Art – Page 6 – iLearn Technology

Fakebook and Twister- Create custom social media pages for learning

March 14, 2011Kelly Tenkely8 Comments9824 views

What it is: I don’t know if you all noticed, but I have been on a serious social media kick lately. 🙂 There is just SO much for students to learn from the social media sphere. Last week (or was it the week before?) I shared that I had created a Facebook Template that could be used with students for creating a fake Facebook profile. Since then I have come across Fakebook created by teacher, @russeltarr. I have one word: Brilliant. Seriously this is the BEST Fakebook tool I have seen. It is simple to use. Just click and type. The profile pictures get pulled automatically based on the name that students type in. Especially good for literary and historical characters! The focus here really is on the learning that it enables, there are NO advertisements (unlike Myfakewall which I have deemed unusable because of all of the ads).

The other fake social networking tool I want to feature is called Twister. This is a fake Twitter wall that students can create just by filling in a few key bits of information like a username, the real name (this is what the photo pulls from), a status update, and a date. When students click submit, they have their very own fictional status update. Very cool!

These tools are fantastic for the classroom because they don’t rely on actual social network sites (which are often blocked by filters), they are not limited by age to use them, and they provide a fun way for students to reflect on learning. So neat!

How to integrate Fakebook and Twister into the classroom: These two teacher created tools are fantastic. They produce results that look like the real deal and were obviously created by teachers who understand that the focus should be learning and not the tool (or advertisements surrounding the tool). These fake profile/status creators are a wonderful way for students to learn about historical and literary figures in a manner that they can personally connect to. Students can create profiles or updates from the perspective of historical figures, literary characters, government, artists, composers, etc. Students can also use these tools to help them develop characters for their own writing.

Take a page out of the Grammaropolis book and have students personify things they are learning about like parts of speech. Students can create a profile for each part of speech. How about creating a profile page for math functions like Number Gossip does? Students could even practice dialogue in a foreign language using either tool.

Teaching your students netiquette? Let students create two versions of a Fakebook page, one with appropriate online interaction and another that “breaks the rules” to compare/contrast.

The Twister site only lets you create one status update at a time. This makes it really nice for memorializing famous or favorite quotes. These would be fun to print out and display on a bulletin board.

Tips: Students can save or print out their Fakebook page. To save, they will create a password and need to write down the unique URL for their page to access it at a later date.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Fakebook and Twister in your classroom!

Little Bird Tales

February 25, 2011Kelly Tenkely6 Comments4656 views

What it is: I am late on this post, but it is too good to skip a mention! Little Bird Tales is a new way to digital story tell with primary students. With Little Bird Tales, students can upload their own artwork, record their voice, add text and email their finished creations to family and friends. Sign up on Little Bird Tales requires an email address for verification purposes. This can be a parent or teacher email address (the site is geared for 3 to 14-year-old children so a student address is not necessary). Little Bird Tales includes a built-in art pad where students can create pictures online. They also have the option to upload photographs and images they have created offline. Each page give students a place to add a picture, text and voice recording. Finished books can be saved and accessed online or sent via email.

How to integrate Little Bird Tales into the classroom: Little Bird Tales is a brilliant option for digital storytelling in the primary classroom. I love that it includes both online and offline student creations, as well as student voice recordings. Students can use Little Bird Tales for creative writing and imaginative stories, as a way to reflect on learning, or as a keepsake for parents. Students can take pictures of science experiments and create a digital science journal detailing the experiment with text and student voice reflections included.

Use Little Bird Tales to create whole class stories where each student contributes a page. This type of book can be made over a few weeks using classroom computers as a writing center. This would be a fun way to create an A to Z type book of learning, reflections by students after a unit, a 100 day book, fact vs. opinion book, an interactive glossary, a class book of poems, a phonics book, or a class book about a field trip that students took. The finished product can be shared with parents and families easily through an email. For a back to school night activity, take a picture of each student to add to a class book and record students sharing what their favorite part of the school day is. This same idea could be used in preparation for parent-teacher conferences. Students can upload pictures of their best school work, record thoughts about why they are proud of the work they did, and add reflections in the text field. These can be shared as a starting point for conferences, at the end of the conference, parents have a keepsake.

Because of the voice recording capabilities, Little Bird Tales, would be a great way for students to practice a foreign language. They can illustrate a word or phrase accompanied by the audio. Classes could work together to create a “living” digital glossary.

Do you have a planned absence coming? Why not create a digital story that your substitute can share with students? Upload pictures that support learning, text, and your voice.

Tips: If you have parent email addresses in Google, Yahoo, or Outlook, they can be directly imported into Little Bird Tales as contacts.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Little Bird Tales in your classroom!

Draw That Habitat

February 24, 2011Kelly Tenkely12 Comments6603 views

What it is: I am a fan of everything PBS does, recently I ran across this gem while looking for some activities that help students learn about habitats. Draw that Habitat is SO much more engaging than most of the “match the animal to the correct habitat” lower level thinking “games” (if you can call them that) that are out there. In Draw that Habitat, students are introduced to imaginary animals. They are briefed on the animal and its needs and are then given drawing tools to create a habitat. Each month a new imaginary animal is introduced. This month’s challenge is an animal called a Flarch. During the activity students learn that a habitat is a place that an animal lives where they get food and water, find shelter, search for a mate, and raise babies. Students are asked to think about how and where the imaginary animal gets food and water, where it keeps safe from weather and other animals, etc. What I love about this activity is that it calls on student’s creativity and imaginations. They are asked to come up with a solution for an imaginary animal and in the process learn about habitats, camouflage, and adaptation. When students are finished with their habitat, they can share it with other students and view and rate the habitats that others have created.

How to integrate Draw That Habitat into the classroom: Draw that Habitat is a great little activity for primary students who are learning about habitats, camouflage, and adaptations. It is probably best to use Draw that Habitat after students have a general understanding of what a habitat is. This is a place where they can solidify that understanding and expand on what they have learned by creating something new. I like the abstract nature of the activity, they aren’t creating a habitat for a known, real animal; instead, students are coming up with new solutions based on some key information they are given. This gives students a chance to think critically, problem solve, and use some creativity and imagination.

In a one to one setting where each student has access to a computer, each student can create a habitat for the month’s challenge. When students are finished, have a class parade, where students walk through and view the different solutions that classmates came up with. Students can explain why they made the choices they did and see what other solutions might work.

In a one or two computer classroom, students can visit Draw that Habitat as a learning center in small groups. Students at the learning center can each contribute to the habitat.

If you don’t have access to computers for students to visit, create a class habitat using an interactive whiteboard or projector-connected computers. Each student in the class can add to the habitat and describe how their contribution is important for the animal who lives in the habitat.

As an extension activity, students can write a story about the imaginary animal and its habitat.

This site is intended for younger students (early elementary), but don’t discount it’s usefulness in upper-grades. I find that when drawing-coloring are involved, students of all ages get excited about it- I have had 6th graders jump on this site and have a great time creating a habitat (they were jealous the younger kids got to do the activity and they didn’t- reminding me once again that kids like opportunities to play and be creative!).

Tips: Students can save the habitat they create offline as a .jpg file. Click the “save” button to download.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Draw that Habitat in your classroom!

Capzles Interactive Timeline Tutorial

February 3, 2011Kelly Tenkely15 Comments6628 views

Capzles is a site that I have written about and recommended many times (you can read one of my original posts about it below). I am currently working with a school that has zero technology. When I say zero, I mean they don’t even have over head projectors. This is a NO tech school. They recently enlisted my help in taking their eighth graders from no tech into a one-to-one environment. Each of the students will be receiving a laptop to use during instruction. The challenge: the computers aren’t all the same age, make, or model. No problem, we will use web 2.0 tools! The benefit of going from zero to fully immersed: no bad technology habits to break, we are staring from a clean slate!

Last week I met with the eighth grade teacher to talk about what learning is currently happening in the classroom and took a look at the scope and sequence of learning for the next semester. I asked a LOT of questions and together we mapped out a plan for integrating technology that would support and enhance the learning that was already happening. We decided to begin by adding technology into art, composer study, history, astronomy, poetry, and literature. I thought about having the students create blogs or wikis to chart and reflect on learning, but in the end decided that Capzles was the best tool for this job. Capzles lets students organize learning in the form of an interactive timeline. Students can upload a variety of documents to the timeline including images, videos, documents, and slide shows. They can also blog directly to the timeline (complete with comments!). The blog feature also provides a way for students to embed other web 2.0 creations. For the learning that these students will be doing, the visual timeline makes the most sense. Students can create multiple timelines or compile all of their learning into one timeline. If students create these timelines based on actual historical dates, they will begin to see the overlap in history, astronomical discoveries, composers, and artists of the time. This leads to a more complete understanding of how the world that they know has been shaped.

Students can also create a timeline based on their learning, each day adding learning to a virtual “journal” of events.

I have created weblists of the links these students will be using as a part of their learning over the next semester:

To Kill a Mockingbird

The tutorial above is a brief introduction to using Capzles, you will have to forgive the drowned rat look…that is what happens when you shovel snow in a blizzard 🙂

Original post from July 22, 2008:

What it is: Capzles is another interactive timeline maker. I really love all the little extras that Capzleshas! With Capzles teachers and students can add photos, videos, audio, and text to their timeline. Themes, colors, backgrounds, and background music can be added to the timeline making it unique and personalized. Capzles also provides options when sharing your Capzle, it can be private with a specific list of who can view the Capzle or made public for the world to see.

How to integrate Capzles into the classroom: Obviously Capzles is a great way for students to create timelines about any subject. The web 2.0 collaborative aspect of Capzles makes it very appealing to students. I think Capzles could also be very valuable in the primary classroom. Students probably won’t be creating their own timelines in Capzles at this age, parent helpers paired with students to create simple timelines would be appropriate. Because Capzles has the capability of adding audio, photos, and text, it would be the perfect place to record students reading throughout the year. As you assess student reading through reading records, record the students using a program such as Gabcast, Gcast,Audacity, or Garageband. Take a digital picture of the student reading. Throughout the year, you can make a Capzle for each student. This is an excellent motivator for students, especially your struggling readers. Students can see their growth throughout the year in pictures, and hear their reading progress made throughout the year. You can share the Capzle with parents (they will go crazy for this keepsake!) and with the students future teacher. How much would you love getting a timeline of your students from the previous year? You would have a jump-start on their struggles and strengths in reading as you quickly flip through their timelines. Cool huh?!

Leave a comment and share how you are using Capzles in your classroom.

Waltee’s Quest: The Case of the Lost Art

February 2, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments3407 views

What it is: The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland has one of the most incredible site for students I have seen. Waltee’s Quest is an interactive adventure where students help solve a mystery and discover a variety of art along the way. Students begin their adventure by watching an introduction animation of the Walters Art Museum where inside curator Waltee is getting ready for an exhibit and preparing the museum for visitors. While Waltee is preparing, lightning strikes, the elevator shakes, and a wild whirlwind takes all the museum treasures with it. Students ride a magical elevator to travel to different worlds in an effort to find the lost art. As students explore the different rooms, they discover treasures and learn about the real museum items. Students can click “Learn more” every time they discover a new item and the “Walteepedia” opens up with more information. This is truly one of the most engaging, interactive, sites I have seen. I love that the site drops students in the middle of a story mystery and enlists their help to right the museum. As students explore each room they learn more about history, see incredible artwork, and get an inside peek into being a museum curator. The graphics and attention to detail are really amazing!

How to integrate Waltee’s Quest into the classroom: Waltee’s Quest was created with attention to detail. When students begin their quest, they are asked to enter a name and passcode. This combination can be used at a later time to access a saved game. This makes it ideal for the classroom where students may not have time to complete the game in one sitting. Students can visit Waltee’s Quest as a center on classroom computers. Because students can track their progress, they don’t have to complete the game in one sitting but could work on it in bits and pieces throughout the school year. The quest allows students to get up-close and personal with a variety of art and history. Students can use what they learn in Waltee’s quest as a launching point for art history or as inspiration for a creative writing piece. Students can write a story about the art itself, about Waltee and his quest, or a mystery based on the game.

In the elementary classroom, Waltee’s Quest can be used to introduce students to the idea of mystery. If you have a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard, students can work together to explore the museum and find treasures. As students find clues, they can work together to solve the mystery.

Waltee’s Quest can also be used as a virtual trip to an art museum, if you can’t swing a trip to a local art museum as a class, this site will provide students with the next best option in a way that engages them in discovery.

Tips: Make sure that students know to write down the name and passcode they use to login, if they want to return to their game they will need this later!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Waltee’s Quest in your classroom.

Google Art Project: Virtual Art Museums

February 1, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments5163 views

What it is: Google never stops amazing me, this time they are amazing me in the form of a partnership with art museums around the world. Art Project is an incredible collaborative project that is powered by Google to bring art museums into your classroom. Art Project lets students discover and view more than a thousand pieces of art online in incredible detail with Google street view technology. Students can virtually move around the museum’s galleries, zooming closer on works of art and navigating through interactive floor plans where they can learn more about the museum and explore. Artwork view lets students view the art at high-resolution, expanding the information panel lets students read more about the art, find more art by the same artist and watch related YouTube videos. Students can act as curator and create their own artwork collection by saving specific views of the art and build a personal collection. Comments can be added to each piece of art and share with families and friends.

How to integrate Google Art Project into the classroom: Google Art Project brings art museums from around the world into your classroom. Take a virtual field trip to the museums using a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard. Let students take turns acting as a museum tour guide by clicking on the extra information and reading it out loud for students while they look at the artwork. After the class tour of the museum, students can use classroom computers or a lab to create their own collections. Students can comment on each piece of art and share the collection they curated with family and friends.

Use Google Art Project for a compare and contrast activity. Students can compare and contrast the type of artwork they see in the various art museums, compare and contrast styles of art, or compare and contrast the work of different artists or time periods.

Use the artwork as the base of a creative writing activity, students can choose a piece of art and write a story about the artist, or about what is happening in the work of art.

Need help demonstrating a technique? Art Project lets students view artwork in such detail that the techniques are easy to point out and describe.

Tips: Due to copyrights, some pieces of art will appear a bit blurry when students zoom in. The majority of the pieces can be seen in very high levels of detail.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Google Art Project in your classroom.

Color in Motion- Exploring Color

January 31, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3783 views

What it is: Amazing really doesn’t do this site justice. No really, this might be my favorite site of the month…that is saying something! Regardless of if you teach about color or art, Color in Motion is a must see just for the creativity and brilliance of the site. Color in motion is a wonderfully animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism. Have you ever looked at an art website and thought, “really, this is the best they could do? It is a site about art for crying out loud!” No? Just me? 🙂 Color in Motion is not one of those sites. The minute you begin exploring you know that this isn’t just a site about color, it is a work of art. There are three activities on Color in Motion. The Stars introduces students to the color stars (primary and secondary colors personified). When students click on a color stars profile they learn about their blood (the color(s) that make them up), what the star is hired to represent (the feelings the color gives), the positive and negative traits, and what the color represents around the world. In the movies, students can sit back and enjoy the show as they learn about the symbolism of each color in a fun animation. In the Lab, students have the opportunity to interact with the different stars. Students can direct a scene acting as a movie director based on a word that represents the color choice. In project 2, students are a color star manager. It is up to them to decide which production their star is going to participate in based on what they learned about color symbolism. Project 3 is a kaleidoscope where students can just have fun and “play” with color in a virtual kaleidoscope.

How to integrate Color in Motion into the classroom: Color in Motion is a fantastic place for students to learn more about color in a highly interactive, engaging, and fun way. Students learn about color through story. They meet each of the colors as a different character being cast for a production. The site is great for any art or design class but could be equally wonderful for a creative writing project. After your students have had some time to explore the site and interact with the different characters, ask them to choose a character to write a story about. Students should write the story based on the character traits they know about the color.

As a getting-to-know-you activity, students could choose a color that they feel best represents them personally. Students can list all of the color attributes that they feel describe them. Are they a mix of colors? Have students write down what the mix is and why.

Looking for a way to spice up spelling/vocabulary practice? Have students assign each word a color based on the word meaning and the color character traits that match. Students can compare and contrast the colors they chose for the words with the colors other students chose for a light persuasive argument.

As students study historical and literary figures, they can assign each a color based on the matching character traits. It would make a really neat bulletin board to have a color wheel with pictures of historical/literary characters on each color based on the similar character traits. These types of activities help students draw parallels and think about history and literature in new ways.

Younger students can think about what color an animal would be if it was the color of its color character traits. The creative possibilities with Color in Motion are endless.

Oh yeah, in addition to all of those “spin-off” ideas, there are great creative activities right on the site many of which would be great for whole class with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard, for small groups in a center activity, or individually in a one to one computer situation.

Tips: Color in Motion can be viewed in both English and Spanish. If you have students learning English or Spanish as a second language, the colors and adjectives on this site are wonderful!

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

Just Doodling: Making Math Relevant for Students

January 11, 2011Kelly Tenkely1 Comment3843 views

What it is: This has got to be one of my new favorite videos on YouTube. I ran across this video and tweeted about it a few weeks ago, but felt that it deserved a blog post. Doodling Stars (above) is a stream of conscious video about doodling in math class instead of learning about factoring. As the video unfolds, you quickly realize that she has learned all about factoring through her doodles. I would have connected in some major ways to this video when I was in school (maybe that is why I like it so much now), it would have given me that “wait that was math?” moment. Doodling Stars is a video by Vi Hart who has a blog where she has other great math videos. Her other videos include: Binary Trees, Snakes + Graphs, Infinity Elephants, and sick number games. Explore the blog a little further and you learn that ViHart is serious about her math. In addition to videos she has mathematical foods, ways to play with balloons as mathematical models, paper instruments (relating music to math), music boxes, bead work, and a variety of other math/music resources. Vi describes herself as a mathemusician, dig into her blog and you will know why!

How to integrate Doodling Videos into the classroom: Math shouldn’t be a subject confined to a textbook, seen only in terms of equations and functions. I think I was in college before I figured out that math was all around me. I had truly never made the connection to the formulas I was learning and their applications in real life. Oh sure, there were the “If you left Denver at 1:05 pm driving an average speed of 63.2 miles per hour and arrived at another point 12 hours later how many miles have you traveled?” But really? That is not real world…I have NEVER calculated any sort of trip that way, and anyway, now there is an app that will give me all of that information if I really want to know. If someone had told me that math was in my doodles, in the music I listened to, in patterns of nature? Now that is something I want to explore more. I’m sure you have students who have never made the connections between the formulas they are learning and the applications that are all around them. These videos will have them visualizing math in a whole new way. Dig a little deeper into Vi’s blog and share her math foods, balloons, and paper instruments. See if your students don’t start viewing math differently! Use Vi’s blog as inspiration for your next math lesson. Use the videos to help introduce or reinforce concepts, or have students complete balloon math models.

Tips: If you can’t access YouTube at school, use a tool like Kick YouTube or Keepvid to download the video for offline viewing.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Doodling in Math Class Videos in your classroom.

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

January 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5485 views

What it is: Tag Galaxy is a neat little tool that helps students to explore relationships between words and ideas as well as view pictures related to that word. Type in a word to search and immediately you are transferred to a galaxy with the original word at the center and the associated ideas orbiting around it. When you click on the word in the center, a globe populates with pictures from Flickr that are tagged with that word. Click on one of the orbiting words and tags related to that word start to orbit. Tag Galaxy is a very neat way to view information!

How to integrate Tag Galaxy into the classroom: Tag Galaxy is a brilliant way to visually explore word relationships. Students can use it to type in spelling or vocabulary words and discuss the relationship the related tags have to the original word. Students can click on the original idea to get a visual understanding of the word in the form of a picture globe. The connection with Flickr helps students to visualize words, ideas, and concepts by providing a variety of pictures that match the tag. Tag Galaxy would make for a fun story starter. Students can type in a word tag to get them started, view related words, and then click on the globe of pictures to spark creative writing ideas. Tag Galaxy can be set up on classroom computers as a creative writing centers, or used for whole class inspiration with a projector-connected computer or interactive whiteboard.

Check out science, math, art, or geography vocabulary on Tag Galaxy, the resulting collection of images will help your students attach meaning to those tricky science concepts like my photosynthesis example above.

As a side note, Tag Galaxy also offers a pretty good visual aid for learning about orbit 🙂

Tips: ***Very important*** Whenever you are using tools that pull from other sites to populate, it is important to test out the words prior to using with students. You never know how people will tag an image and the image might not be appropriate for all age groups. When using Tag Galaxy with elementary students, have them suggest words that you test before using with the class. In my classroom, whenever students wanted to do an image search, I had them fill out an “image wish list” first. On the wish list students write down words they would like to search. I would do a quick test of the words and sign off on them. This worked well as there were a lot of similar requests (i.e. animals!) 🙂

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

Rock Our World: Using music to collaborate and change the world

January 3, 2011Kelly Tenkely7 Comments3487 views

What it is: Rock Our World has one goal, to give students authentic global collaboration opportunities by connecting them with music. Rock Our World has been doing just that since 2004. Students and teachers collaborate in composing original music, making movies, and meeting each other in live video chats. Using GarageBand (Apple), each country creates a 30 second drum beat. Every Friday, the drum created rotates to another country, where the bass guitar is added. It gets passed from country to country with another instrument added at each stop. When it gets back to the original country, it is an original piece of music that has been created with the help of kids around the world.

While the music is being passed from country to country, students have opportunities to meet and discuss various topics of curriculum in live video chats. Incredible companies have been involved in this project including Apple, Fablevision, Discovery, American Film Institute, Smart Technologies, NASA, Visual Learning Company, Lintor Publishing, Mariner Software, actor Will Smith and more. Pretty impressive!

Applications for Rock Our World will be accepted for pre-kindergarten through university in January. You can sign up for membership by providing your email address to be alerted to the exact date you can begin applying.

How to integrate Rock Our World into the classroom: This is an incredible opportunity for your students to work and collaborate with other students around the world. Not only will your students be learning and interacting with new cultures, they will also be learning more about music. Your students will be a part of creating a unique song by adding their piece to it. At the end, each country will have a song touched by students around the world. How cool is that?!

It would be really neat at the end of the project to create an iMovie of the final song that includes the globe animation zooming into each country as their bit of the song is played and including a slideshow of students from each country.

Tips: Take a look at previous projects by clicking on the “Media” tab.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Rock Our World in your classroom.