Careful What You Post

Social Media Etiquette

This week I did a presentation on Karen Fitzgibbons. She was a Texas Elementary School Teacher who posted racist remarks on Facebook. Her exact quote was: ““This officer should not have to resign. I’m going to just go ahead and say it...the blacks are the ones causing the problems and this ‘racial tension.’ I guess that’s what happens when you flunk out of school and have no education. I’m sure their parents are just as guilty for not knowing what their kids were doing; or knew it and didn’t care. I’m almost to the point of wanting them all segregated on one side of town so they can hurt each other and leave the innocent people alone. Maybe the 50s and 60s were really on to something.” This quote was made right after the controversial McKinney pool party incident in June 2015 where a cop was aggressively holding down young, black children and waving his firearm about. This caused for her immediate dismissal and a request for an apology. I find stories like this very hard to read about as an education major. It is hard to imagine that a person who has dedicated their whole life to teach everyone is so racially biased.

               Chapter 5- The Connected Educator

Chapter 5 of "The Connected Educator" is about connecting through social bookmarking, networking, and blogging. Tags are used to create keywords to describe the information you are trying to organize and make easier to find at a later date. These chapters describe popular bookmarking websites like Delicious and Diigo. Blogs use tags so that way people searching for keywords can easily navigate through large amounts of text. Blogs are used with a variety of social networking to help connect with other professionals. Connecting with other professionals can help build your Personal Learning Network or “PLN.” Social networking sites can help build relationships within your professional industry.

3D Printing on Twitter

This week on Twitter I shared a video link about a great new portable 3D printer. “Olo” can print any 3D object from a set of preset creations, or custom creations using 3D creation software. Olo uses the light from the screen to 3D print anywhere. I was researching 3D printing since someone tagged me in a post about 3D printing he thought I would enjoy. This specific printer is merely for entertainment and is not meant to compete with industrial/professional 3D printers. This specific model is only $99.00. The Olo also allows you to create different shapes with different resins and colors. Overall, I found this product to be a potential tool for me in the classroom and a definite purchase in the future. 

Augmented Your Reality

Augmented Reality

Last week in class we learned about augmented reality and different apps that help make things come to life. Augmented Reality is technology that makes a computer-generated image on a person's view of the real world. For example, I colored a picture in class (on the left). With the use of augmented reality, the picture (on the right) comes to life! I also did another smackdown in class and I think it went so much better than my first one did. My smackdown was on Adobe Sketch. I really enjoy the smackdowns, I like learning about everybody's apps and I really like talking about the apps I use.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality is the process of superimposing digital images into the real world, giving a sense of an illusion or virtual reality. Recent developments have made this technology accessible using a smartphone. Augmented Reality is a new upcoming technological process in the education world. I would use augmented reality in my classroom so students can learn to draw or paint things that they wouldn't be able to see in the classroom. If a student needs to draw an animal, they can use an app to make an animal appear right before their eyes. The animal can also move so this will help them understand it better and be able to create a masterpiece. Also with augmented reality, students can color in pictures and watch them come to life right in front of them. I would definitely use augmented reality all the time in my classroom, I think it's a fun and creative idea to bring into the class. If you don't, believe me, read this article.

Bring a Hippo into the 

Classroom with ZooKazam

ZooKazam is a free and terrific augmented reality app. You print out a target from the Zookazam website or use the back of a dollar, put it on a flat surface, and point your phone at it. You'll see a 3D animal moving in real time and with somebody explaining all the statistics of that animal. It's a really cool app with over 40 different animals including hippos, deer, and whales, plus insects, fish, reptiles, and dinosaurs. There are so many cool and fun ways to use this app in the classroom. This tool can be used for a bunch of different classes like art, science, and English class. The article talks about how you can write about bringing a Hippo into the classroom.

How to experience VR on your 

iPhone with Google Cardboard

Google Cardboard is a virtual reality and augmented reality goggles made by Google. The Google Cardboard is a fold-out cardboard viewer, which makes it very cheap so it will encourage others interest to development more VR and AR applications. Using an iPhone and an app, a split image will appear on screen, but when placed into the Google Cardboard the split image becomes one and it looks like you're in a whole new world. There are some cool apps that let you explore this new world and also some videos on youtube the can be watched through the Google Cardboard. This article goes into greater detail. 

Adobe Sketch on Twitter

Adobe Photoshop Sketch is a great asset for any graphic artist or student studying digital drawing/painting. As an art education major, I am always looking for new tools I can use in my education presently and for my students in the future. APS (Adobe Photoshop Sketch) is a great app for someone who loves to doodle in their spare time or a dedicated artist who transfers his/her artwork from APS to Illustrator or Photoshop and creates profound pieces of artwork. I plan to use APS to teach my graphics students how to create comic strips and import them into Adobe Illustrator to create a more "finished" look. I also plan to use this program to teach more advanced students how to create custom logos and digital paintings. I have attached a video which gives a brief introduction about Adobe Photoshop Sketch and how to begin using the app. This application makes it easy for someone to change the color of their paint, the texture of their brush, and size of their line. Having an application that easily links to bigger programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator makes creating art on location so much easier. I have a sketchpad wherever I go when I use this program.  I have the ability to save my art so I may work on it at a different time or place if need be. Overall, this application can be a fun activity for someone to just doodle and have fun, for a serious artist to use for his/her career, and absolutely every creative level in between. 

Presentation Tools At Their Finest

Blast Off

In class last week, we got to talk to Astronaut Abby (Abigail Harrison) an 18 year old, who wants to be a scientist and astronaut. If she becomes an astronaut, she wants to be one of the first people to go to Mars. She is also the founder of The Mars Generation, a nonprofit organization with a focus on building a stronger tomorrow by energizing our youth about space and educating kids and adults about the importance of deep space exploration. After talking to Abby, we talked about new presentation tools such as Animoto, Pixton, GoAnimate, Powtoon, Google Slides, Office Mix, Prezi, Sway and Haiku Deck. We then had to create a short presentation about what we are going to be doing over spring break.

The NEW Animoto for Education

Animoto is a video creation service that you can add photos, video clips, and music and put them into a video slideshows. The site is updated all the time and it even has a mobile app. Animoto is free for Educators and is a useful tool for the classroom. Animoto can be used in the classroom for countless projects. Students can use the tool to present a concept and a teacher could use it as an introduction to a lesson. I think Animoto is really cool and helpful, I just made a 2 minute video for class trying to get people to switch to my major.

What is Microsoft Sway?

Microsoft Sway is a wonderful new edition to the Microsoft family. Almost everyone is familiar with the main members of the Microsoft suite such as, PowerPoint and Word, but there is no in-between for these programs. PowerPoint is made for formal presentations and Word is mainly used for reports and long writing assignments. Sway is that perfect in-between program that can be used for report summaries, informal presentations, or individual presentations. Sway is not meant for large audiences, but for individual viewing. You cannot create content in Sway directly, instead, you can import content from vastly different sources. You can link your OneDrive, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, OneNote, and many more. You can import information from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into Sway. Sway also lets the user copy and paste a link to the Sway presentation, rather than uploading an entire file, which can help people share information quicker than before. Sway is made for tablet, phone, as well as, computer viewing. This enables the viewer to interact with the Sway presentation easier than a PowerPoint file or Word document.

5 Reasons to Replace 

PowerPoint with Google Slides

The article, “5 Reasons to Replace PowerPoint with Google Slides”, perfectly summarizes the benefits of Google Slides versus PowerPoint. Many presentations are made by multiple individuals. Usually, everyone gathers their information, and then relies on one person to put it all together into a presentation. With Google Slides, everyone can freely edit, comment, chat, and change slides without having to share one file. I like the restricted effects that Google Slides has. I find that many PowerPoints are so polluted with fancy transitions and spinning bullet points that it creates a “cheap” look and feel to the presentation. Google Slides is now offering offline access with their Google Slides App. Their app automatically syncs any changes made by any user and saves it, which can be downloaded and used without internet access. Google Slides allows the user to edit and add slides from their phone or tablet. Google Slides also allows anyone with the link to present and share the presentation. No more worrying if someone brought the flash drive with the PowerPoint document, simply login to your google account and everything is updated and linked. This also makes sharing and web publishing easy. You can either send someone a link to your presentation with permission to “edit” or permission to simply “view” the slides. Overall, Google Slides is incredibly better than PowerPoint in various different areas. 

Pop Art on Twitter

This week on Twitter, I did a bunch of things. I made a video presentation on what I was going to do on spring break. I made the video using PowToon. I really enjoyed using PowToon, it was easy and fast to use and I would definitely use it in the future. On Twitter, I also found this cool article about how to make pop art using Adobe Capture and Adobe Illustrator. The article shows you how to take a picture of an object then place it into Illustrator and make it stand out by using certain tools and colors.

Don't Kill Creativity

LinkedIn

Last week, I actually missed class due to a virus that has been going around in the school I work at. Anyway, I found out that in class we made a LinkedIn Profile. LinkedIn is a social network site designed for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow members to make an identity online and stay in touch with colleagues and classmates. It also lets you discover professional opportunities too. I feel that LinkedIn is a great platform to help educators and professionals in every field stay connected and share resumes with eachother. 

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Sir Kenneth Robinson is expert on education, and speaks about creativity and innovation. He uses humor to make his talks more entertaining and tells stories that the  audience can relate to. Ken Robinson had a TED Talk in 2006 about “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” and shares ideas about western schooling and how they handle creativity. Sir Robinson started off by talking about how children all have creativity, and they aren't afraid to be wrong and how they are our future. Ken says that our education system isn't changing to fit the needs in society. He also, says that students are rewarded for academic talents, but not for creative talents. Robinson also says, that creativity is as important as literacy, and that both side of the brain should be rewarded. He says that, “Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects: at the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts." and this shouldn’t be. All parts of education should be treated equally and by not teaching students all subjects equally you are doing them an injustice. The last thing he said is that he wishes to incorporate creativity into today's education, since it's just as important. I feel that art, drama, and any type of expression in a developing mind is very important. I grew up with an art teacher as a mother and feel that art is just as important to me as math and just as useful.

Chapter 3- Untangaling The Web

Chapter 2, in the book “Untangaling The Web”, talks about presentation tools. The chapter talked about other presentation tools other than PowerPoint. Prezi is a good example of a presentation tool that can be used as an alternative to traditional slides. Prezi is one large canvas that allows you to zoom into various parts of the page to show big ideas presented there. SlideShare is a slide hosting service that users can upload files privately or publicly. Poll Everywhere is used both in and outside of the classroom to create multiple-choice or open-answer polls that students can awnser. VoiceThread is a sharing tool that allows users to add images, documents, and videos, and others can add voice, text, audio file, or video comments. Using a variety of presentation tools can really help make a boring presentation interesting. 

Acrobat on Twitter

Adobe Acrobat is used in a variety of ways. Specifically, Adobe Acrobat is an essential application for educators. There are a variety of tools that can be used for Adobe Acrobat. You can sign, edit scanned document, make comments, redact, add, highlight, and collaborate with ease. This program makes it easy to have multiple people work on the same document. It can also help scan in documents and keep them on a hard drive versus having stacks and stacks of paper. I use Adobe Acrobat all the time. I send PDF's to people for designs and even use it to scan important personal documents so that way I always have a back up copy.