Art – Page 3 – iLearn Technology

On Demand Learning: Classroom Optional (Khan Academy and Academic Earth)

March 16, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments3260 views

What it is: Tonight I was talking education with a fun group that is helping me think through my school design. As we were talking one of the participants mentioned Khan Academy…some of the teachers in attendance had never heard of it. I sometimes forget that not everything is common knowledge and even if it is common knowledge to most, there are still those who can benefit from the mention! Khan Academy was started by Salman Khan quite by accident. He tutored his cousins in math and when he moved away from them, they still requested support. Sal began making algebra videos and uploading them to YouTube for his family, it has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced math, science, and history exercises for students. The library is extensive and comprehensive including algebra, arithmetic, banking and money, biology, brain teasers, calculus, California standards algebra, geometry, chemistry, cosmology and astronomy, credit crisis, current economics, developmental math, differential equations, finance, history, linear algebra, organic chemistry, Paulson bailout, physics, pre-algebra, pre-calculus, probability, statistics, trigonometry, valuation and investing, venture capital, and capital markets. It is a pretty impressive collection! I really like these videos because they provide students with on-demand learning and present the learning in a way that appeals to the visual and auditory learner. The experience is so much richer than a textbook can offer. It is like having your own personal tutor.

Academic Earth is another extensive video library that lets students (and adults) take video courses from the worlds top scholars all in one place…for free! The mission of Academic Earth is to give everyone access to a world class education. Subjects covered by Academic Earth include art, architecture, astronomy, biology, business, chemistry, computer science, economics, education, electrical engineering, engineering, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, history, international relations, law, literature, mathematics, media studies, medicine and health care, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, test prep, and writing. Students have access to the learning happening at Berkley, Columbia, Harvard, Khan Academy, Maryland, Michigan, MIT, Norwich, NYU, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, UNSW, USC, and Yale. Did I mention all of that learning is free? I know, amazing!

How to integrate Khan Academy and Academic Earth into the classroom: Both Khan Academy and Academic Earth provide students with opportunities for on-demand learning in their areas of interest or their areas of weakness. Students can use these resources to support the learning happening in the classroom and to fill any gaps that students may have in their learning. Video is a powerful medium because it appeals to a wide range of learners and makes it easy to pause, rewind, review, and share that learning.

Khan Academy would be a great tool to use for the “Fisch Flip” where the homework is to watch the lesson on video and class time is spent on working through the problems together. Let that sink in…makes more sense doesn’t it? Students get support where they need it most, in the follow through and practice of the learning.

Academic Earth provides students with the opportunity of pursuing their passions, getting a feel for what type of study they would like to pursue in a university, and support learning.

Do you have students that could use additional challenge and are constantly searching for more learning? Set up an extended learning center in your classroom where students who need that challenge can self direct and extend their learning by using Khan Academy or Academic Earth.

Tips: Khan Academy is a great resource to pass on to families, parents are often looking for ways to supplement and support the learning happening in the classroom. Math in particular is a challenge as many parents did not feel successful enough in higher math themselves to help their children.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Khan Academy and Academic Earth in your classroom!

Waltee’s Quest: The Case of the Lost Art

February 2, 2011Kelly Tenkely5 Comments3406 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 Comments5157 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 Comments3774 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.

Tag Galaxy: Visual Word Relationships

January 4, 2011Kelly Tenkely9 Comments5484 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.

Felicity from Thin Air: Inviting creativity, imagination, and play in the classroom

December 17, 2010December 17, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3541 views

The following is a re-post from my other blog: iPad Curriculum. I shared Send Felicity a few weeks ago as part of my advent collection but thought I would give everyone a little more information about this incredible site and invitation for play. Even though Send Felicity has an iPhone/iPod Touch app, the app isn’t necessary to engage in the creative play which is also available on the Send Felicity website and Facebook page. I encourage you to offer your students opportunities for play. I deeply believe that play is a strong catalyst for learning.

Application/website: Send Felicity

What it is: Everyone could use a little more magic and enchantment in their lives and Send Felicity brings students (and teachers/families) just that. Take a look at the video below to watch some of that magic unfold.

Felicity is six and three-quarters years old. She loves imagination, making things, and magic. She comes from a magical place called Thin Air. Felicity invites children everywhere to join her in play. Every day there is a new special surprise waiting for children. Each surprise invites students to engage in creativity, play, imagination, and learning. It is an enchanting-ongoing place that involves technology, imagination, and the real world in new ways. The artists, geeks, and minds behind Felicity are deeply committed to keeping the childhood experience one of magic, imagination, and exploration. They bring these values to life beautifully as an application, website, and social experience. What I love about the Send Felicity experience is the storyline behind Felicity, and the invitation to be part of something that is engaging, meaningful, and magical. The combination of the three makes Send Felicity a unique learning and interactive experience. So, how does Send Felicity work? Children can visit the application or website to learn of a new craft (adventure) to take with Felicity. Felicity takes every day objects like paper plates and makes them magical. Children follow the adventures and create and pretend along with Felicity. Children can take pictures of their finished masterpieces and upload them to the Send Felicity website, sharing the creative experience with others. The application is truly unique and takes what is real and adds a bit of magic (as you saw in the video).

How Send Felicity can enrich learning: Play is an important part of learning. It provides the building blocks for self-regulation and executive functions, promotes creativity, imagination, and divergent thinking. Unfortunately play is often stripped from the classroom. Send Felicity weaves together a wonderful tapestry of play and learning in the form of an application, a website, and a social movement. Felicity uses open-ended play and experimentation that leads to an attitude of fun learning. Felicity helps your students turn ordinary objects into creative works of magic. Use Felicity’s daily dose of magic to spark your students imaginations. Set aside some time for your students to do a little creative play. The benefits that play has on the rest of the learning day will be well worth the time invested. Go beyond the crafts and invite your students to write stories, poems, or secret letters in connection with the imaginative play of the day. Activities for Felicity are open-ended and include art, language arts, literacy, and even math and physics. Send Felicity marries technology and real life in new fun ways. The application is just a piece of the bigger picture. The application takes students physical creation and adds a little magic to it.

Send Felicity is really an app all about engagement of the mind. As an example, one of my personal favorite Sending Felicity projects Beautiful Oops:

Today we are boldly making mistakes.Today, our children will make a small mess.

Today, we’ll set out on an adventure and begin with an “oops” and end up in a place where we can look and wonder. Together, we can do something mistaken and wrong; and audacious and wonderful to surprise everyone.

This project shows children that it is okay to make mistakes, and that, in fact, those mistakes can be turned into something wonderful, new, and meaningful. Students don’t hear often enough that it is okay to make mistakes and that it is indeed an important part of the learning process. Take a look at what these beautiful oops turn into:

The Send Felicity App has not yet been released to the iTunes store, but don’t let that stop you from using Felicity in your classroom right now, the Send Felicity website is full of fun activities, instructions, and even a bit of magic. You can also check Felicity out on Facebook where she shares creations made by children from around the world! Send your students home with a wonderful gift this holiday season and point them toward the Send Felicity website. Students will love the opportunities for play and imaginations, parents will love the ideas to keep their kids learning and playing. Let parents know about Send Felicity along with this article from Geek Mom for a little explanation.

The wonderful people over at Send Felicity are so passionate about creating a world of wonder and imagination for children to play in that they have made the technology that Send Felicity is based on open source. Interested parents, educators, and developers are invited to sign up to play along with them.

Devices: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch iOS 3.1.3 or later

Price: Free!

More Advent Calendars: Student created, creative, and imaginative!

December 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments21723 views

After my last post I found some new advent calendars that I just had to add to the list.

First is an advent calendar created by eighth graders at ASLS who’s teacher Mr. Akerson (@mra47) I follow on Twitter. What is so neat about this advent calendar, is it is made up of pictures of the students and teachers. Each day that you click on delivers a new devotion written by one of the eighth graders. I have NO idea how they created this site, each day all of the students pictures look a little different direction so that they are focused on the person on the date of the day (that is a total of 2200 pictures!!). Genius! They are making Weebly do things I am sure it wasn’t intended to do. The students at ASLS have a goal to get someone from every state in the US to view their advent calendar. I think we can help them out with that and do one better, let’s get them views from around the world! This student created calendar is not to be missed! This calendar is a fun one to use with your students, but why not blog lift their idea and create a similar calendar with your students? Since we are already into December maybe yours is a 12 days of Christmas calendar or a unique lead up to your schools winter break. Students could create a “word a day” calendar, math problem of the day, featured student art, story of the day, poem of the day, fact of the day…the possibilities are endless on this one. Ask your students, they will have great ideas!

The second calendar is one that is sure to spark your students imagination and creativity. Send Felicity is a beautiful idea and way to celebrate all things imaginative. Every day Felicity From Thin Air will surprise your students with fun activity ideas that are illustrated by some of the best children’s book illustrators in the world. The idea behind the Send Felicity and the illustrations are enchanting. Currently ideas are being shared on the Send Felicity website. There is an accompanying application for the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad that is soon to be released. This complimentary (read free) application will guide students in creativity and imagination. Eight arts and crafts ideas will be interspersed throughout for students to complete with their families or at school. All creations can be submitted to the Send Felicity gallery. Felicity from Thin Air is meant to be a new way of learning and engagement for the mind. It is about creativity, collaboration, and sharing with a global audience. In addition to the daily activities, there are magic surprises. I don’t know what the magic is but I am assured I will know it when I see it 🙂 Get your students families engaged in some fun holiday spirit. Instead of homework for the month of December, why not give your students (and parents) the homework of following Felicity from Thin Air and engaging in creativity as a family. I guarantee that the positive effects will be much more lasting than any worksheet you could send home. Today’s Felicity from Thin Air activity is Fancy Dress for Dinner. Pick any theme and invite the whole family to show up for dinner dressed for the occasion. Costumes can be as silly or creative as you like! Following Felicity at school? Adapt the idea for a Fancy Lunch or Fancy Math class and have your students create impromptu costumes out of classroom items. Don’t have time for the cut/paste? Have your students draw their costume. The goal is to let kids be creative and imaginative!

Librarian extraordinaire Shannon Miller of VanMeter shared the Polar Express advent calendar with me. This calendar includes the beautiful Polar express illustrations and combines it with fun activities and give away opportunities. Enter a chance to win the giveaways for your class (for example yesterday was a chance to win the Polar Express bell from Santa’s sleigh) and complete the activities together. Each day is a new surprise!

How to integrate Interactive Advent Calendars into the classroom: The season of Advent is always filled with eagerness and expectancy. Build some of that anticipation into your school day by allowing students to unlock a new secret on the advent calendar each day. Use these advent calendars with the whole class on an interactive whiteboard or projector, or set them up as a quick center activity that students can visit. Use the advent calendars that reveal a story to practice looking for foreshadowing clues, using context clues to guess what will happen next, or as story starters for students own stories.

Tips: Each of these advent calendars has some fun goodies and hidden surprises, find the one that best fits your classroom needs.

Thank you to all of you who have spread the word to fellow teachers about my Web 2.0 advent calendar, I am glad you are enjoying it!

14 Online Interactive Advent Calendars

November 30, 2010November 30, 2010Kelly Tenkely11 Comments18581 views

It is December again, which means the beginning of Advent. Advent calendars are a fun way to reveal information and “surprises” for your students to look forward to each day in December leading up to Christmas. This year I thought I would make an advent calendar of my own using Wix. I created a Web 2.0 advent calendar by choosing 25 of my favorite web 2.0 tools for the classroom. Each day you can check out a new one. (I’ll let you in on a secret, you can cheat and look at them all by clicking on the bird to get back to the calendar page…shh don’t tell anyone!) You and your students can create your own custom advent calendar like I did using Wix. Students can create an advent calendar of pictures of their school work, trivia for their parents, special audio notes, or anything they are learning. To create your own Wix advent calendar, choose a template, add shapes to the template to create your calendar pieces, add 25 pages to the site, add links to those pages. You could also create an advent calendar of your own using Glogster. Create a customized advent calendar for your students with fun surprises, quotes, video clips, sound bites, etc. It can be related to the learning they are doing in your classroom, suggestions of books to read, or reveal special rewards like extra computer time, time playing a favorite game, time for reading, etc. Be creative!

Woodlands Jr has a great online advent calendar every year that tests students knowledge about Christmas around the world. The Woodlands Jr. 2010 advent calendar is now up and ready for viewing! This is a fun way for students to test their knowledge and learn about the ways that Christmas is celebrated all around the world. As an extension, plot the places around the world that they are learning about on a world map.

BBC Radio has a fabulous Bach advent calendar. Each day your students can listen to a story about Bach or music.

The National Museum of Liverpool has an advent calendar that reveals a piece of art from the museum each day.

The Dirt Dirt advent calendar is purely fun, each day click on a number and an animation will be added to the tree.

For those of us who are app inclined, you can download a free app for your iDevice every day from Appvent Calendar.

Below you will find my interactive advent calendar finds from last year. You are bound to find one that is a perfect fit for your class!

What it is: It is December! This means the beginning of Advent along with the anticipation and excitement that it brings. The Internet is full of interactive advent calendars that you can use in your classroom to teach about how the Christmas season is celebrated all around the world. These advent calendars reveal fun facts, interactive activities, and stories.

Santa’s House Advent Calendar– This advent calendar tells a fun story. Each day reveals another secret about what goes on inside Santa’s home on the 24 days leading up to Christmas. In each picture, there is a little mouse hiding. When students click on his ears, he jumps out.

Christmas Around the World Advent Calendar– Each day students click on the date to reveal a fun fact about how countries around the world celebrate Christmas. The facts are accompanied by great illustrations and pictures. This site shows up very small inside my Internet browser (Firefox). To remedy this problem, click on “view” in your menu bar and choose “zoom”. You may need to zoom in several times.

Christmas Mice Advent Calendar– This calendar tells the story about a mouse family who celebrates Christmas. Each day a little more of the story is revealed. Each picture includes some animation.

Santa’s Advent Calendar– On this advent calendar, each day reveals a new song or activity for students to complete. There are some fun Christmas themed mysteries to solve, stories to read, and activities to work through.

French Carols Advent Calendar– This is a French advent calendar. Each day contains a new French Christmas carol sung by children. This advent calendar would be a fun one to include in a study of Christmas around the world.

Christmas Around the World Advent Calendar Quiz– This advent calendar tests students knowledge about how other cultures celebrate Christmas. Each day students are asked a question and given hints to help them answer. When the answer is revealed, students can click on links to learn more about the Christmas celebrations in that country. This site also includes great activities and teaching resources for Christmas.

Christmas Advent Calendar– Follow the adventures of Zac the elf as he tries to find a Christmas present for Santa. Each day a little more of the story is revealed.

Christmas Activity Advent Calendar– This advent calendar has fun little games and activities to play each day. The games and activities are quick and easy to complete, building mouse and keyboard skills. This advent calendar would be a good one for the classroom computers as a center activity.

Tips: Each of these advent calendars has some fun goodies and hidden surprises, find the one that best fits your classroom needs.

Leave a comment and share how you are using Interactive Advent Calendars in your classroom.

Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery for Kids

November 2, 2010Kelly Tenkely4 Comments3072 views

What it is: This is the last of the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery sites, it is just as great as the others! BM&AG for Kids is a fun site where students can learn more about Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Victorians, World War 2, and the Art Gallery and Museum. The site aims to give students a chronological understanding of these historical events, knowledge of the events, people, and changes in the past, organization and communication, and historical inquiry. Each section has a collection of online related activities and printable activities.

Ancient Egypt- students can learn about ancient Egypt, explore a virtual Egyptian tomb, and explore real mummies.

Ancient Greece- students can learn about ancient Greece and design their own Greek pottery.

Roman Empire- students can learn about the Romans in Britain and dress a Roman soldier for battle.

Victorians- students can learn about the Victorians and explore a Victorian painting.

World War 2- students can learn about the war, assess a bomb damage report, and view pictures of Birmingham from World War 2.

Art Gallery- students can view paintings and learn about landscapes.

Museums- students can explore 6 museum activity zones where students can explore each museum.

How to integrate BM&AG for Kids into your curriculum: The BM&AG for Kids is a good site to incorporate into history lessons. The site does an excellent job of helping students relate the different time periods above chronologically through an interactive timeline. The online activities help students understand each time period, giving them activities that will help them make connections in their learning. The BM&AG for Kids site is a good place to begin a study on a time period. The site provides students with just enough information to whet their appetite for more. Many of the activities offer basic information that could then be connected to primary sources. For example, in the tomb exploration, students are asked to find items in a tomb. In the activity, there is a basic explanation of each item. A great extension would be to find primary sources and photographs of the actual items to share with students (or better yet, let them find the primary source!). Students could then create their own “tomb” either online using online pictures and a creation platform like VoiceThread or Glogster, or an offline tomb with printed primary sources.

Tips: BM&AG for Kids was created for the Birmingham Museum and Art Collection. They have several excellent websites that I will have reviewed. To view all the Birmingham Museum sites, search “Museum” or “Birmingham Museum” in my search box above.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using BM&AG for Kids in your classroom!

BeMused- Museums and Art Galleries: Watch. Look. Do. Discuss

November 1, 2010November 1, 2010Kelly Tenkely2 Comments3054 views

What it is: Bemused is another site from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. BeMused helps students be excited, aware, informed, amused, and involved in the Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. Through videos and activities sections students can discover more about the museum and gallery. Students can get involved by visiting the Your Say section or submitting their own artwork to the online Gallery. Students can watch videos including an introduction to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and short poems created by kids inspired by the issues surrounding slavery and Olaudah Equiano’s life. The online gallery holds beautiful artwork created by students. Your students can create and submit their own artwork for the online gallery. The activities section has interesting quizzes and activities about art, history and museums. In one activity, students try to find the faces in famous works of art as quickly as possible. The Your say section gives students an opportunity to talk about history, art, and museums. Students can add to an existing topic or start their own topic for discussion. Currently discussions include what would you like to see in an art gallery?; who is your favourite artist?; and Is graffiti art?

How to integrate BeMused into your curriculum: Bemused is a good place for students to be inspired by art and history. This site encourages student interaction. Students can join into forum discussions about art or history and even submit their own artwork to the online art gallery. In the video section, students can watch a video of student created poems centered around history. Use the video for classroom inspiration. Your students can create and write their own poetry inspired by history. If your students have visited many of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery sites, they may enjoy challenging themselves to the quizzes in the activities section of the site.

Tips: BeMused was created for the Birmingham Museum and Art Collection. They have several excellent websites that I will be reviewing.

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