Uploading a photo

This cat looks so much like my own Abby, the tabby, that I had to add her.  Abby has a fluffy bed just like this one, too.  My  cat, however, has a patio door to look through as she watches birds feeding on my deck.  This one looks like she's just ready to jump through that window.

 I am just so excited that this might work!!  It  makes me feel great to be experimenting with techniques I've never tried.  

Practice for Humanities

http://www.faithringgold.com/ringgold/d06.htm  

This is a link to one of my favorite African American female artist's work.  Although it would violate copyright to post the image here (plus it just doesn't work), isn't it OK to refer my readers to this link?  This artist produces elaborate & detailed quilts depicting various aspects of life, and I just love the vibrancy of her work.  I'm hoping some of our students will find a connection with her in our upcoming humanities project.  

Copyright

Information from yesterday's meeting really surprises & confuses me. As a person who appreciates some "rules", the new guidelines for copyright seem to me almost nonexistent. However, the whole concept of transfer & distribution of information has changed drastically in the last 10 years. THEN, after years of really studying copyright rules, I felt confident explaining things to teachers. NOW, it's just going to require a lot more thought & explanation to students.
On the other hand, it offers so much more flexibility for encouraging students to create, using work of others as a starting point. I am looking forward to working with teachers on classroom wikis & blogs. In particular, an upcoming art reflection project has me excited about watching how students react to new web 2.0 tools.

Followers

Just looked at the followers on my blog; I better get busy about following blogs of others. I also just found by own blog listed in the Google blogsearch!! Yikes. Certainly makes me think about being careful about what I write. What about our students? Do they even think about who is reading what they say, and following their chat rooms! We as educators need to continue to counsel students on Internet safety. This would be a good reason to set up a classroom blog, have students comment on each other's blogs, as well as making it timely for teachers to follow student thinking.

Truth: Can You Handle It?

The article is scary, but all too familiar. There are many times I have observed students lifting paragraphs from a document on-line, piecing them together to form their "paper" and immediately just printing it out to hand in, AS IS. I wonder if they really read more than just a few words; and even more, do they actually understand any of it? The quote, "The idea of having original thought completely terrified me" was very interesting to me. I assume many of our students feel the same way.

Intro to Blogging

Media mavin's the name, books are usually my game, but this time we'll try blogging about the new & exciting opportunities in Web 2.0 and beyond!!