I have been looking at different examples of the voice threads and one of the lessons that looked really cool to me was one that a teacher did and it reached across the curriculum. First at art class did art work, and then an English class wrote a story or poem about the art work and next a music class made music using garage band to go with the poems and pictures. All of these were recorded and played. Many students were involved in the project. Very interesting.

Constructionist theories of Learning

When students build on their learning they are constructing new experiences. Through these new experiences they are are engaged and learning. Project based learning is a great one to use for this because students are actively engaged in the lesson. They are designing how and what they will learn. Rubrics are a great way for students to monitor their learning. The student can use a rubric to determine their grade and keep track of what they need to do to get the best grade.

Computers can be used in so many different ways to help students find information and make presentation. I have also learned that we have a distance learning program where students can be taught a lesson by someone in another part of the country or the world. My advanced art class is going to learn about puppetry in other lands and get to make a pole puppet as part of the class. I have not told them about this yet, but I think it will be a very fun experience for them and me as well.

Mind map

I did not realize that the mind map would not fit to the page like I wanted it to. I do apologize for that. This is still a learning process for me. I do think this gives an idea of how I can use the mind map or at least in one aspect.

Mind map of the Elements of Art

Cognitive Learning

It never ceases to amaze me how interesting the brain and how it works is. Cognitive learning is taking an idea and getting students to connect what they already know to what they are learning. A teacher has to find ways to use students prior knowledge and building on it. If a teacher wants students to take hold of a concept they must find ways to connect with the student and make it relevant. In cognitive learning theories talk about how we understand, retain, and recall information. If a student can relate the information to something they already know it will help them retain it and be able to recall it.

Technology resources that we have learned about this week are very exciting resources. Mind mapping and virtual field trips are two resources that I am very excited about using. I have made a mind map about the elements of art on Bubblus and found it to be very easy to use and make. The virtual field trips are so fascinating. I had no idea they could be so much fun. My biggest problem will be to decide which one to use first. I see these field trips as ways to help kids see and go places that they might not ever be able to go to or see.

I can tell this is going to be a very interesting course and I hope for the next post I can get the information correct that we are suppose to post. I posted last time about the same information that I had posted on my discussion and not about the information we were asked to. I will have to read the instructions better the next time. So now that I know what we were suppose to post about I can do that now. Thanks for your patience.

In our resources this week we learned about using technology for "Reinforcing Effort" and "Homework and Practice".  In my school district we do not have one to one computers for our students and therefore their teachers have to sign up and use computer labs if they want to use technology in their lessons. Some classes use to have 4 or maybe 6 computers in their classrooms and these were used mainly for rewards for doing the assignment and completing it early. The teacher wanted the student to be busy and they would let them get on the computer and play games or do some type of enrichment about the lesson. Technology and computers can be so much more than a babysitter.

Homework and practice are still important in helping students learn the concepts that the teachers are giving them. If they do not practice what they learn soon after they will not learn the concept. In art when we teach an element of art we have the students do an activity or two that enforces what they are being taught and how it works. The problem I see with homework for many classes is that students do not understand the lesson and then go home and do not know how to do the homework because they do not understand the lesson. They get frustrated and then they quit. If teachers had blogs with videos that students could go back to and watch on the lesson when they are at home it would help them to see it again and they could continue to watch until hopefully they would understand. Sometimes students need to get away from everybody else and then they can absorb the information. Blogs could also be helpful for students to be able to post to the teacher questions or even examples of what they have done to see if they are doing it correctly.

Tutorials have become an integral part of learning. As Dr. Orey stated in the DVD tutorials are used from instructions to learning the computer to learning how to play a game. Everybody offers tutorials to give a quit lesson on the subject. Tutorials remind me of what we used in college English classes on books we were suppose to read called Cliff Notes, they were an abridged version of the story just to give you the highlights so you could pass the test. Tutorials are instructions for what you need to know, but not detailed necessarily.

Behaviorism learning is the basic school policy. Students behave they learn, they do not behave they do not learn. Reward good behavior and punish bad is the way of the school. Intrinsic motivation is hard to get when students have been conditioned to believe they should be rewarded for doing what they were suppose to do. Change is hard and breaking out of the mold is sometimes even harder. Using technology as a reward is not the answer either. Students have technology at their fingertips all the time and therefore it does not encourage them to do what they should like it would when I was a student and did not have the technology available like they do today.

Dr. Pat Wolfe talked about last week that students need to use as many modalities as possible to remember the information. I agree that students need to hear the information and practice but I do feel we can use technology to help them find different ways to practice and use the information. We have to make the learning meaningful for the students to want to learn what we have to teach them.

Welcome Back

Starting a new class in technology usage and we will be returning to our blogs again. I am excited and wish  I had been keeping up with it. Maybe now I can get into a better habit of using my blog and updating it with information and pictures of how technology helps in the art of teaching art.

Please join my blog page and make this a fun and exciting journey for all of us. I look forward to great discussions and comments from everyone.