Technology & Communication

How do you improve communication with parents and students outside the classroom? 
I think we all can agree that parental and student communication between school and home is very important! There are many ways I would use a blog to help promote learning in the art classroom. I would create a blog to communicate class/school information with parents, post field trip information, field trip forms, parent helper calendars, general classroom guidelines, and include daily lessons listed for students who are sick or out of class for the day. Each day, I would try to designate a classroom "scribe" who is responsible for posting lessons/materials covered. For example: If my class was learning Japanese Batik I would have one or two students be in charge of taking excellent notes on key vocabulary, step-by-step instruction of the process, materials needed, and any key art history references I make that may appear on a unit test. Parents and students would have access to this information and be knowledgeable of what their child learned in my class that day, may strike a dinner conversation, and aide parents in preparation for studying for my tests or quizzes. Also, I would use a blog to showcase individual art projects throughout the year. Parents would be able to see their child's work even if it doesn't make it home in one piece! Finally, If I needed a guest speaker parents may be able to provide input or even help find that special someone to speak and/or demonstrate to the class. 


Tired of being a predictable teacher with a boring powerpoint presentation? Animoto and Prezi are two of many presentation technology tools you can use to spice up your lesson. Animoto takes photographs and allows users to add sound and text, as well as control some editing of the video project, in order to share stories through a short video presentation. Students will find the ability to express themselves through new media tools an attractive aspect of Animoto, and teachers can utilize this tool as a way to bridge curriculum and student engagement or develop digital storytelling projects. I think for students and teachers tired of PowerPoint presentations, Animoto is just as easy to use and provides a wider multimedia experience. One important thing to remember, if you are assigning an Animoto assignment it is important that you need set aside time to explain the process to your students. This may be headache but necessary for students to understand and use the application correctly. Even if you're only using Animoto as a presentation tool, like Smartboard lessons, you need allow extra time to tweak, prepare, and check that the presentation is ideal for that lesson.  Another great teacher tool is, Prezi is an easy-to-use presentation tool (as easy to use as PowerPoint) that provides a fresh, new, interactive way to present information to your students. Driven by flash animation, Prezi allows you to organize course content in logical ways, while at the same time establishing multiple connections between multiple fields of knowledge. You can use Prezi to give a presentation in a predetermined “Path,” or explore instead, in response to student interactions. You can even have your students navigate, contribute to, or create a Prezi on their own and easily integrates media. I think Prezi is very professional looking, allows you to emphasize key points by zooming in or focusing on certain parts of the slide. Some things that worry me and I don't like about Prezi is you cannot print out your presentation and its not quick to put together like a powerpoint presentation. For example, if I'm doing a lesson on Impressionism I would use Prezi to  introduce specific artists (Van Gogh, Monet, etc) or maybe I would assign research projects and have students create a Prezi to discuss, teach, critique, and/or learn about art history or an art technique. 


I've recently experimented with ToonDoo. ToonDoo is a cool, fun, online comic strip creator. Students and teachers can express their feelings, thoughts through a powerful medium, comics! You can even embed a ToonDoo so parents can read and comment on student's comic strip. Also, another great classroom tool is Voki. Voki allows you to create speaking avatars. This will aide in motivating students to participate, improve communication skills, and introduce content with a different approach. I have past experience using  VoiceThread, Prezi, and Animoto for class assignments. My ultimate goal is to get my students to pay attention in my classroom and to understand the material. Technology tools like Prezi, VoiceThread, etc will help my achieve my goal. Applications like these allow room for creativity and diversity in my classroom.