Blogging about bloggers blogging

Blogs are a really great way to share thoughts and information that are a little more in-depth than "posts" in other social media, like facebook or instagram. I feel like the direction of social media is leaning more and more towards minimal and streamlined content like instagram, pinterest or snapchat offers, however, when you want to dig a little deeper, often you're going to end up on a blog page. In fact, many of these other forms of social media have become a way to sift through or curate your own information since the blogosphere has become so saturated. Often I will see an interesting post on instagram or search for an idea for a lesson on pinterest and then get a link from the post or the pin that will take me to a blog to get the full story.
I see a lot of parallels with internet content and printed information and other media as well. Many blogs have been compiled into books and blogs really do most closely resemble chapters in a book to me. It's just a different way to access and search the information. This way of separating information into individual units that used to be only found in a compiled format (the book) happens across many media. What now is streamed or downloaded as an Mp3 (a song) in the same way used to be primarily acquired through a cd, and before that a cassette, and before that an lp. The amount of information is so readily available, that these methods of discovering bits and pieces of the information have arisen to make some sense and order of it all.
So while i feel like the blog is a little bit antiquated in the fast paced development of social media, I do believe it still has an important role, just as I still appreciate and read books and listen to lp records. People can use content rich information in many different formats. Personally and professionally I think blogs are super helpful in providing ideas and instructions about lots of subjects. I read them for recipes, physical fitness articles, and getting ideas and instructions for new projects.
The egalitarian nature of being able to publish a blog is great too because it allows for "regular joes" and those in the trenches of any certain discipline to be able to express and share ideas without having to go through the avenues of publishing in print that really make you have to commit to becoming a writer, rather than someone writing about what they actually do. So this creates a bond between the reader and the blogger, who might themselves be a blogger and share the same profession or interest. It's a unique opportunity and way to share information that I am glad to be a part of.

"Infusing" technology: new methods, but still steeped in culture and traition

Whenever I hear "infusing" technology I can't help but think of infusing tea or those cooking contest shows where they're having an hour to come up with a dish using some crazy ingredient and they go before the judges and say, "Well we've made a rosemary infused custard topped with smoked salmon creme fraiche and a citrus demi-glace." Maybe when we make lesson plans, it even feels a little like that when we have to include the "mystery ingredient" of technology.
Our campus got a class set of iPads this past school year that we could check out, so I was eager, but a little intimidated to include these in one of my lessons. I have small children of my own, so I know the draw of those little screens and how engaged they are with them, so I knew that part wouldn't be a problem, but wasn't sure how getting them started would be or exactly what I was going to have them produce with them.
At the TAEA conference, I attended a session where they used an app to create a group kaleidescope and when I was looking into that app found another similar one that allows you to draw while adjusting the lines of symmetry. Lines of symmetry are used in math TEKS, but are also used to create symmetrical balance, which is part of the principle of balance in the art TEKS. I typically use a project where students use symmetry to create a mask with symmetrical designs. My favorite example to use for this project are Mexican masks created for the celebration of Dia de los Muertos.
We talk about what Dia de los Muertos means, how it is celebrated, it's history and how it differs from Halloween. We use a variety of photographs, books and some videos to learn about the holiday and see lots of examples of the masks, which can be elaborately decorated with many colors, lines and shapes, typically in a symmetrical design.
Next came the "infusion." I have used different projects to demonstrate symmetrical balance from drawings or collages to 3d sculptures that we paint with a symmetrical design, but this time we were going to use the Symmetry Lab app I found for the ipads. What is neat about the app is that you can set the lines of symmetry beforehand, so i taught the students how to select 1 line of symmetry to create a left and right symmetrical design. This allowed them to draw on one side and whatever they drew would be reflected on the opposite side. When you first try this, everyone's tendency is just to play with the feature, so I was sure to allow some time for this. I set a timer and gave them a few minutes to just play and draw what they wanted with the app so that they could get over the excitement and desire to just scribble all over it, then had them focus on the actual project. The students were to create a symmetrical Dia de los Muertos skeleton design using symmetrical balance.
There were a few students who needed some guidance or troubleshooting to get going, but it was not all that different from helping students get started with a pencil and paper project.
We had some really neat symmetrical skeleton designs come from the project like the one here:
(not pictured yet, as I don't have access to my school photos from this computer as far as I can tell)
Saving these drawings was the only troublesome hurdle to the project. I did just an informal assessment walking around the room to be sure students were demonstrating understanding of the concept and principles. We chose a few to save for examples and one for the art show and we had to take screenshots and then have someone from technology figure out how to save those images and email them to me.

Coming up with a more seamless way of saving or sending finished files or screenshots to the teacher would be necessary to make this a practical way of creating more comprehensive or frequent projects. Ideally, students would need to be able to work on something and be able to save it and work on it again the next class, and the teacher would need access to be able to formally assess, but I am sure that will come in time.
Overall, the experience of "infusing" the lesson with some tech may not have been a chef-show worthy masterpiece of a meal, but it was fun for both myself and the students and was a successful step towards using the iPad technology some more this upcoming year!

"Do we get to paint today?!!"

These words are a familiar echo through the halls outside almost any elementary art teacher's room. The kids are lined up, necks craning to see what materials are on the tables, or they've spotted the tell-tale apron smeared with color and they think it can only mean one thing: Painting! I do love painting and it IS my media of choice for my personal artwork, but I, like all other art educators, strive to engage my students with a wide variety of art media, art history, content connections and technology. In other words, there's a whole lot more than painting that happens in the art room, and I'd like to chronicle some of that in this blog.