BP10_2009103_SecondReflectiveMediaAsset

BP9_2009103_TagGalaxy_Web2.0Tool

Tag Galaxy is a visual arts teacher’s dream-come-true for gaining access to thousands of photographs. Users go into the site and enter a word into a box. Photos have been gathered from around the world, and they are tagged with words that describe the photo. The word and related words pop up in a galaxy of planets. The biggest planet represents the original word that the user inserted, and smaller planets represent related words. More specific words that surround the animal galaxy include, zoo, pet, cat and nature for example. The user can then press on any planet and pictures float onto the screen for choosing.

Photos can be downloaded and the photographer is identified, as well as whether or not the photo is protected by copyright. Flickr is the host site that house the library of photos. A word such as animal has almost 2 million examples of animal pictures, while the smaller planet choices such as “pet” had just over 50,000 photographs.

The number of photographs available is constantly increasing as photographers can add their images on Flickr. Though Flickr is the source for the library of photos, a user can access the photos using TagGalaxy without having a Flickr account. A teacher might need a photo for a visual presentation of a topic, and TagGalaxy provides easy access to those needs.

Teachers that use a SmartBoard in their class will find using this visual library of photos to be a splendid source for projecting impactful images to their students.

Cat on the computer photo found on TagGalaxy. The photographer calls herself, "Tryingtolearn USA’s Photostream". Retreived from http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolmyra/362699219/

Smart Board and TagGalaxy retrieved from

http://smartboards.typepad.com/smartboard/2009/05/smartboards-and-tag-galaxy.html

TagGalaxy site

http://www.taggalaxy.com/

BP8_2009103_Skype_Web2.0Tool

Real-time communication is available with tools like Instant Messaging (IM) through Yahoo and Google. Text is the primary convention for communicating through IM, and it is done on the computer or a mobile device. The IM web tool has advanced to the point that people can attach videos, photos and other files as well as text. There are so many Web 2.0 tools available; it is hard to comment on just one. Skype is an additional real-time communication tools that I am familiar with. It allows Internet telephony, where voices are carried over the Internet in real-time. It is a service that is readily available for free or at very little cost. More than one hundred million people around the world are using Skype to converse in real-time. Skype is set up to provide video conferencing as well. (Schrum, p69)

As I investigated real-time web 2.0 tools for communications that carry voices using Internet Protocol, there were others. These included Talkety, tringme, flashphone, and jaduka, and they can be further investigated at (http://www.go2web20.net/#telephony). Some of these lesser known tools need head phones or other equipment to work, which may be why Skype has become more commonly known.

As the use of these tools becomes more common, students who need to work on projects out of class could use real-time communication tools to do assignments with classmates while at home. Our online course at Full Sail is conducive to this kind of communication, since classmates are spread across the country and need to collaborate and talk regularly. In some cases I have used Skype and ichat to conference conversations among three or four classmates simultaneously.

So long as students can afford a computer at home, and they have the proper connections to the Internet, Skype and other real-time communication tools could be something teachers turn to as a tool to accompany long-term group assignments. However the chance that computers will be found in every student’s home does not yet seem to be anywhere close to a reality. A census report in 2007 showed that home access to computers was inequitable across student population. “Fewer than 40% of American-Indian, Hispanic, and African American children had both computers and Internet access at home” (Schrum, p166). Until the vast majority of students have the tools at home to go with assignments, Skype and other real-time tools will have to find their way into the educational systems in bits and pieces. In Michael Wesch's video, Wesch referred to Ray Kurzweil's comments that we are living in exponetial times. The landscape of technology is changing exponentially in terms of the rapid speed at which Technology, Internet, Bandwidth, information processing and applications are moving and growing. With that I hold onto hope that we will find ways to equip homes of all economic backgrounds sooner than we can imagine.

References:

Real-time Web tools information retrieved from

http://www.go2web20.net/#telephony

Schrum, L. & Solomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Washington D.C. ISTE.

Telephone image with computer created on Power Point using clip art manipulated by Beckie Lamborn, 2009.

Wesch, M. (2009). Video retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s

BP8_2009103_CommentClassmate_Web2.0Tool

BP9_2009103_Reflective Post 1

The Web 2.0 tool I have used most is the National Gallery of Art's The Art Zone, with it's interactive activities for students to create their own masterpieces with Virtual paint, clips, or other digital tools for making their own art works.From first grade through 6th grade, my students have enjoyed this site. Watch out for the ink supply in your printer, because students love to print their compositions to share.

BP7_2009103_Ning_Web2.0Tool

As a member of Maryland Art Educators Association, I attended an art educators’ conference in Maryland this week. The conference brought together teachers from around the state. It provided workshops, lectures, and exhibits to equip teachers with fresh ideas, inspiration and innovation to take back to their classrooms. Besides assisting with a workshop presentation, I also attended an art and technology workshop.

There were close to fifty workshops offered throughout the day, and the tempera-painting workshop that I co-presented was well attended by more than twenty-five teachers. The workshop brought together people with common interests and goals. We not only presented our lesson ideas, but they then brain stormed and built on the ideas that others had used in their classrooms. The environment was ideal for social interaction and sharing of ideas.

I then attended a workshop titled “Integrating Technology in the Art Classroom”. The first question was about web 2.0 tools and defining what the tools are. As I’ve learned from Full Sail, these new web tools are different because they allow for interaction in multi directions. Not only is information directed out to viewers as was the case in earlier web tools, but information is now coming back in a multi directions between viewers. Viewers can respond and interact with each other and have a dialogue that brings together scores of opinions and ideas.

The tool that was highlighted was Ning. We opened an Art Education 2.0 Ning site and the amount of educators present on the page was dramatically larger than the well-attended workshop that I had just left. There were groups on the page that talked about AP Studio Art, Street Art, Elementary art, with over one hundred members in just those categories.

This Ning site brings together teachers with common interests, and it provides a place for teachers to talk about education and art. The advantage of using a Ning site is they are free and easy to create. Any person that has a topic or area that they want to explore could start a Ning site. The site can be set to public or private, so members could be regulated or open. With regard to the Art Education 2.0 site the forum is open allowing more collaboration and sharing at just the touch of a computer key. From any location a teacher could access the site and have fellow educators as a resource. The site has access to blogs, chats, groups, forums, videos, photos, and individual members that all have to do with art and education. Setting up a Ning site or being a part of a Ning site is an easy way to communicate and be informed in today’s technological world of social networking.

Reference:

Art Education Ning site retrieved from:

http://arted20.ning.com/

BP6_2009103_ReflectiveMediaAsset_iGoogleWebTool

BP5_2009103_FlickrLessonPlan

Looking at Flickr and all the amazing photographs that are uploaded by the public has been inspiring for me as a teacher. Since the images are so varied and they have tagged words that organize them into groups, it would be fun to use the images educationally. The arts or languages would be a likely outlet for educational lessons. Even the sciences, history, social studies, and cultural studies would be possible areas that teachers and students could investigate using the images.

One lesson that Flickr presented online that an elementary teacher might use talked about looking for action words and teaching verbs to students. Students are introduced to new verbs and relate them to the photographs that match up to the words. Students repeat the words and use them in sentences.

In the elementary art class this lesson could be extended to drawing. When drawing portraits one topic students have to think about is action. “What is the person or animal doing?” Having looked up action words for the language assignment students could build on those ideas and make a drawing showing action.

Students could all look up the same action word and see how the same word is represented in different ways. For example “run” could be depicted using an animal running on a mountain, or a group of animals running near a river, a person running on a sunny day or on a rainy day, a person running in the city or running in the wilderness.

Or each student could pick an action word and do a drawing which they then share with their classmates to talk about their action word.

Students could title their work of art and include the action word in the title. Also Students could make a creative writing piece that corresponds to their artwork. Using Flickr as the inspiration, students would be provided a multitude of visual samples that have the potential to put their creative processes in motion.

Flickr lesson plan idea retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/19387797/Lesson-Plan-With-Flickr

BP4_2009102_SocialBookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a term that I had not heard prior to this course at Full Sail. The term refers to a web 2.0 tool that is used to save links to your favorite sights, so you as a reader can refer to those sights by the simple touch of a link. Social bookmarking goes a step further than the standard bookmarking tools that I have used, because these Social bookmarks are set up in an account that is online. The account is accessible from any computer, whereas the traditional bookmarks are remembered only on a reader’s personal computer.

Educators will find this tool beneficial while searching for content and research relevant to their studies and teaching. Whether searching authors, artists, biographies, cultures, or history, teachers can organize their findings using social bookmarking as their virtual folder. Beside the benefit of bookmarking using this Web-based service, a teacher can also tag the bookmarks. This means a teacher would write a few descriptive words about the site they are going to save, and those words are then attached to that link for organizational purposes. Bookmarks are alphabetized and also organized by tags. While reading an article by Lorrie Jackson (2009) I learned one additional piece to tagging, “your sites are organized automatically with sites saved by other users, using those same keywords. Thus you benefit from the research of others, while having a far more dynamic and helpful system of organization.”

With so many people using the computer and its ever-evolving tools, educators have an opportunity incorporate networking tools into their classrooms. Social networking and online computer use was studied at University of Minnesota (2008) for it’s educational benefits. Technological proficiency was being seen across the board including low-income students and totaling 94 percent of students studied who used the Internet. Christine Greenhow, a researcher at the university, stated, “Students are also sharing creative original work like poetry and film and practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology. The Web sites offer tremendous educational potential.” Greenhow’s research realized the students’ skills and proficiencies, but pointed out that there are still untapped educational opportunities available using networking technologies

(University of Minnesota, 2008).

At Miami University Jason Abbitt (2009) implemented a Social Bookmarking activity for a ten-week course involving undergraduates pursuing a teaching degree. The assignment was set up as a study to understand the value of bookmarking in an educational setting and how it might be used. One finding was that the users of bookmarking increased their valid site resource references (for lesson planning, and strategies and methods of technology integration) at a higher rate than those who did not use bookmarking. (p. 95)

With this in mind it seems the benefits of collective searches for information and resources could result in quality findings that benefit the user whether and educator or student.

As Clay Shirky’s book made clear with his description of the Birthday Paradox (2008) the number of connections that are formed when even a group as small as thirty-five people correspond, is exponential. In my mind having access to resources that thirty-five or even a thousand people have searched and tagged through Social Bookmarking can very well lead to a useful and beneficial library of information for any teacher or educator.

References:

Abbitt, J. (2009) Evaluating the Implementation of a Social Bookmarking Activity for an Undergraduate Course. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/PDF/8.1.5.pdf

Jackson, L. (2009). Education World. Sites to See: Social Bookmarking.

Retreived October 2009 from http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/sites/sites080.shtml

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press. (p. 25)

University of Minnesota (2008, June 21). Educational Benefits of Social Networking Sites Uncovered. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 11, 2009 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080620133907.htm

BP3_2009102_web2.0_tools_iWeb

A Web 2.0 tool that I find interesting and one that will help me in my professional studies is the iWeb. I never thought I would be able to create a web page, but with our Full Sail program it was the first tool we were asked to use to create a bio of ourselves. Uploading iMovies, Garageband audio files, and setting up a blog were among the assignments that I navigated while learning some of the features of the iWeb tool. The iWeb will be useful in education to set up communications with parents and family about art that is happening in the classroom and at school.

The iWeb allows a teacher like myself to create a site on my own computer, and then export and upload it to the web. The site can always be republished and updated, and it is user friendly for a teacher. The blog pages are formatted so the most current blog entry is accessible first followed by a list of other blog entry topics. The blog posts are shown with a title and blurb so the reader can push on a link to read further. There is a comments box that readers can use to respond to the author’s posts. Parents and teachers could share dialogue about the projects or events going on in the classroom.

A website has multiple pages. The home page is where the site is introduced, and in preformatted websites one navigates to other pages using the links that are listed along a bar at the top. It is important to activate the link back to the home page on a website, so the reader can find his or her way back to the introduction page.

Another feature of a website is that the author can subscribe to RSS, (Really Simple Syndications). This is a feature that I am still learning about. The web page can link newspapers, journals and writings and ….”have the latest news and features delivered directly” (Schrum, p. 197). Having an RSS feed on your website is an attractive feature that allows you to have the news you want regularly delivered right to the sight instead of having to navigate from site to site.

As described in an article by Microsoft Corporation, if the author subscribes to a current syndication the feed will provide constant updates keeping your sight fresh and making it more likely to be visited by readers. Having a relevant feed is also helpful. For example a site on harbor cruises might benefit from a syndicated weather report subscription, or a real estate investor could benefit by having a subscription to a realty company. Authors of websites can also provide RSS channels for readers, so that any updates you put on your website will be fed directly to the readers. This way readers won’t miss an update if they don’t get a chance to check a website regularly(2009).

An art website might have an RSS feed to the local museum.

Resources:

Microsoft Corporation (2009). RSS Feeds: Benefits for You and Your Samll Business.

Retrieved October, 2009 from:

http://www.microsoft.com/australia/smallbusiness/themes/sales-and-marketing/rss-feeds- vista-outlook.mspx

Schrum, L. & Solomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Washington D.C: ISTE.

Spiderweb image from Pics4Learning.com manipulated in Power Point by Beckie Lamborn. Retreived from: http://pics.tech4learning.com/index.php? search=qsearch&query=spider+webs&sfield=1&sorder=desc&viewmode=2&page=5&mult=1

BP3_2009102_web2.0_tools_Links

One web 2.0 tool that I am exploring and finding useful is the "box of links". Having had so many bits of new information come my way during these past few months of the Media, Design and Technology Course, I have often found myself on overload when trying to search and retrieve information. In the case of the box of links, I have already attached some of my classmates’ AR blog sites; so all I have to do is go to my iGoogle AR (Action Research) page, and I can open a link without having to look up the URL on a spreadsheet in one of my files on the desktop. This is a great feature, and it keeps my links organized.

I can add more boxes of links by category, if I choose to do so on any page that I set up in my iGoogle account. The AR page also has the Del.icio.us bookmarks box, which provides additional links to the web. These links are saved as my favorites. They are sites that I would have found while searching the web. If I were to find a site that is interesting and I would like to visit more often, I could save the link in my del.icio.us bookmarks and access it whenever I go to iGoogle. Even if I am on another person’s computer, the bookmarks are still available to me when I go into my iGoogle account.

With countless websites, searching the World Wide Web is mind-boggling. Being able to save and sort links that are relevant to one’s life is made a lot easier with the web 2.0 linking tools. Being able to organize a wealth of art resources for class lessons or art history and cultural facts would be very beneficial. Some features of the del.icio.us site that I have not yet configured include having the ability to…”Share favorites with friends, family, and colleagues” and “Discover new things with less work. Other del.icio.us users may have already found and posted exactly what you are looking for” ( Schrum, p. 199).

Interestingly, as a newbie to “searching the web” and “organizing links “ there is another side of the coin that I hadn’t considered. It’s “link baiting”! It may sound a bit negative, but it is a term used to describe how sites try to catch the attention of readers, so readers will link to them. Since there are so many sites out there, link baiting is a way to get your site to stand out. Rob Sullivan lays out the types of baiting that are available to help sites gain readership….”They are: News, Contrary, Attack, Resource and Humor”(2006). The article provides descriptions and examples of these baiting categories as advice for those trying to gain a broader audience. Though Sullivan wrote the article in 2006 the responses to the article are as current as August of 2009.

Resources:

Schrum, L. & SOlomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Wasington D.C.:ISTE.

Sullivan, R. (2006). Search Engine Journal (SEJ): Live Baiting & Effective Link Building. Retrieved October, 2009 from:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/link-baiting-effective-link-building/2797/

The image is from Power Point Clip art and adjusted by Beckie Lamborn October 2009.

BP1_2009101_iGoogleScreenShots

The following are screen shots from my iGoogle account for my ETC course at FullSail, October, 2009.

My What's Going On (WGO) page:

My Action Research (AR) page:

My ETC (Emergent Technologies in a Collaborative Culture) page:

Classmate's blog post on web tools, and my response:

BP3_20091004_RSSFeeds

Though it is slightly embarrassing to admit, I am entirely new to the world of creating and following blogs. The first set of assignments for the FSO ETC course on creating and setting up the iGoogle site as well as the Blogger and Google Reader has caused a huge learning curve on my part. Still, the process of searching and adding RSS feeds to the Google Reader has brought interesting insight to the use of these feeds.

Before knowing about RSS feeds and how they worked, I couldn't picture how they would be useful to me. In just a fews additions to my subscription list, I have already discovered how incredibly useful these blogs will be to my work at FSO and the improving my teaching methods in general.

I chose the initial 11 feeds that I have added to my Reader for the purpose gaining information that I will hopefully use in the classroom. For example, several of the feeds that I discovered came for the website for the French newspaper LeFigaro. These blogs involve a variety of subjects in French including news and perspectives on French culture, cinema, foreign relations, fashion, and more. All of these will help to inform my teaching on current events and information about the French speaking world and hopefully cause students to become more excited about the real life application of the French language as I share this information with them.

Also, these blog posts and links will help me, most simply, to continue to keep up with my French speaking skills. One of the challenges of teaching a foreign language when it is your second language it finding the ability to use and practice your own communication skills. Especially with French in the US, it is difficult to find many people with whom you can communicate in French or places in which you are immersed in the French language. The feeds that I have chosen for my reader, in ways, replicate the immersion experience through offering several opportunities to see French, read French, and if desired, respond to posts using French.

Some of the blogs also include tips geared toward helping teachers such as French for Fun and The Drama Teacher which offer perspectives for teachers of those subjects on how to improve the time with students in the classroom. I would hope that being able to access this information in a more timely and manageable fashion through Google Reader will render obsolete the issue of searching for information each time I create a new lesson plan.

The next weeks will hopefully bring more insight into the effectiveness of the easy accessible information that the Google Readers will provide and its impact on my work at FSO and my teaching in general.

Posted by Kim Davis

at 10:22 AM

My Response:

Tres bien Kim! Your use of Google Reader has inspired me to search feeds that will enhance my teaching in the elementary art room where I find myself absorbed in the lives of young, curious, and creative children. Magnifique!!!

BP3_2009102_web 2.0_tools_Open-Source_iGoogleDocs

As an elementary teacher I may not be able to use iGoogle with my students, but iGoogle is a wonderful web 2.0 tool that could help me as a teacher to organize and pull together ideas. The iGoogle page is a platform that allows me as a teacher to put things that interest me and things that apply to my teaching all in one location. After I set up a free account on the Google site, I am given a free Gmail account, so I can receive or send emails.

The iGoogle account can be accessed and set up through my Google account. This iGoogle account gives me opportunities to create pages that I title according to my personal needs. For the FSO program I have designated more that four pages with page names that can be opened to reveal related information. The page that I am most comfortable navigating during this early stage of getting my feet wet with web 2.0 tools is the Google Docs page. When Google docs page is opened up I can click on documents that have been created by my teammates and me at FullSail. The idea that documents can be created online by a group of people is new and exciting, and having been assigned projects has further allowed me to understand the potential of this collaborative tool. To this point I did not invite teammates to the documents in my file, I was just a collaborator. I think I could use this iGoogle doc tool with fellow teachers, if we were going to create a lesson plan from our homes during our after school hours, free time at school, or at our convenience. I would have to help my teachers set up iGoogle accounts, and I would then have to create a document and invite them to work with me on lessons or other collaborative writings.

Communications through Internet are taking new directions as people are not only receiving information, but now they are responding and creating the information to share with others. According to Dan Woods, a chief technology officer, this “open-source” communication where software tools are provided for people to collaborate and create on the Internet is available due to…“a community of people who are dedicated to working together in a highly collaborative and evolutionary way” (Schrum, p. 50). Programmers are providing source codes “for the sheer enjoyment of seeing their creation used” (p. 13).

Resources:

Schrum, L. & Solomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools. Washington D. C.: ISTE.

Image is free power point clipart adjusted by Beckie Lamborn (2009)

BP2_2009101_Anti-Teaching_Improving-Today's-Education

What is meaningful to children, and what makes a child ask questions?

These are some questions I would push a teacher to answer when setting up a teaching environment for students of the 21^st century.

Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Kansas, brings out those questions in his students by setting a learning environment where both he and the students are on a quest to discover and learn. They tackle questions that he doesn’t have the answers for, but he is willing to facilitate and join the students on their quest to find answers and meaning. He doesn’t call himself a teacher, but an “anti-teacher”. This is because he feels the traditional teaching is set up to concentrate more on the grade than the process of exploring and understanding a topic. (2008)

Following the ideas of Howard Gardner and Eric Jensen who talk about multiple learning styles and how the brain receives information, Wesch taps into his students’ various learning styles with his methods.

Welsch lays out thought provoking facts, and sets it up so students are curious to find connections with their personal world, the world around them.

In 2007 Wesch and his students produced a YouTube video called, “A Vision of Students Today”. The video targeted the absurdities and ineffectiveness of today’s teaching environments. The traditional lecture hall was featured and students sat passively without a voice, holding only note-cards stating the negatives of their learning environment.

If teachers can provoke questions and then get students to respond in a multitude of activities and ways that bring meaning and understanding to those participants, in my mind that is what a learning environment of today should look like.

In my opinion challenge based learning, problem based learning, simulations, social networking and direct instruction methods that invoke reflection, analysis and critiques, are features that would benefit today’s students. Adding music, creative writing, and the arts would be components of projects that would engage learners.

Collaborative Web documents, social networking sites as well as specific tools like Garageband, iMovie, and other presentation applications could all be present in a 21^st century learning environment catering to the multiple learning styles of today’s students.

Teachers would be offered professional development opportunities. Teachers could learn the tools needed to set up course management systems as a way to communicate with students beyond the classroom and bring together student activities using the Internet.

Another aspect of a a 21^st century teaching environment would have to include an ethics and humanities piece, where students have opportunities to develop empathy and understanding for others. Whether building on the project-based projects, or social networking opportunities, or community service projects, a 21^st century learning environment would also include this aspect of teaching.

References.

Wesch, M. (2008). Education Canada: Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of

Significance. Retrieved October, 2009 from:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6358393/AntiTeaching-Confronting-the-Crisis-of-Significance

Wesch, M. (2007). Encyclopedia Britannica Blog: YouTube video: A Vision of Students

Today. (And What Teachers Must Do). Retrieved October, 2009 from:

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/a-vision-of-students-today-what-teachers-must-do/

BP1_2009101_Educational-Uses-Blogs

Education is changing each day, as information is being distributed more easily through technology. In 2006 Candace Lombardi reported that a new blog was being born every half second. Whether a news report by a professional or a personal report by individuals, blogs are being used more and more as a means to communicate information. While reading Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools, it is clear with new technology our understanding of education has shifted. Effective education that caters to the current generation of 21^st century students takes place in a more communal and participatory setting or learning environment. (2007).

The traditional measure of intelligence, which centered on memory and regurgitation of facts has shifted and is also moving toward the new world of technology. Having easy access, ability, and tools to find and apply information is an area that has grown with technology. Also, Bloom’s Taxonomy, which looked at components of teaching to higher order thinking, has been revised to look more heavily at creative approaches to teaching. The focus is to stimulate students in this technological world to learn by building on prior knowledge, find meaning, evaluate, make judgments, and apply knowledge (p35-36).

The idea of open source tools where students can write documents or do research together is exciting. Reading about the Clip Bandits (p45) who produced music online without even meeting each other just goes to show how technology can be used in collaborative and new ways. Having a platform to put unimaginable numbers of brains together could engage wonderful products, and give a new meaning to the idea of brainstorming. Though Wikipedia does get a bad wrap for not being a verifiable source since it is open to being edited by anyone, the idea of such a forum for shared knowledge is exciting and takes “radical trust”. That is a word I look at optimistically, while some may see it differently.

Whether using a blog or using an audio tool such as a Garageband, technology is an exciting stimulus that captures the interest of today’s students enhancing their ability to reflect and gain meaning in their learning.

Ron Clark, a teacher in Atlanta, has started an Academy that feeds on the excitement the students bring to school. The academy is teaching to the modern student that loves his or her iPod, cell phone, and texting. Clark has tapped into that love inspiring students to learn with that same passion. Ron Clark brings music, art and an energetic atmosphere, and his school even became nationally recognized as sixth and seventh graders created a “you can vote” song on utube. Teachers come from across the country to observe and learn new ways to engage these modern students at the Ron Clark Academy, and for more info check out the following links. http://showhype.com/video/full_interview_with_ron_clark_kids_you_can_vote/

http://www.limaohio.com/articles/lima-40418-area-style.html

references:

Schrum, L. and Solomon, G. (2007). Web 2.0: New Tools, New School.

Washington D.C.: ISTE.

Lombardi, C. (2007). CNet News: There's a Blog Born Every Half Second.

Retrieved October 2, 2009 from: (http://news.cnet.com/2100-1025_3-6102935.html)

starting a blog from my igoogle page

It is October 1, and tomorrow I go to the museum with my prefirst class to see "Parts of Art" that our young students can relate to.

i'm trying to make a second post to my blog....

goodness, i've begun a blog on igoogle!!!