Artsy Amy's Admirable Blog

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish….

2005-04-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish…
We were beamed various new applications to try on Thursday. One program we received was called Fish. This program allows students to work together. Students try and achieve balance in the population in the pond between big and little fish. This program can be used during ecology units to teach kids how animals live together.
Geney was another program that was learned. This program allows students to virtually make babies, name them, and breed them. This program can be used to teach sex education. Students learn about reproduction during fifth grade so this program would be good to invest in and learn about if you teach fifth grade.
Personally I couldn’t see the use of these programs in my art class. I think that classroom teachers would be able to apply these programs to their teachings of science and reproduction. Also middle school or high school science teachers could benefit from these programs to teach about ecology, population and life cycle.
I look forward to seeing everyone’s lessons next Thursday. It will be interesting to see the different uses for the Palm applications that people came up with. I am excited to show my unit to the class. I think they will be able to apply my lesson to their classrooms.

Palm Pizza Party Post

2005-04-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

Web Discussions about Palms were brought to our attention on Thursday night. I was familiar with educational discussion boards through UNO prior to Thursday. I have read art education web discussions previously. I did not realize that their were discussion boards for Palms and just about every topic out there. I think that they are a great idea. It's comforting to know that if I had a question or problem with my Palm that I could post the question and someone is bound to answer. I also was surprised to see how many hits these sites had. It seemed like the key to getting lots of hits was to have a catchy title to grab their attention. I think that in the future I would use discussion boards for art education purposes. These art education sites are helpful if you are trying new materials or lessons. I could post a question about it and then art teachers could respond with answers or helpful tips. We also learned helpful hits about troubleshooting on the Palm. I have already had experience with this. My Palm decided not to respond to the soft reset so unfortunately I had to use the hard reset. It was very disappointing because I lost all my data including my Sketchy! I should have been hot syncing then this wouldn't have been a big deal. I learned my lesson the hard way.

Programs for Free

2005-03-29T15:44:00.000-08:00

The search for Palm programs to fit your needs was on! Thursday night we were introduced to Freeware sites and sites on learninginhand.com. These websites have Palm programs for just about everyone. I couldn't believe the kinds of programs available. There were programs for every content area and programs that are not appropriate in school. Who has time to make all of these programs? Who would think of Spin the Bottle on a Palm? And who would use it?
Even though Math is my least favorite subject, I have to admit to playing the new Angle program throughout the week. I am getting better! If only the Palm was available to use in the classroom when I was younger, maybe I would have liked Math. I like the program so much that I am going to do my Lesson on Angles and Art! I have been having fun coming up with lesson ideas and components. I think students will have fun exploring the ideas in my lesson while learning through the arts! I am excited to present my lesson to the class and to see all the creative ideas people have come up with.
What is your favorite program you have found for the Palm? What do you use the most? Happy Blogging!

March 10th

2005-03-15T13:28:00.000-08:00

It seems that I missed a fun class filled with sketchy presentations. I did get to catch part of the end of class where we looked at lessons using the Palm from Tony. All I can say is WOW! Silly sentences is so fun and to think that someone made you a program. How cool! I think that color coding the parts of speech is an excellent idea to help students learn.
At this point, the lesson seems really overwhelming. I am not sure what I am going to do it on. I am still trying to brainstorm ideas. I imagine it will be on a specific artist or time period in art. I like teaching art history in my class in fun ways. I hope to come up with a lesson that will be a new an exciting way to teach art history to students. I am not sure what program to use yet or even how to get started. I hope this week of relaxation will spark an idea in me!

From Word Processors to Sketchy Animations....

2005-03-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Thursday night's class was a lot of fun! I enjoyed learning the different types of Word Processors that are available for the palm. I hope to figure out how to do my lessons and daily plans on my palm for next school year. There would be many benefits to having my plans on my palm. It would be nice to have them with me at all times so I can see what I am teaching if I forget. I can also update them easily with the palm. The size of the palm is so nice. I am tired of lugging around big binders of lessons and plans. I wish I would have had my palm before this school year because it would have been nice to have a lighter load when traveling between schools. For my purposes of using a word processor, I plan to buy Quick Word for my palm. I think this program is cost effective compared to the others. It also has all the features I would need. I wouldn't need to do a beam exchange or write anywhere for my purposes. Of course, I love the colors! Everyone needs a program with a lot of fun colors, especially for the background. ;).
Sketchy seems like a great program. At this point, I haven't had time to use mine. I enjoyed seeing what other students have done with their sketchy. I think that sketchy would make learning about science, math and social studies so much fun! I wish I had sketchy when I was in school. I know I would have loved learning about those subjects with a program that allows students to use their artistic abilities. I think sketchy would take a lot of class time to do. I am not a classroom teacher so I can't say if there is enough time for a program like this in the classroom. I just hear that their isn't enough time to teach everything as it is. I could see teachers being Leary about it because of the time issues. I hope not because students are missing out on great opportunities to use their artistic abilities. I still haven't decided if I am doing the sketchy assignment because of the time issue. I know I will want to do something really cool and I am not sure if I have the time to do it right. Hopefully, I will get the vision and be inspired......

SEIR*TEC eBook reflection

2005-02-27T17:27:00.000-08:00

After reading my first Ebook, I learned the following information and also commented on my experiences using EReader.
1. If you go out of the Ereader or your palm shuts off your Ebook stays on the page you left off on. This is a great feature because you could be on page 200 of a book, get distracted and lose your place. It would be hard to figure out where you left off, but not with this feature.
2. Palms would be great for keeping track of lessons and daily teaching schedule. Being at two schools, I wish I had my lessons and daily plans on my palm. It would be a lot more convenient than hauling binders around.
3. My screen was hard to see. I have an older Palm (as we all know) and my screen seem dark and it hurt to read the words. I am thinking that maybe the newer Palms have brighter or adjustable brightness on the screens.
4. Diana from the SEIR-TEC: Recommends Palms because they are a good communication device between home and school. I had never thought about that until I read this. It seems to be an issue how to communicate with parents so using the Palm seems to be a logical step in the right direction.
5. During the same study they talked about the Palm as a way to save paper. I agree! I am tired of getting paper handouts about something I don’t want. I would much rather have the info beamed to me and then I can just erase it or file it away.
6. Another great benefit of Palms is to work collaboratively in the classroom with the beaming capability. Collaborate skills are skills students will take with them in life and use!
7. The study mentioned that keeping them charged was an issue. I think this is also an issue with the Ibooks many schools use. I have noticed with my own Palm that they charge lasts way longer than my laptop which has impressed me.
8. A benefit of Ebook is portability. Face it, you have been stuck in a staff meeting where you are bored. If you are reading the Ebook in an auditorium, meeting, class for personal reasons it is not obvious. It would look obvious if you whipped out the paper back version. This way people will just think you are taking notes! A real bonus.
9. Screen resolution is a problem. It can create eye strain. Will this hurt children’s eye sight in the long run? Screen resolution is something that I think they should get resolved sooner than later.
10. University of Michigan research survey said that students use computers less than 15 minutes a week because of availability. As we all know, if your class had a set of Palms, availability would not be an issue. Students would benefit from technology if they could use it regularly!

I am very excited about the availability of Ebooks. I want to download some Ebooks to learn information that will be valuable in my classroom. I would also like to see what Ebooks are available to read for pleasure. Also I think it would be so fun to design and Ebook. Maybe that will be a future project for my students and I! Thanks for introducing us to the unknown world of Ebooks.

Enthusiastic Educational Ebooks

2005-02-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

It was good to be back in class on Thursday after such a long absence. We covered some more of the basics and then learned about Ebooks. Ebooks are electronic books that are read on the palm. During class was the first time I had heard of an Ebook. What a great idea! Why didn't I think of it? There are many benefits of Ebooks that we covered. For example, Ebooks are read on the Palm so they are lightweight and won't get lost unless you lose your palm. Students can take notes right into the Ebook. This is great so students can have the notes right where their book is. You can also bookmark something which makes it easy to go back to. The best part is there are many free educational books on-line. I would love to learn how to make my own Ebook. I think having students make an Ebook would beneficial no matter what subject area. I would love to have my students work in small groups or pairs to make an Ebook about a famous artist. They could beam them to each other! Then the class would be able to learn about many artists in a fun and new way! I think it's great how true the colors appear on the newer palms. Students could learn to recognize famous artwork and make a connection to the artist. I enjoyed the Ebook on Elements and Principles of Art that Tony made and beamed to me. It would be an excellent resource if I had a class set of palms! I don't think that Ebooks should totally replace paper books. I think that they should compliment them. I think there is something classic about relaxing, reading a book and enjoying the illustrations. My concern with the Ebooks would be if all books went to Ebooks then the beautiful illustrations might be lost forever. This would put many artists out of a job. I believe Tony said that many Ebooks don't come with good visuals.
Do you think something would be lost for children if they couldn't read books with illustrations because they are not shown in Ebooks?

And the blogging continues.....

2005-02-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

Thursday night's class was hands-on as we were able to enter each others data into our Palm. I did choose to take back my new Tungsten E and use the "old" one that I borrowed. I think that at this point it was a good choice for me. If I want one after the class is over, I want to get one with the internet option. I am struggling with using my Palm. I hate to admit that I barely get it out of my purse. I haven't gotten in the habit of using it yet. Unlike Melissa, I am still using sticky notes for notes and lists. I think that the Palm would be more effective instead of sticky notes because I wouldn't loose my Palm. I write notes and lists everywhere then I can't find them or worse I never look at them. I am going to try harder to use my Palm to keep track of homework, lessons, and daily to dos. I hope by the next class in February that I am using my Palm a lot more. As for now, my list for today is on a bright pink piece of paper. :)

January 20th - second class

2005-01-21T13:25:00.000-08:00

Our second night of class was very hands-on. I enjoyed practicing using Graffiti2 to practice our letters. It was more difficult than I thought to write with the Palm. I had a hard time getting the hang of some letters like the "i" and the "r". I think that playing Giraffe will definitely help me with my writing skills. I was happy to find out how to use the keyboard option on the Palm as well. I couldn't find it when I was playing on my own.
Beaming! Beaming is really fun. I know Scott will say that I am a nerd for saying that, but it is neat that that option is available. I am almost surprised that Palm lets people beam games and software. I thought that they wouldn't so people would spend more money buying those things.
I am still not sure if I am going to borrow my Mentor's Palm or keep my own Tungsten E. Since I am on a HUGE cadre salary, I could use the money from returning the Palm. Although since I have been playing with it for about a week now I am getting rather attached. I do wish that I could get wireless internet on my Palm. I think that I would use it more if it had that feature.
I look forward to learning more than the "basics" with my Palm.

Article Review

2005-01-21T13:22:00.000-08:00

Article Review: Handhelds Go to School: Lessons Learned by Deborah Tatar, Jeremy Roschelle, Phil Vahey, and William R. Penuel. 2003

The article states many benefits and some drawbacks for wireless handhelds in the classroom. Some of the benefits are as follows. Their size makes them portable which means they can be used in the classroom and on field trips. They are less expensive than computers and are more flexible. They have no start-up time and require relatively no maintenance. Teachers selected to try Palms with their class found that students were more engaged, could effectively collaborate and were more efficient on lessons. This type of technology helps reach a wider range of students with diverse circumstances. Palms also complement existing technology. Palms can improve classroom discussion by promoting feedback and display and can help teachers understand student comprehension. Teachers report that valuable learning takes place when students can ask questions while working with the palm on an assignment.
Drawbacks include students beaming inappropriate content. Equipment was sometimes becoming damaged from student’s misuse. There were problems with synchronizing the Palms to other computers in the classroom. Teachers noticed that there were too few education-specific applications for their students.
The article also mentions that Palm applications help students to master math and science facts. The students are able to make animations that helped them to visualize the concepts. The Sketchy program helps students to animate drawings from their textbook. These animations allow the teacher to evaluate the students’ knowledge based on their drawings.
Networking was also helpful for teachers throughout the classroom. Five terms were introduced to the reader about networking. Distribution allows teachers to send the same document to every student. Differentiation means a teacher could send different information to different students. Contribution allows a student to send a mathematical function or data to a peer or the teacher. Harvesting means that students can see multiple students data side by side to compare it. Aggregation means to combine all the data to have it displayed.
After reading this article, I was pleased to see all the benefits with using the Palms in the classroom. I think for a science teacher and a math teacher using the animation programs to help students understand concepts would be very helpful. I wish that I had something like that when I was in school. I think that bringing the Palms on field trips brings about new educational possibilities for field trips. Students may be able to get more out of them than they did in the past. The little expensive of palms and the high range of possibilities for them in the classroom makes them very appealing to me as a teacher. The benefits seem to out way the drawbacks at this point. I am sure in the future that they benefits will continue to grow.

First Night of Class reflection

2005-01-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

During the first night of class I learned about a whole world that I didn’t know existed. I was introduced to the world of Bloggers. I also learned that students all over the country use Palms to learn curriculum.
I enjoyed learning about the research about Palms. I had no idea that students across the country were using them in the classroom. I found it fascinating that students as young as kindergarten use them to learn. I can see why students are more engaged when using a palm. They are technology that are fairly new and something they don’t have access too at home. It is important for young students to learn the latest technology so when they are ready for the business world.
At this point I am not really sure how much I will use my Palm after this semester. I hope that I am proved wrong and that I will use my Palm a lot after the class is over. I don’t doubt that students find it valuable to learn with, but I am not sure how I would use it in my classroom. I am excited to learn the possibilities of art and Palms.
I was discussing the use Palms and Blogging to other staff members in my building. I was surprised to hear their thoughts on the topic. I would like to quote one of them and leave you with a question to think about. “Studies show that the single most important factor in a successful classroom is the teacher. Why not spend more on the teachers and not on the technology which will soon be outdated?”