Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

  We are still on winter break here in South Carolina and it has given me time to scroll Twitter more than I do during a normal work week.  I have found quite a few ideas I really liked but this digital portrait one is my favorite (at least for right now 😉). It came from a post that mentioned a Virtual Paint Party. Intrigued, I read through the comments and helpfully someone posted a link to the recorded "party" . I normally scroll Twitter in bed so I spent an hour watching the entire video (much to my husbands annoyance 🤣). The instructor Emma Cottier , a middle school teacher in Canada, was the guest presenter and did an outstanding job of walking through the steps of creating portraits using Google Drawings. There were so many excellent tips. My favorites were changing the color of the neck to provide contrast, using the Zoom feature liberally, and continually moving the originating photo to the front as you work in sections. She also showed student work and gave exampl...

I was tagged on a "Doodle Your View" challenge on Twitter the other day. The idea is that you take a picture during the day and then you add drawings on top of the photo to go with it and then post to Twitter with #doodleyourview .   People were getting super creative with their submissions. Here are a few of the posts: https://bit.ly/3dEMIDT https://bit.ly/374Ct9o https://bit.ly/374TvnR I was tagged by art teacher Tricia Fuglestad who had an animated element in her view . That inspired me to see if I could animate my doodle and I opted to draw a tablet bag and animated it to drop into the collection box beneath it (see first image/GIF).  It was super fun to make and I combined several FREE programs to do it (they all do require logging into a Google Account though): - Canvas to create my doodle overlay - Google Slides to create the illusion of movement between slides - Tall Tweets to animate my slideshow into a finished GIF I made a six minute video overview of the pr...

Last week I wrote about an "If I Ran the Zoo" project . It was a project that I collaborated with an elementary art teacher to complete.  Our big takeaway during our debriefing was the fact that the iPad app was too complicated for our second grade group and we wished we had something web based that would work for our upper elementary students. Imagine my surprise the very same week to come across Canvas , a web based drawing app that allows user to either draw freehand or upload a picture to trace around. The website seemed to indicate it was for Chromebook users but I tested it on a student HP device and it worked just fine. I created a video overview , which I have embedded above if you are interested in checking it out.  The art teacher and I were thrilled with the possibility of extending similar projects to our upper elementary students. I can't wait to see what ideas she comes up with!

Today's is Dr. Seuss' birthday and the kick off of Read Across America Week. In the past I have done some cute book covers  with teachers and students but this year I wanted to try something new (to me).  I follow art teacher Tricia Fuglestad on Twitter and I love how she integrates art and technology. I got the idea for book covers from her last year so I went back to her blog looking for more Seuss related ideas . She had done an "If I Ran the Zoo" project with students and I thought it would be fun to try this year.  I worked with an art teacher (Ms. Peterlin) at Beaufort Elementary School and, because the app was new to us, we decided to do the project with one of  the second grade classes. The app, Brushes Redux , is only available for the iPad (it is FREE) and only our K-2 students have iPads so that limited us somewhat grade wise. Tricia used a different app in her blog write up but I could seem to find it so I found a substitute. This to...

I was looking for Boston Tea Party resources when I came across an   adorable picture  where events of the Tea Party where drawn in a giant eye. That picture led to a blog post that led me to another blog post that led me to yet another post and I absolutely loved all the ideas! As far as I can tell the original idea stemmed from the drawing above. Apparently someone posted it on Pinterest and noted that it could be used for a point of view activity. Instead of the clouds and sun in the eye the student would draw what a character in the story or in history might see from their perspective. Brilliant!!!! So for the Boston Tea Party the eye would be that of a British solider or supporter of the King. What a great way to teach that there is always two sides to every story. I think I would want students to explain what they were "seeing" on the back. In my Boston Tea Party lesson plan I would have students write a letter home on the back as if they we...