Sunday, November 25, 2012

Monster Exchange: Great Project Idea...

Monster Exchange is a multidisciplinary, collaborative project that offers high motivtion and authentic, Project-Based Learning that involves both Visual Art and Language Arts. The core activity involves creating a monster and drawing it. Next, students send a narrative description of their monster off to a partner school, where another students will "Re-draw" it from the description. Finally, both versions are scanned and uploaded to the web to be displayed side by side, virtually. A very rich, VERY  21st Centry project... This is good stuff!

Follow the links below:
http://monsterexchange.org/ + http://monsterexchange.org/Featured_Classrooms/featured_classroom.htm (for a sample monster entry) + http://monsterexchange.org/about/about_msdescription.htm (for a full description of the project and how it works)

Digication - Online Portfolios of Art Teachers

Whether an Art educator uses traditional materials or digital resources, having an online presence is something that enriches and empowers one's teaching practice greatly. The NAEA's (National Art Education Association) e-portfolio resource, Digicaton, offers a good example of how this is so, as well as a model for all Art-involved educators in how to conceive and structure their own e-portfolios. And while it is certainly possible to create an e-portfolio without the support of a major organization like NAEA (there are plently of free online web-site, blog, and wiki resources that one can use for this), being part of an extended community as this Digication page demonstrates, offers a wonderful dimension of connection.
 
Follow the link...

Saturday, November 24, 2012

THINK DRAW, An Art Learning Tool With Potential...

Follow the link below to the free, fun resource, Think Draw. This could be viewed as yet another of those cute little ditties, fun little doodle app-thingies...OR it could be a truly valuable tool for learning... It all depends on the way one wraps one's brain around its functions and potential. It seems to me that this could be an easy and engaging item to facilitate learning some important image making basics, things like composition, proportion, etc.