Art – Page 14 – iLearn Technology

Interactives

October 19, 2007October 19, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2235 views

What it is: Interactives is a truly amazing website for teachers and students. Interactives provides educators and students with strategies, content, and activities that can enhance and improve students’ skills in a variety of curricular areas including math, literature and language, science, history, and the arts. The site has great webquest/interactive activities on a variety of subjects for first through twelfth grades. These activities are extremely well done. The spelling bee activity is really the only activity appropriate for first grade but I found that many of the activities that were rated for middle and high school students, would be appropriate for elementary students as well. I cannot say enough about this site, it is a truly amazing site for teachers and students!

How to integrate Interactives into the classroom: Interactives has a variety of interactive activities for the subjects listed above. These would be great to use as an introduction to a new unit, or as a learning activity or field trip in a unit. The Interactives could be completed as a whole class (using a projector), in groups (center style in the one or two computer classroom), or individually (in the computer lab setting). Any of these options would be time well spent for your students! Each Interactive presents the student with information about the unit and follows with interactive activities such as building a roller coaster, collecting rocks, or tracing the growth of the United States.

Tips: Sign up for the learner.org newsletter for some great teaching tips and ideas.

Professor Garfield: Comics Lab

October 12, 2007October 12, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2275 views

What it is: Professor Garfield: Comics Lab here students can write, assemble and print their own comic strips. The comic strips can even be saved on Professor Garfield. The Comics Lab allows students to develop creative writing skills while learning how to develop plots and story lines. The Comics Lab also includes a video tutorial about writing.

How to integrate Professor Garfield: Comic Strips into the classroom: Professor Garfield Comic Lab allows for fun, creative writing for beginning, developing, and intermediate writers. Give students a common theme for their comic. Students should watch the Jim Davis video tutorial on creative writing before they begin brainstorming. This can be done as a writing center or with a projector. Students can plan their comic on paper before getting onto the Comic Lab. The Comic Lab encourages hesitant writers and those who don’t think they like writing.

Tips: Be sure to visit the Teachers’ Lounge for really thorough instructional materials, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, writing, printable materials, electronic field trips, and educational materials.

Professor Garfield: Art Bot

October 10, 2007October 10, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment966 views

What it is: Professor Garfield: Art Bot is a site dedicated to teaching kids the building blocks of art, specifically cartooning. Interactive training videos include: How to draw Garfield by Jim Davis, how to draw animals, how to draw cartoon characters, fun with sculpture, and creative carving. These step by step videos are great for teaching kids the basics and help kids to feel successful in their art skills.

How to integrate Professor Garfield: Art Bot into the classroom: Set up Professor Garfield: Art Bot as a center. Students can visit this center (or bookmark) and practice basic drawing skills with the digital tutorial. Students will love learning from Jim Davis. The videos are easy to follow and very kid friendly. This is also a great introduction to online instructional videos and training modules. Students can self direct learning with these types of video tutorials. Professor Garfield: Art Bot will encourage them to search out more video tutorials.

Curious George

September 13, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2642 views

What it is: PBS Kids Curious George website features several games featuring the popular Curious George character for kindergarten students. All games encourage growth in math and science. Students will use counting skills, observation skills, listening skills, logic skills, basic engineering skills, measuring skills, basic addition and subtraction, color creation, mouse manipulation skills, categorizing skills, and recording skills.

How to integrate Curious George into your classroom: Use the Curious George website during math and science time as a center. Students can stop by the center individually if you have a classroom with several computers, or in small groups in the one to two computer classroom. The site has 13 wonderful games that can be used as extended learning activities in math and science class.

Tips: Visit the Teacher section for Extended learning activities, lesson plans, and related video clips. Be sure to bookmark this page for easy access. Because there are so many games, this may be a site you use often to reinforce skills learned in the classroom.

Planetfesto

September 5, 2007November 29, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2532 views

What it is: Planetfesto is a website dedicated to creating an Internet ribbon large enough to stretch around the planet. Students add their own six inches to the ribbon by creating a simple panel expressing their love for the Earth and a pledge to change something small in their life that might affect the earth.

How to integrate Planetfesto into your classroom: Planetfesto would be a great Earth Day activity for the classroom. Students can create their own tribute to the planet (on paper and scanned in or in a graphics program) or choose a picture from the site that demonstrates how they view the planet. Students then type a paragraph about why they love the planet and their pledge to personally protect it. There are some ideas for students to choose from for their pledge.

Tips: Your students will be proud to be part of the “bigger picture” with this ribbon that wraps around the world. Students can share their work by using Planetfesto’s search feature.

Planetfesto has been nominated for an Edublog Award!! Vote for them here. Congratulations Planetfesto!

Cavantastic

August 14, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2385 views

What it is: Canvastic is a great student focused graphics and text publishing tool for kindergarten through eighth grade. It has easy to use tools and options. You won’t find any of the “toy” features that you find in Kid Pix type applications. The control given to teachers is wonderful. Teachers can give students access to tools gradually so that as they learn more, they can use more. It actually grows with the user. It has the best spell checking feature for students I have seen. You can try Canvastic for free in your classroom for as long as you like but the print, export, and save features are disabled. For $39 you can purchase Canvastic.

How to integrate Canvastic into your classroom: Use Canvastic as part of your publishing center. Students can publish written stories complete with illustrations. Students can create their own graphic organizers on any subject using the Canvastic software.

Tips: Join the Canvastic community to contribute ideas for improvement of the software, how you are using it in your classroom, and to foster an atmosphere of communication and exchange. In the Community you will find example lesson plans that are tied to state and national standards.

Doodle Bops

August 9, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment2424 views

What it is: The Doodle Bops website is fun learning for pre-kindergarten through first grade students. Students can write a letter, play virtual hide and go seek, paint pictures, play games that encourage following oral directions, virtual dot to dots for counting practice, and other games to help build computer mouse skills.

How to integrate Doodle Bops into your classroom: Allow kids to interact with the Doodle Bops site during center time. The site is easy to navigate and very kid friendly. Use the site to build computer skills before introducing more complex sites.

Tips: Visit the Printables page at the bottom of the site for coloring sheets that coordinate with the Website. These would be nice to have on hand for indoor recess days.

The Little Animals Activity Centre

August 2, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment3723 views

What it is: The Little Animals Activity Centre has several activities for kindergarten through second grade including read along stories, math practice, and music games. The read along stories are wonderful for following auditory directions.

How to integrate The Little Animals Activity Centre into your curriculum: Use The Little Animals Activity Centre to reinforce classroom learning. It offers read along interactive stories that invite students to follow auditory directions. The math section is great addition, and subtraction practice. Students can have fun with words and practice end sounds, first sounds, and rhymes. These are great little games and activities for practice. This site is also wonderful for teaching students how to use and manipulate the computer mouse.

Tips: Click on the teachers page for activity overviews, lesson plans, and printable worksheets.

Tux Paint

July 28, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly Tenkely1 Comment7134 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).

Read Write Think

July 23, 2007October 5, 2007Kelly Tenkely1 Comment21796 views

What it is: Read Write Think offers a collection of online student materials that support literacy learning in the kindergarten through twelfth grade classroom. The free interactive materials can supplement any curriculum and provide an opportunity for students to use technology while developing literacy skills. There are 52 interactive activities with everything from Word Family Sorts, to a Comic Creator.

How to integrate Read Write Think into your reading and writing curriculum: For the one or two computer classrooms, use one of the interactive activities from http://readwritethink.org as a center activity. Many of the activities allow students to demonstrate understanding of their reading. Allow students to use the activities as they complete reading. Read Write Think has hundreds of ready made literacy lesson plans that incorporate the interactive activities on the site. Use these when you have access to a computer lab or mobile lab.

Tips: Create bookmarks to the individual activities instead of the Read Write Think site. This will save students (and you) time.