Thoughts on Thing 3

This "thing" was quite alot to digest! It brought home the reality of just how many blogs are "out there!" (The video in Thing 1 said "millions!") I guess one would really have to zero in on specific topics to follow. Time to read/follow all these blogs is something to consider. The blog about "Teaching Learners with Special Needs" made this "time" factor come to mind when the gal(teacher) writing the blog had a list of about 100 "blogs that I read!" Whoa!

The many different examples (suggested list) of how blogs could be used was amazing. I copied many of the ideas and pasted them into a word document to save for use later. Several suggestions were ideas that I had already thought about, and I came up with many other ideas: 1) using my blog to post examples of student artwork; 2) using the blog to serve as a way for parents and other staff to see what students are doing in the artroom; 3) posts serving as an education/learning tool for parents and other staff to expose them to art curriculum, standards, concepts, media, etc.; 4) students could comment on what they liked/disliked about a particular project, and also restate the learning from the lesson; 5) I could provide links to activities that the students could do at home--such as virtual museum visits and art games; 6) I could post an "artist of the month" (such as Pablo Picasso,) with in-depth biographical and art info, and provide links for students to see examples of the artist's work--and then space for them to write an opinion of the artist/works; 7) I could post optional "quizzes" after units are completed on the blog and let students post their "answers."

Another idea that I had was to have an exchange with other art classes--in Newington, in Connecticut, in other parts of the country, and even other parts of the world--where we could share student art work and special projects. I have contacts with art teachers in all parts of the U. S. and also in Japan and Thailand. Now I just need to find the time to get started!

Speaking of the "time" thing, one of the comments that I left as part of completing Thing 3, was a comment/question for the special education teacher: Just how does she prioritize and organize her time to keep up her own blog (which was very impressive,) and all the other blogs that she follows? I left a second comment on "Corneau's Place."

Lastly, I looked at all the "settings" for my blog. One of the things I changed was the "time zone." I noticed that Maureen's comment to me was posted at 5:00 am! I thought, wow, she is up and at it early! Then I noticed that the blog was on Pacific time. Changing it to Eastern time automatically updated the correct time. I also added the email address "newington23" to my blog, so that all my posts will automatically be sent to you. The video clip was very helpful, but I still did not understand all the options or what they were about.

On to Thing 4!