My portfolio

http://www.wix.com/angmatm/missmorin

Technology in the Classroom

Technology is definitely an important thing to encourage and teach in the classroom. It is not only important for the future career choices of the child but so much of society is using the internet. The benefits of using technology are numerous. Technology can create better communication with students and encourage them to want to learn. It can also help students who may have trouble understanding or focusing during classroom lectures. Technology is a tool for the extension of learning, not just a facebook checker, and students need to realize this power. The challenges may come in when technology adapts quickly and I cannot keep up. I am quite quick to pick things up but technology is constantly changing. One thing I know I might struggle with are smartphones and ipads. I have never personally had either and they can be quite confusing at first. The most important lesson I will take away from this class, however, is that if you are willing to learn, technology comes quite easily and there are endless possibilities with a tool like technology. If i am to take away anything from this class it is certainly the knowledge that there is always so much more to learn.

Vidjyas and All

The group video project was a lot of fun really. I think my group's video turned out well but I do think it could improve in the editing. There should have been some fades in the music but it wasn't too bad. Next time I think I would spend a little bit more time editing it with my partner but given the circumstances, it turned out great. I already knew how to do most of the stuff presented in class but it was nice to hear it all being taught to me again and I really am not very organized when it comes to filming so I might start getting more organization. If I were to incorporate digital video into my classroom, my age level would be in high school. Film is something that can be a little challenging for students to understand because there are so many parts to it but I think as far as teaching them how to properly organize a project, film is a great way to help them learn this process. The content area would probably be a mock-u-mentary style focusing on an artist and incorporating historical information on them. The preparations that I would have to do include finding cameras that they may use and making sure there is editing software for the students. Some of the challenges would be teaching them the difficult process of writing a script, filming it, and editing it, as well as any technical video information they may need to know in order to properly import the footage. One of the biggest challenges that will arise will be keeping the individual groups from fighting with each other because no matter what age, they all will have their opinions of each other. Here is the step by step process: For their mock-u-mentary, my students will research an artist from any time period and make a script that addresses important factual information on top of an interesting plot. Each film should be around 3 to 5 minutes long. Before filming they will write up a shot list. They will film/act out the artist and what might be his everyday doings as well as the important historical events that befell him. After filming is complete, they will edit the movie on whichever program available and add any sound or effects needed. They will then upload it to youtube. I will need to teach them how to properly edit, some common filming techniques as well as rules, such as the 180 degree rule, some copyright laws, and teach them (if they don't already know) how to upload a video onto youtube. Assigning groups may be the best way to prevent friend drama but if I do this I will have to be sure to give them time in class to film their movies.

New Movie made by Kyle Smolsky and Moi!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajTpYrd1TZQ

Web Graphics and Stuff

Of all of the skills we covered in class regarding graphics, I learned three new things. The first was mainly about how the pixels per inch needed to be 72 in order to make it work properly as a web image. The second was how to resize the image without using a different program. The last was how to save it to web compatible formats. These did not have much to do with the program itself (especially since the program can do soooooooo very much more) but they were still technical things that I needed to know. I don't know if it will affect my image use on the web considering that I do not use images on the web very often at this moment. I guess it could be helpful to teach in the school system, just because everything is going to be more technologically advanced and the more they know about it, the easier everything will be for the students. I don't know how many of them would actually use it but I think it would be helpful to know just so that they could apply the same knowledge to other things as well. I often adapt knowledge of other things to problems that I experience, so I know it helps me when I know the basics of things.

Excel in Class

My five ideas for using Excel in the classroom are as follows: #1. A List of expenses and materials for each project to determine a price range for selling the work. -This would require keeping a budget of expenses such as the price of paint or canvas when making a painting. -Another thing I would have my students factor in is the amount of time spent and tell them to give themselves a base rate of about $8 to $9. -As mentioned before this will help them determine a price range as well as teach them how to manage their own time and money on projects. -NETS-S Standard: 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making c. Collect and Analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions. Since art supplies are incredibly expensive and often times field trips are cut from budgets, I would use excel for encouraging fundraising. I would probably introduce this into art club and there are several different things I could use excel for in this case. #2. If we were to have a t-shirt sale at the school with an original design from one of the students, excel could be used to organize and tally up the data received from the voting process. -A chart could be used to sum up and present the data. -NETS-S Standard: 3. Research and Information Fluency d. Process data and report results. #3. A set goal in mind could be put in place so that the students can figure out how many shirts they will need to sell in order to get the correct amount of money. This could help them strategize and plan ahead as well as teach them to once again make a budget. They could also allocate certain amounts of money collected in different ways if they were doing several fundraisers here. -NETS-S Standard: 1. Creativity and Innovation d. Identify trends and forecast possibilities. #4. Another way that the students could use this is by organizing the information received by the people who bought tee shirts. They could use excel to create a list of the names, sizes, amount of shirts bought by each individual, and forms of payment used. This is a great way to teach students how to organize information so that there are no horrible mix ups and everything is clearly organized. This is an important skill to have because everyone takes money very seriously and if something goes wrong the consequences could be very bad. -NETS-S Standard: 3. Research and Information Fluency b. Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources. #5. This one is specifically geared towards my curriculum and it is supposed to demonstrate the change of worth in artwork over time. The project would ask the question of how a painting sold in the 1600's for 12 American dollars might increase in price by present day. It would ask specific numbers and require a certain formula to increase the currency amount in excel. By using excel as a tool, they would not have to do too much math, but would still get the idea that time increases the worth of an item by a lot! They would also be asked to compare and they would have to give specific reasons why something might increase in price over time and do research to find famous works of art on www.sothebys.com so that they can compare it to the standard prices of artwork during the time the work of art was made. -NETS-S Standard: 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making c. Collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.

COPYRIGHT

I had already known a bit about copyright laws before the class especially in relation to movies being publicly viewed, but there were still a few surprising things to me. First, I had no idea that copyrights were protected in the constitution and that surprised me. I also found it intriguing to know that the laws are somewhat vague and it depends on the people judging the case at the time to see what side they will choose. During the jeopardy game in class, there were times I thought that the copyright was not violated because of one thing, when it really wasn't violated because of some other weird reason such as market values. I have seen copyrights being violated all of the time in schools and outside of them. I had a teacher that would copy books and give them out to the students rather than purchasing multiple textbooks for everyone within the class. I have also had teachers show a film for class that had nothing to do with what the class was learning. Outside of classes there are waaaay too many instances to count of people breaking copyright laws. One of the primary ways this is done is through downloading music illegally. Other ways people break copyright laws are through copy and pasting images and watching movies online for free. The internet has made stealing things much easier and copyright is struggling to keep up. It is important to teach copyright respect to students because they will be using the internet and using information they found and they do not want to be penalized for it ever. I would do it to inform them on what is right and wrong so that they are not getting in trouble doing illegal things. I will do this by making a good example of myself and teaching the students to use their "own" pictures and designs to make art. I think this is a good way of discouraging students from stealing other people's photographs and designs.