Our Final Blog

For your posting, answer the following questions:

1. You have created a Blog and have been Blogging for 16 weeks.
What is your opinion of "Blogging"?

I actually am really happy we created a Blogger account for this class. Without this assignment, I would have possibly never have known what a "blog" is. I think this is a great communication tool not only valuable in a college classroom but in any classroom. There are no restrictions to what someone may want to write about, so this becomes a versatile tool that may be used in all classrooms. No matter what tool the instructor chooses to use, I think the most important lesson I have learned from creating blogs, is that it is important to create an open form of communication in a classroom, essentially an outlet for students to have a voice.

2. Did you find this to be a useful reflection / communication tool?

If I read this question before answering my first question I would have realized I was already answering number two in number one. =) As mentioned above, I truly did find blogger to be a great communication tool and very useful in our classroom especially since we only had the chance to meet once a week.

3. Would you use a Blog in your art classroom? If yes, how. If no, why not?

I think I would definitely consider using blogger in my classroom in the future. I am not sure if I would necessarily assign assignments through blogger, but rather allow this to be an open line of communication between my students and myself. It could also be an area for students to connect to one another ex. ask questions while not in class, catch up on missed assignments or classes, etc. Perhaps I would consider using Blogger as a personal art journal for my students to keep throughout the semester as a requirement. I do find creating blogs to be a great tool and will definitely consider its use in my future classroom.

Blog Week InDesign Video

1. GO TO: http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

2. Watch the following videos under Adobe InDesign CS3:

- Working With Master Pages

- Managing Pages

- Using Layers

3. Describe what you learned from the videos.

From the videos, I best learned how to control my master page, work with adding and moving and duplicating pages, and working with selecting objects on a page.

4. Which video was most helpful in the creation of your Portfolio? Why?

I thought managing pages and using layers was most helpful towards developing my portfolio. I felt managing pages will be useful when working with many pages for my Portfolio, and I felt using layers will be helpful when I have many different objects on each page in which I will want to put in order and move around without difficulty.

ITSE Website

Answer the following questions:

1. What educator resources would you be able to use in your art classroom?

I this I would definitely use under curriculum, special education. It seems like the Don Johnston Corporation would be really helpful for a teacher. They provide supplement instructions and adapted lessons for children with special needs. By working with a team of professionals, better outcomes can be reached and the children can benefit. I could definitely use this in my future classroom to help create useful and appropriate lessons for my special needs classroom.

2. What NETS for Teachers 2008 would you be able to incorporate in your art classroom?

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. Teachers:

a.	promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.
b.	engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.
c.	promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.
d.	model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments.

I believe I would use this because it is very relevant to a modern day classroom and introducing technology into the classroom is almost essential in today's age.

3. What resources from ISTE would you be interested in using to further your development as a future art educator?

I think one of the first tools I would use in News and Events. This can keep me updated as an educator so that I may be up to date on information and events occurring. I think I would also like to use Professional Development. This will keep me posted on events I can attend or be part of to continue my own education and keep me up to date on whats happening.

For this weekly blog posting your topic is:

1. Click on these links and explore the sites:

http://www.adobe.com/education/k12/adsc/

http://www.apple.com/education/

2. Find one resource from each site that you would use in your art classroom in the future.

Be sure to include the active url hyperlink in your blog specific to contect you would use.

3. Explain how you would use each resource in your classroom.

http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/teach/acrobat-curriculum.html

I chose this link because I think it is essential for students to become technologically advanced as our society does as well. I also think it is important for the teacher to create an open resource for students to access and use for communication. The idea of using a program to help students create and organize and access their portfolio is a great resource. I can personally use this tool to look over and review students work in an easy, organized fashion. Also, I would be able to create my own lesson plans the students would be able to access anywhere on a computer. I know from experience this can make such a difference when students miss class or need to review the material once more. Overall, I think this resource can be very helpful for my students and me.

http://www.apple.com/education/teachers-professors/online-tutorials.html

I think this link is an excellent resource for teachers. Learning how to create online accessible sites for students to become part of opens an entirely different learning center for the children. Learning how to plan and organize, collaborate and communicate, and managing classroom work flow seem to me to be three essential elements to running an effective and efficient classroom. I would definitely use all of this tutorials to learn how to create an online learning center for my students. I would do this in attempts to benefit my students and myself.

Blog 11

A. How did you decide which blog to review?

I chose to review Christina's and Cynthia's blogs because I know them and I thought they might have great blogs to look at!

B. Why did you select the individual posting to comment on?

For both, I chose to pick their self-portrait blogs because I found these to be most interesting to look at and review. I really enjoyed finding examples of self-portraits an reviewing their sites gave me a great opportunity to see more!

C. How could you use a Blog in your classroom as a communication tool? If not, why not?

I think using a blog in a classroom would be a wonderful communication tool! Students would be able to communicate with eachother in a structured format. They could be monitored and it would be a great way to share ideas and keep in touch throughout a class if perhaps someone might have missed or are behind in their work. Creating a way for the students to become more in touch is a great tool in a classroom.

Parental Involvement

From the RSS feeds you set up in class, select 2 quality feeds that relate to:
• the importance of parental involvement in eduation
• communication tools that educators can use with parents/guardians
• what/why/how/where/when of communication between educators and parents/guardians

Discuss your opinion on how you could use this information in your K-12 art classroom.

http://englishcompanion.ning.com/profiles/blogs/three-basic-steps-towards

I think this link explains effectively the importance of parental involvement in their children's lives. It is ultimately the parent's job to become and stay involved. Typically, children will not reach out and this is why it is essential for parents to be aware of their responsibilites and the positive outcome their involvement can have.
It is also important for educators to establish a firm line of communication with parents to keep parents informed about their childrens success, problems, obstacles, etc. I believe important tools to be used can be weekly newsletters, email, phone, more time and effort. This of course may not necessarily be practical for some teachers, but if the students best interest is truely in hand, it should not matter the time and effort put forth, because that will only result in positive outcomes.


http://www.arttherapyblog.com/videos/movie-highlights-kids-with-disabilities-and-art-therapy/
This site doesn't specifically point out the relationship between educators and parents but to look deeper into the meaning behind this idea, it is relevant that the effort and compassion put towards something can have amazing outcomes. This one individual teacher made a huge impact on these childrens lives, and I think this is a prime example of the positive results involvement can have on a child and this can be multiplied when both educators and parents both alike are contributing. Art Therapy can not only be conducted in a school setting but at home as well, and parents can become part of their childrens success. Art can be a wonderful outlet for unsettling emotions and children with disabilities can use this as their own personal outlet.

I personally would love to work with children with disabilities. Using art as a communication tool can be very successful when used correctly. I hope someday to use those tools in my classroom while also making a great effort to keep parents informed and involved in their children's lives.

Video Summary

Technical Training Video - Summary and Critique

1. GO TO: http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

2. Watch the following videos under Adobe InDesign CS3:

- Making Selections

- Working With Text

- Working With Text Styles

3. Describe what you learned from the videos.

I found these videos to be really useful especially since I have no previous experience with InDesign. I found Making Selections and Working With Text Styles to be the easiest of the three videos to follow. Working With Text is going to be useful, yet figuring out and learning how to work with actual shapes and distortion and resizing is something I feel is essential to the program. Also, learning how to set up your text how you would like and learn about presentation of text is very important as well.

4. Which video was most helpful? What do you think of the different presenters?

As mentioned before, I found video One and Three to be most useful I believe mostly because of the presenters. I felt the presenter in working with text just dove right in and went too fast for me. I think he would be a great presenter for people who have maybe had previous experience with the program, but I definately prefer to go a bit slower. I think the first video, Making Selections, will be most useful to me. I think since I am just starting out, learning how to simply work with my shapes will be most important. In conclusion, all of the videos were certainly helpful and will aid in my self portrait.

A Self Portrait

Derek DeYoung

and Chuck Close

I chose these two self-portraits because of their differences. I wanted to choose different portraits so that I might have more to learn when beginning my own. I picked DeYoung because of his amazing color use and almost caricature appearance. I liked how he painted an amazing self portrait yet added his own twist to it. Moreover, I chose Close's portrait because of its realistic nature. It gives you a certain emotion the moment you look at it. Without using color, Close created a very detailed, very naturalistic portrait. He also did not include a background or any other objects in his portrait except for himeself. I think I will take aspects from both when designing my self portrait.

Photobucket Slideshow

http://s668.photobucket.com/albums/vv42/kellyeryn/?action=view&current=f9004e36.pbw

I enjoyed working on this slideshow, but to my surprise, I actually found this project to be challenging in some aspects. Actually going out and photographing real elements and principles was more of a tast than I had anticipated. It was an assignment I appreciated because of the hands on nature of it and also because of the thought I at least put into creating my slideshow and choosing which pictures to use for each element and principle, especially because there are almost endless examples in our world of each of the examples. Overall, I enjoyed the assignment and learned a few new things along the way as well.

Self-Portrait

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/intro.html

What is a self-portrait? I think a self-portrait is any representation of the artist completing the piece of work.

What are the distinctive things that make me "me"? Things that make me "me," I think, are my features such as my eyes, nose, mouth, hair, hair color, eye color, so on. I also think my personality makes me "me," different from everyone else.

How do I want people to see me? I would hope people see me as kind, funny, responsible, and just an all around fun person!

How can I express my many different sides? I think there are different ways to express oneself. If I am sad for example, I usually am not very energetic, and my facial expressions can let others know how I am feeling. If I am happy and having a great day, I am typically very talkative, and interactive with others.

How can I reinvent myself for various purposes or times in my life? I think we are all constantly reinventing ourselves. I know one example I do several times a week involves dressing in different clothing for work. This automatically puts me in a different role and cues the changes in my personality to fit the role. Reinventing ourselves is an important part of life and growing.

How am I changing from day to day or year to year? I feel as if I am constantly changing and maturing. I look back at when I was graduating high school, and I feel as if I am a completely different person now. It is funny how quickly and also, how slowly we can change. I certainly feel through different periods of our lives we change more and more such as our teenage years and eventually we find ourselves molded into this adult version of ourselves. Regardless, I accept change and growth and feel as if it is an essential part of life.

Who do I want to become? Ideally, I would like to become a well respected individual with a great group of friends and family who have helped to form the person I will become. I would like to be an amazing teacher whom students look up to and aspire to be like and also draw inspiration from. I also hope to be successful in all aspects of my life, creating a well rounded individual.

Logo Creation

For this weekly blog posting your topic is:
1. Find an online resource for creating your Logo. Be sure to link the URL in your blog posting.
2. Explain how you used/or will use this resource in creating your Logo for your Lab Project #2 assignment.

http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_design.html
http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/30-examples-of-brilliant-logo-design

I thought these web pages were really helpful. I thought many of the tips listed on the first link were specific and clear in what to aim for while working on a logo especially the idea of "less is more." Furthermore, I feel the logos on the second link were very inspirational and helped me to form some great ideas for my own logo. I think seeing other examples is definately helpful in getting the ideas flowing and giving me a better idea of what I should be aiming for.

1. Find an online resource for creating/writing your Profesional Teaching Resume. Be sure to link the URL in your blog posting.
2. Explain how you used/or will use this resource in creating/writing your resume draft for your H-5 assignment.

http://www.bestsampleresume.com/builders-resumes.html

http://www.bestsampleresume.com/teachers-resumes.html

I felt this webpage was very straight-forward and helpful in showing what is essential for a professional teaching resume. It was very clear, and I felt the Four Essentials helped me to form my resume to make sure I included those specific details, except of course the ones I couldn't because of the lack of information, but I certainly know for the furture what to include.

PowerPoint Time!

1. Find an online resource for working with PowerPoint. Be sure to link the URL in your blog posting.
2. Explain how you used this resource in creating your PowerPoint for Project #1. If you did not need help with PowerPoint for Project #1, find something about PowerPoint you would use in a future assignment or how you could use it as a teaching resource.

1. This was the cite I used simply by searching google for powerpoint tips.
http://www.bitbetter.com/powertips.htm#previewslideshow

2. I found this cite really useful. I have used PowerPoint in the past, but I am certainly not a frequent user. The one tip I found especially useful was How to Preview Slide Show Effects. I was literally sitting in class wondering, "now how do I see how they work?" This cite also has many other useful tips to help users like me understand PowerPoint a little more.

A Visit to the Albright Knox Gallery

Which Artworks made an impact or impression on me? Why?

I really enjoyed my visit to the Gallery! It was the first time at the Albright Knox for me, and I was sincerely moved by many of the pieces. To narrow it down, one of the most impressive and magnificent piece I viewed was The Old Mill by Vincent van Gogh. This was the first time I had ever seen a van Gogh in person, and I was absolutely moved. I think I was so attracted to this piece because of my own work in oil painting. I absolutely enjoyed the amazing texture he was able to create and the continuous use of short brush strokes. Right next to van Gogh was Tow Path at Argenteuil by Monet. I was also instantly attracted to this piece because of the classical style and look of simplicity, which is completely deceiving. Furthermore, it was also my first time seeing a work by O'Keefe in person as well. She has always been my favorite artist because of her style, use of color, and shape. I love the way she creates art period. The use of line and color attracted me to her piece named Green Patio Door. This was probably my favorite piece in the Gallery. Also, in a very different style, Georges Braque created an incredible abstract oil painting named Still Life on a Mantelpiece. I especially enjoyed this piece because of its difference in style that most abstract work. Still in touch with the idea of sharp lines, Braque creates kind of a funky scene with a guitar. Finally, sitting in the same hallway as Monet and van Gogh, I found Georges Seurat. I loved his use of color and dotting to create a wonderful full view painting. The differences in all of these works inspire me to work in different mediums and constantly create new ways of making art! All of the artists were successful and wonderful creators of famous well known pieces we now are willing to travel just to see. That is an inspiration in itself.

Which artworks do I feel a connection with? Why?

There were many pieces in the Gallery that caused me to stop and stare..taking me off to another world, the world of the artist. For some reason, whenever I see a work by Georgia O'Keefe, I always, always disappear into another place transformed by her art. I think I feel such a deep connection with her work because I tend to work in a lot of the same patternistic shape as she has in the past. I find myself using a brush as she once did and creating a lot of the same kind of line as she did. I find her work to be very inspiring. Moreover, I really enjoyed the whole exhibition by Fletcher Benton. I love 3D work, and I feel as if he has taken his work to a whole new level creating a collection of endless possibilities with his steel work. I feel the title of the collection, The Alphabet, is entertaining and appropriate. The use of sharp line create crisp edges and very clean cut work. I love the variety of color he uses as well. Also, as mentioned above, I feel a connection with van Gogh's paintings. I would love to learn to work with more texture in my oil paintings, and I believe his works have a lot to offer in reference to teaching others. I also found myself standing in front of Jackson Pollock's work for some time because of the vast interest I have in his use of splatter painting to create a masterpiece. I believe some people may view his work as less than average, but I think his work is incredible. I have tried using splatter techniques in my own work and I have found it to be very difficult. I love the technique but certainly have absolute respect for it as well. This piece moved me not only because of its huge size but its vast array of colors and constant movement. Furthermore, I wish I had taken more notes to remember the names of some of the pieces, but one of the rooms in the Gallery was filled with very large wall pieces mostly composed of just one color with a pattern in it. There was also a piece more in the center with red string attached to the ceiling and the floor. I found this section to be very soothing and calming. It inspired me not to be afraid to work with just one color, because there are worlds of things to do with a simple color. I would love for one of the pieces to be hanging in my house. I find peace and comfort in a soothing tone. I felt many of the pieces inspired me to expand my own work as an artist, and I felt the visit was not only an educational experience but an eye opening one as well.

Which artworks would I like to know more about? Why?

I think there will always be artworks I simply just don't understand, and maybe, never will. I can accept that because I know everyone has their own style and their own purpose, and perhaps it just isn't meant for everyone to be a part of. I have to admit, I am just not a fan of Pop Culture artwork. There was one piece I really enjoyed. It was of a sink and the "wall" surrounding the 3D sink. For some reason this just made me smile. I love 3D work, and I'm assuming that is mostly what Pop Culture art is, but I am also not really very knowledgeable about it either, so it is certainly something I would like to know more about and try to understand. In addition, I actually was lucky enough to have a personal tour guide who let me go in the closed mirror room, and I loved it! I thought it was an incredible life size piece of work meant for people to experience hands on, and I love hands on art! Walking around in a room full of mirrors is quite an experience. Looking up and looking down as if it goes on forever was something of a trip. I certainly would love to know more about the artist and what other artwork he has produced. I would also like to look more into the abstract area of art. I have seen many abstract pieces, but I still can't always seem to find a grip on the purpose. I suppose I am very logical and I like to look at things and understand them and know the reasoning behind each work, so in that case, I suppose I understand my constant need for knowing, yet I will have to accept, not all art is meant to be understood. Sometimes we just need to feel it.

Useful Information For My Classroom

From the RSS feeds you set up in class, select 2 quality feeds that relate to a topic that interests you and discuss your opinion on how you could use this information in your K-12 art classroom.

Be sure to hyperlink the URL to the article in your posting.

https://angel.buffalostate.edu/section/default.asp?id=200930-AED398-2157.com

Because of my interest in the Arts and Special Education, I feel this feed to be very relevant to my possible future Classroom. This feed specifically focuses on children with Autism and their ability to function in a classroom and several strategies to incorporate Sensory Integration Therapy. Making it clear that children with Autism focus mainly on one thing at a time, teaching strategies must be altered to work hand in hand with the children in order to succeed. These helpful hints can be useful in my future teaching and Classroom Strategies. This feed also has many different useful links for different disabilities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9d8rSLhhMw.com

I feel this feed is not only interesting but also fun to watch! I am currently enrolled in Ceramics and feel lost because I have no real past experience with the materials. Actually being able to watch someone do what you are trying to do is extremely helpful to me. I am a very visual, hands on learner and appreciate any visual aides. This video could be helpful in my future classroom by even just showing it to my students! Fun videos are great for students who have no idea what they may be getting in to. Also, this video is educational for me, who will be the instructor in the future. I think videos are just a great learning source. Then of course, we move to hands on!

Why do I want to become an Art Educator.

I have struggled for years in trying to decide which major I would decide to pursue. I have always been passionate about Art but would refuse to give in the the starving artists standards. I absolutely love working with children, and for some reason, I never connected the two and didn't discover Art Education until recently. I don't think even I knew I truly wanted to be an Educator until after I decided upon this major. While I was living in Hawaii this past year, I volunteered my days off teaching art lessons to a Special Education Class. This is where I would discover my true passion. I found working with children to be extremely rewarding but still, I hadn't quite found what I had been looking for. Working with special needs children, to me, is one of the most rewarding, special occupations one can have. I have chosen to Minor in Art Therapy, and with this I hope to build a stronger link between Art Education and Special Education. Spreading the warmth and creativity that goes hand in hand with Art is a dream of mine. I hope to enlighten the minds of children, expanding their minds, showing all that every person has the ability to create.