These Bloggers Rock!!!

Check out the kids on there first day of Blogging. Oh what a day we had. We laughed, we cheered.

As they say in the art dept., "If the clay is soft, the emulsion is fresh and the pencils are sharpened, creativity will flow like hershey kisses in a warm jacket pocket." - Bird Spirit

Open it up to research - I mean come on, you're already on the internet.

One of the greatest parts about blogging is that it's on the internet (for more information on the internet go HERE). I frequently find myself asking the students to find imagery, articles or artists that interest THEM. This way they can feel more attached to the assignments and find exemplars of artwork that could influence their designs. Similar to when the students are making a post on their own work, I provide them with a few brief questions to get them going.

An example post I had them research was:
Find an image online that you find interesting. Write 4-5 sentences on why you are interested in it, what you would like to learn from it and how it could help benefit your artwork. Make sure to include a link and an image of the artists work.

Here is Mikayla's response to the questions:

Interesting Image

"This picture really interests me. I think that it is so cool how you can take words and from them into a picture. I also like how not only is it a picture but it also uses color within the picture so that it is not just a solid color. It is also amazing how even though there are words making the picture the artist was still able to use different shades of colors to produce the overall picture. Another thing I like is how even though the entire picture is flat, the lips stick out at you because they are not done with words. I would like to learn how to create these types of pictures with turning words into pictures. This can help me with my artwork because I love doing things that are different from everyone else and out of the ordinary. Using this kind of technique would set me apart from everyone else even more so. This picture is sooo cool and interesting to just look at."

Dude! What should I write about!!???

Oh the age old question from high school kids. "Dude, I mean, dude, I don't know what to write about." Well that is where we come in as their teachers.
I found it really helpful to come up with a series of questions that the students would have to answer each time they made a new posting concerning their work. This not only gives them some guidelines, but allows you to structure the information and to see if they are learning the content.
Here is a link that I put on the side bar of the class blog for electronic design. CLICK HERE.

Check out Jocelyn's posting of her Quote Design.

"This is my design for the quote poster project. The man in the yellow jacket with his arm raised is Freddie Mercury. He was the lead singer of the rock band Queen in the 70s and 80s. Unfortunately, he died of AIDS on November 24, 1991. I chose the quote "I always knew I was a star and now, the rest of the world seems to agree with me" because I wanted to do a design with Freddie Mercury. This was a sentence that he said during an interview with a magazine. I incorporated stars in my design because they went along with the quote. The white stars are filled with the text of the quote. I chose the background of a checkered pattern because Freddie Mercury often war leotards with a checkered pattern. I originally was going to make the pattern black and white but I wanted it to look somewhat 3D so I had to use gradients in order to do that. Using the gradients made it darker. I chose the yellow jacket as the only item with color because I wanted to draw attention to Freddie. He is the focal point of the design. I also added a yellow glow around his body to attract attention. The glow gives it a kind of ghostly feel I think since he is no longer living. I hope you like this and let me know what you think please. I think if I had more time I would improve the background and make the quote in the stars more readable. RIP Freddie :("

To Blog or Not to Blog

Blogging offers students with a chance to not only share their own artwork, but to comment on their peers work as well.

Questions that commonly arise are,

• "Is there away to monitor who posts comments on the student's blogs?"
  
• "Is there any harm in allowing the students the freedom to post comments on others class blogs?"
• "Can you control who sees the blogs"

Well here are some of my personal thoughts and experiences on these questions.

• Whenever a person posts a comment their user name shows up on the posting. If you are using the blog in a class setting, you as the teacher can ask the students for their administrator names and passwords when they set up their site. This way you can have access to the blog.
• In any situation in a class setting where you give students the opportunity to speak freely about each others work there is a chance something inappropriate or harmful can be said. The teacher needs to set the guidelines and expectations clearly ahead of time and make sure that they understand this is a class project with regular class consequences for bad behavior. They also will know that you have their user name and also their password so you can step in and remove any harmful posts.
• One of the great parts about using blogs and especially Blogger.com is that you have many privacy settings to work with. How I run the blog lesson is to have the class blog open to the public. This way you can share your blog with other educators, students and colleagues of any kind. The students individual blogs are setup in a way that the only people who can view their blog is by them inviting them through email. Once they receive the invite they have to accept the invitation and now are free to browse the blog. This means that the administrator of the blog has complete control over who can view it and at the same time, they know who is posting comments on it.
  

Nine Benefits of Blogging

There are many reasons why blogs can be a great tool in classrooms, for individual use and for use in the greater community. Blogs can be used as an online journal to share personal thoughts and opinions on events or different topics, or can be used as an online forum for discussions about relevant classroom topics. The possibilities of a blog are endless. It is how the administrator chooses to use it.

I found a list from the blog Online Community Engagement that discusses the benefits of Blogging. Take a look and see how communities, companies and organizations can use blogs in the post Nine Benefits of Blogging HERE.