1. Discuss three of the websites of your colleagues and write comments in response to their blogs (in their blog). Identify the three Blogs where you are making comments.



Aurora, I love your literacy page and how organize and cohesive it is. “Grammar Dance” seems interesting to me. Did you watch the video, < http://www.teachers.tv/video/1430#share>. I didn’t know kinesthetic demonstrates students grappling grammar and creative writing. Good article.



I love Sharon’s Home Page because it’s so “clean”. I thought she kept the “K.I.S.S” theory. It is classy through its white background and the nice music with the piano. It’s presentable and user-friendly.



Sarah, I love your homepage. It’s so clean and user friendly. I can see that you are an artist. I love the quote. Also, I see that you are promoting yourself and this web page is a great tool. I need for you to show me how you do your layout on your homepage (I’m so jealous). Also, I would like to give a shout out to the green group, you guys’ project are informative and may be put to use. Again, good job.

Blue Group Video from Presentation

Here's the video that the Blue group wanted to present to the class during presentation.

My animation Double YIKES!!!

Again, my inspiration for this web page was the Cotton Club during the Harlem Renaissance. My animation is a still picture of a couple dancing. I used the East Gif Animator for windows. I manipulated this photo by using the effect of rotating and spinning to give to some type of illusion that they are dancing. So I found this upbeat tune which people may know called the “Maple Leaf Rag.” I used this tune because it was upbeat and it seem like a tune that people from the Harlem Renaissance dance to. So enjoy.

My Movie YIKES!!!

My inspiration for this web page was the Cotton Club during the Harlem Renaissance. So for my movie, I am doing still images that represent the Cotton Club and the Harlem Renaissance. The Cotton Club was a famous night club in New York City. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and Billie Holiday; it generally denied admission to blacks. During its heyday, it served as a chic meeting spot in the heart of Harlem, featuring regular Celebrity Nights on Sundays. The music I chose was Fletcher Henderson’s “Stockholm Stomp” which was performed at the Cotton Club. The only thing I am concerned about is if it flows like Gilbert’s movie. I just need more practice.

Observation at MS 131 Dr. Sun Yet Sen School

Today in my Inquiries class, the class went to MS 131 to do an observation. We observed Mr. Ben’s eighth grade Social Studies class. He told us his students had a project using Windows Movie Maker. The class’s topic was did historical events shaped America’s values (one group has a pro and the other has a con). They used different clips of the Iraq War and President Bush’s speech. I thought they did a wonderful job to prove their side. I’m an amateur to Windows Movie Maker and Mr. Ben’s students were like professionals. Just like to share that with you guys.

Journal Entry 2 (Group Project)

Go Big Blue!!!
Today, we received an email from Dr. Gilbert stating: “Multiculturalism is a powerful topic. How can involvement with technology advance our understandings across culture? In many ways, the Internet itself is already a tool for crossing boundaries and learning about cultures. What are some ways to harness this for your presentation?” In the group today, we discussed how we can incorporate technology in multiculturalism and arts classroom. So the group was playing around through the internet and we were getting impatient. So I added, why not make profile for a country. They agreed and the girls picked what country: KOREA!!! (their country of course). So, we got all the media, visual arts, short stories, music, and videos of different dances and put it all on one page. The other thing we said is that we want it to be clean not too cluttered like myspace. Our inspiration was facebook because it was clean, user friendly, and not too flashy.

Journal Entry 1 (Group Project)

Go BIG Blue!!!
Today in our group we discussed what can educators and students utilize through technology to enhance the teaching and learning experience. Jung actually said the idea multiculturalism through arts education. We all agreed. So we entitled our project P.A.M (Performing Arts in Multiculturalism). We decided to address the definitions and goals of multiculturalism in the performing arts classroom. We wanted multiculturalism in music and dance education in the United States because we notice that there are parallelisms in general education which creates literacy brought by different events (socially and historically). The purpose of this project is to have different philosophies pertaining to multiculturalism and relevant lesson plans. So we broke the project up. Seung had to search for youtube videos and audio media which entailed multiculturalism. Jung had to research multiculturalism through dance. Finally, I had to research multiculturalism through music and start on the powerpoint presentation.

Enhancing English Literacy Skills

2. Discuss some ways that you can use your art to enhance students acquiring English literacy skills.
Drawing on students' background knowledge and experiences, can be an effective way to bridge gaps and to make the content more accessible.
1. Learn about your students' backgrounds and find culturally relevant resources to teach content.
You can find ways for your students to contribute their own cultural experience in the classroom. This may mean asking students to show how a topic connects to their lives or to give an example of a particular idea as they would experience it in their native country. Students can bring music or art from their culture and describe its significance and meaning to their classmates. Students can also interview their parents in order to learn more about their memories and experience. These strategies will work in mainstream classes as well. For example, if U.S. students are studying civil rights in the 1960's, they may remember information better if they relate it to historical and cultural information shared by family members.

2. Look for resources that go beyond the textbook
Try to find materials that will engage students and involve them in the learning process so that they find elements they can connect to and learn from. These may include:

Art
There are many ways to bring educational content to life through art, and to use art as a starting point for discussing different cultural traditions. Using artwork that depicts day-to-day events and celebrations can also be a provocative starting point for a discussion about the similarities and differences between other cultures, and a way of affirming the students' daily lives, traditions, and lifestyles in the classroom.
Music
Students are a great resource for sharing music, and older students especially like to share music, discuss the meaning, and connect it to content. If the song is in a language some students do not understand, ask the student to translate it and discuss the meaning. Songs from other countries often describe political events or re-tell folk stories in poetic form.
3. Use literature, stories, and folktales from other cultures as a way of encouraging students to connect what they are reading to their own experiences, and Use storytelling in the classroom.
Many cultures have a rich tradition of storytelling that often gets lost in the U.S. with the focus on developing literacy skills. Many of the common stories in cultures have been translated and written in story form, but children also enjoy telling and acting out stories.
In the end, the efforts that teachers make to add a rich, cultural dimension to the curriculum will enhance student learning and comprehension, and create excitement in the classroom.

Dewey and Technology

3. In educational settings, discuss how technology enhances the teaching and learning environment. What do the viewpoints of Dewey, Bruner, Elliott, McLuhan, and Eisner provide for our consideration when thinking about technology, performing arts, and the process of teaching and learning. Although John Dewey wrote in the late 19th and early 20th century, not the much talked about 21st, his thoughts seem increasingly perceptive.

Many people working to construct technologies for learning now cite Dewey, primarily in terms of his advocacy of learning by doing. They propose models for learning based on immersion in practices of the larger society. This approach would certainly find some support in the progressive education movement that developed from some of Dewey's ideas.

Challenging us to reflect on what we do, Dewey would ask us to pause to think more about how learning through technology serves as a point in the development of experience. Dewey would certainly value learning about new technologies, especially if that were through participation in authentic social practices that use those technologies. Finally, Dewey would certainly value learning technology, if it means that students become more capable of participating in society and enlarges the scope of their abilities to communicate.

Green Team Response: Facebook in Classroom

I remembered the Green Team group’s discussing social network such as twitter and facebook. Facebook’s popularity is uncontested but questions remain as to its role and purpose in an educational setting.

Yes, we know that facebook is Social but according to research it increases a sense of belongingness; build bonds between classmates; and increase bond between students and instructors.

The key debaters are:
CON

“I have seen it [technology] used as a delivery system, then as content in the classroom and finally as a classroom, building and campus itself, and in every case pedagogy changed to accommodate the interface. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Unless we impose that logic on social networks, they will align educational methods with corporate motives…”

PRO –

“Social networking has arrived in hundreds of thousands of classrooms and is attempting to show that technology in education is less about anonymous chips and bytes filling up our children with knowledge, less about teachers reinforcing a ‘chalk and talk’ style with an interactive whiteboard, and less about death by PowerPoint bullets. It’s more about helping learners become more world-aware, more communicative, learning from each other and understanding first-hand what makes the world go round.”

I thought there project was very informative and it’s a thought when I start teaching.

Technology in Arts Classroom

It may seem an irony to some, but technology is playing a significant role in ensuring that the arts are a core subject area in the K-12 curriculum. Interactive networking technologies are providing students and teachers with greater opportunities to experience firsthand the visual images, sound, and motion that embody the arts--as well as to discover the interdisciplinary and multicultural dimensions of arts education. This natural synergy between the arts and technology in education is helping artists, arts educators, and generalists to shape a new grassroots vision and knowledge base for arts education that we believe has three key components.

First, it is clear that arts education must evolve rapidly as a community of interest that nurtures itself through purposeful and dynamic interaction among its members, similar to the high level of Internet-based sharing of ideas and examples among students, teachers, and professionals that has existed in science and math education.

Second, technology-based tools will enable teachers and students to have greater access to arts-based materials and resources. Students and teachers will no longer be limited to 45-minute art and music classes and infrequent (if at all) field trips to galleries or performance halls. The Internet and new multimedia applications will provide opportunities to experience the full range of visual and performance content in real time and to access them in multimedia databases.

Third, arts education in the future will be affected by technological applications that offer new means for creating art, whether visual or performance-based. Networking technologies are providing students with tools and facilities to extend hands-on experiences beyond the traditional classroom or studio.

The good news is that there is a rapidly growing networked community of artists, arts educators, and general educators who have embraced technology as an exciting vehicle for introducing young people to the visual and performing arts.