Just wanted to share a FREE app that I have on my iPad to be able to reference the CC Standards easily. It's called "Common Core Standards" and it's super easy to find all of the standards for each of the grades just by tapping what grade level and then subject area you are looking for.

It took me a bit to get back to this.  First of all, I wanted to say I was very impressed with the day of learning and I want more.  I want more time to learn, to play, to collaborate, all while support and knowledge is right there in the room.  The experience was inspiring and as an artist, it got my creative juices flowing; however,  I need more time to experiment with the medium.  So, I hope Avila will provide more of these opportunities.

My purpose for using technology as a part of my pedagogy is to increase the amount of time my students think about art.  I teach 2nd-8th grade art and I see all of them every three days for 30-42 minutes.  It is not a lot of time to create art, much less learn actual concepts.  Therefore, I am entertaining the idea of utilizing technology in the form of flip instruction. 

My true goal is to be able to introduce a concept via technology at home, so that when they come to class, I can provide just a brief overview of the concept, which hopefully will allow more time to create in class.  Another goal is to intrigue and get them excited about the possibilities.  This medium can also provide students who missed class, need some extra support, or want a bigger challenge, the opportunity to access the information and explore the concept while at home.  As well, the resource would allow an easy way for parents to see what their child is learning in art.

I started to play with Storify to accomplish this goal and I can see the potential.  However, with guidance, I explored the possibility of blogging.  One of the concepts I do not feel I have enough time to teach and encourage deeper learning is the art critique process.  So I created a blog in Blogger, in hopes to have my 6th-8th graders learn and develop their skills in critiquing art.  I tried to start easy, without too many parameters.  I think the next step, I will create a google doc where a small group will find a piece of artwork that communicates about politics (trying to tie in the election) and together, they create a formal critique to share...or something like that by November. 

Anyway, here is the link and I welcome your comments!!!  Please!  :o) http://daieartcritique.blogspot.com/2012/07/art-in-politics.html

Edmodo & Storify

There were many great tools introduced today!  As always, there's never enough time to really delve into the deep end, but I am planning to implement Edmodo.  Of course, at some point I have come across Edmodo before and actually had an account created but failed to use it in any kind of meaningful way beyond creating a login!  I like that it has a FaceBook like appeal.  I think this will appeal to students and, hopefully, staff!  I have several ideas about how it could be used in our school.  I plan to create an Edmodo group for a group of students I have participating in a novel advisory panel.  This seems like a good place for them to post comments about the books on our list as well as add additional content like author websites, book trailers, and related media.  I have used a blog in the past, but middle schoolers aren't as keen to use blogs as they are to use something like Facebook.  I will start out using with the group of students in my school and if it goes well perhaps we'll expand it to the other middle school libraries in our district participating in this student advisory group.  I also think it could be a good venue for my work as our Professional Development Chair.  This would be a handy place to address questions and post related links and documents.  I will be looking for additional resources to empower classroom teachers to use this tool.

Storify is the other tool I was intrigued by today.  It is in beta and I had some trouble adding content in both PC and iPad platforms.  I don't think it is ready for widespread use.  It also has some limitations in the kinds of content you can add.  I think it may be less intellectual than we are imagining!  It may be the "People" rather than the "Newsweek" type of news that is best suited to its capabilities at this time.  :)  It may evolve over time. You can add a "storify this" button to your browsers toolbar.  That makes it easy to grab web content.  That content is then added to your storypad.  It can then be dragged and dropped in your story. Be sure to refresh your page if you are going back and forth between pages/tabs because your new content will not automatically show up.

See my storify with additional resources for both tools.  Lisa

Wow!  Am a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information presented in such a short period of time.  I attended workshop thinking I would develop a lesson plan to use the technology that was presented, but instead decided to use Storify to create a place to share with my fellow librarians and staff in my building ideas on Common Core and technology apps and web tools that they could use to support the various standards in Common Core.  I have started my "story" but need to add some more information to the site before I publish it.  I hope to be able to share this at my library inservice next Thursday.

Using Storify to Curate Multiple Art Projects

One of my goals for this year is to really give my 5th graders some creative freedom with their projects. As there are still many objectives I have to cover I can't just give them complete and utter creative freedom. I thought a baby step would be to at least give them options on what project they want to do to meet a specific objective. Up until now I haven't been sure on how to accomplish this...Enter Storify.

1-Pt Perspective - 5th Grade

Curating with Storify

In preparation for the workshop I created my first Storify posting. Here it is embeded in this workshop blog. I was able to create this is less than a half a day.

Ridiculous Innovation Creative Applications Creations

This space is for participants of the July 31st Day of Learning. 

Please add your post to this section of the Ridiculous Innovation blog. 

Share your creations and curations with us. Also feel free to share 

your thoughts, learnings, and concerns as you go through this process.