How to integrate Canvastic dot NET into the classroom: The online version of Canvastic is wonderful for those students who use software at school and wish they had it for home projects. Canvastic can be used for all kinds of amazing classroom projects, some of the ideas included on the Canvastic website are:

abstract art
animations
bitmap art
books
brochures
cards
cartoons
characters
charts
conversations
covers
decorations
designs
diagrams
doodles
drawings
explanations
flow charts
flyers
graphs
illustrations
interviews
landscapes
letters
lists
logos
maps
math art
notes
pages
paragraphs
pictures
plans
plays
poems
portraits
posters
presentations
questions
quotes
reports
scenes
science reports
sentences
slide shows
stories
vector art
write-ups

The Canvastic replay button allows students to watch the process of a drawing. Students could use the replay feature for a plant cycle unit. Have students start out by drawing the plant cycle in order, when they replay their mini movie, it shows the plant cycle in action….very cool!

Tips: Check out Canvastic.com to get great lesson ideas and resources for using Canvastic in your classroom!

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Canvastic in your classroom.

Tux Paint

July 28, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly Tenkely1 Comment6793 views

What it is: Tux Paint (http://www.tuxpaint.org) offers open source software aka FREE. Tux Paint is a painting and creativity program similar to Kid Pix. tuxpaint.org offers the free download for both Macintosh and Windows computers. Tux Paint is easy to use, includes fun sound effects, and a cartoon mascot who guides students as they use the program. Students use a variety of drawing tools to create masterpieces.

How to integrate Tux Paint into your curriculum: Use Tux Paint as part of your publishing center. Students can illustrate their writing pieces using Tux Paint. Tux Paint can be used to enhance your literacy program. For example, I use Tux Paint when I am introducing kids to the Caldecott award. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems is a Caldecott Award winning book. The Pigeon is created with very simple shapes and can be easily recreated with the tools in Tux Paint. As part of this unit, I let kids create their own Pigeons. They look so close to Mo Willems Pigeon that the students feel like successful, award winning artists. This program is flexible enough to use in math (think patterns, money units, etc.), science, and history.

Tips: Make sure you have printing abilities. The students will be proud of their work and want to print it out! Be sure to download the stamp set. This is a free download but offers hundreds of stamps (including money) that enhance this already great program. Visit the school page to find out how other schools have used Tux Paint to enhance their curriculum.

Allow students to save their masterpieces and upload them to Artsonia (see archive).