Here are a few screen shots of the Powerpoint on Louis Wain. 

I tried to focus on using the same font (Arial Rounded) and keep my bullet points to a minimal.  In the past I had more text than images and didn't explore Powerpoint incorporating video links and multimedia motion elements. 

In Fall of 2013, I presented a 5min The "life and works" of Louis Wain to my ARE611 Art Education and Special Needs class.  I used word for that assignment - this week I recreated this information using Powerpoint.  I practiced transitions and inserting a movie on page 6 of my cranky, Mr. Beebz.   My first time using and exploring Powerpoint was in ARE630 Museum Literacy that I took last spring 2014... and this is my first time using PP again!  

Note: All of Louis Wain's books are in the public domain in which illustrations were taken from the World Wide Web for this assignment. 

Week 4:  I was introduced to Microsoft Excel. I have been using this tool at the school where I work for many years, however I never had a proper introduction until now!  We normally just use ready-made documents that the exec administration sends out to us – reports like course schedules or budget spreadsheets.  I never knew how to create a formula until today.  

The following list is taken from Module 4 of AAU’s ARE615OL

Excel can:

•   Record and calculate grades

•   Record student attendance or participation

•   Keep track of supplies/inventory

•   Establish program budgets

•   Keep track of income and spending

•   Keep track of various types of donations

•   Keep track of employee and/or volunteer hours

•  Create charts to graphically represent data

Today I learned about formulas and graphs.  I didn’t realize this tool could be used to record and track attendance plus grades.  Here are a few examples of my practice spreadsheets and graphs.

This graph shows a sample list of students and their grades for an Art History Assignment

Using Excel I was able to extract each student’s scores and create individual graphs.  This is a nice visual tool to share with students so she/he can see visually how they scored.

This week I also explored Rubistar.  This is a website that helps educators create rubrics.  What a great starter tool!  Often I feel stuck looking at empty cells or graphs, but with Rubistar the content is pre-filtered and populated.  A teacher can use this as a guide to further tailor the rubric to the course content. 

Here is my sample from Rubistar – using a rubrics I created for Learner Blogs.  I am still going to try and edit this to fit the assignment more. 

I am just finishing up my third week of ARE615OL Integrating Technology into Art Education Settings at the Academy of Art University this spring.

The first week was a nice overview of learning about Web 2.0 tools.  This was the first time I had ever heard of this technology.  Web 2.0 is focused on the ability that people can collaborate and share information online.   Some of these collaborative platforms are like Google docs.  Our first assignment was to create a Google docs, which was another first for me. It was a very comfortable platform and I hope to explore and learn more about Google docs.

The second week I worked on a course assignment collaborating with Jennifer Chipman.  We focused on a Painting Assignment: Capturing Turbulence in Desert Skies and referenced Van Gogh's paintings that depicted turbulent skies. It was a fun learning experience to exchange ideas with Jennifer, as she is an art teacher at an elementary school. Since I have not taught before it was great to get realistic feedback from an educator on this art assignment -- it was hard for me to judge expectations and formulate a realistic timeline.

I invite you to take a look at our Painting Assignment: Capturing Turbulence in Desert Skies

Our assignment was inspired by Math and Van Gogh's The Starry Night as seen on Ed Ted.  

The third week introduced us to Blogging.  Though I did explore blogging in 2008 when I was taking a photography class at AAU, I dropped exploring this platform once the class ended.  I am excited to learn about the new tools offered and incorporating more multimedia elements into my posts.  This week was interesting to learn about Educator blogs vs. Learner blogs... I suppose I have always seen myself as a Learner blogger... and for now I'm quite happy in this arena. I find Learner Blogs more interesting - perhaps it is the author's voice and their interests and curiosity that lure me in.

Welcome to my ARE615 Class Blog!