Educational Digital Content With Kitzu

January 18, 2010 by Hillary Andrlik · Leave a Comment 

Searching for great images and content for your classroom? Then you’ll want to look through the unbelievable resources at kitZu created by the Orange County Department of Education. The online collection of digital kits covers numerous subject areas such as science, music, mathematics, history, visual art and more. The content includes free educational and copy right friendly media resources that are appropriate for kindergarten through high school ages. At kitZu their goal was to, “provide students with the building blocks necessary to build video and multimedia projects that tell a story and demonstrate learning.” With the great organization of these digital resources you’ll have no problem quickly finding school friendly material for those teachable moments and big multimedia projects. Under the visual arts section I found 41 kits alone. This is an amazing resource for educators so make sure to add it to your bookmarks or Delicious account.

A big thanks to @NMHS_Principal for sharing this resource on twitter.

Kits can include any of the following:

  • Animations
  • Audio Clips
  • Documents
  • Illustrations
  • Photos
  • Video Clips

Examples of some of the visual art topics are located below.

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A Great Solution for Bookmarking Web Images

August 9, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik · 3 Comments 

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I’m always looking for different images to help communicate the concepts I’m teaching. The images I saved were taking up a ton of space on my computer and really slowing it down. Plus it wasn’t very efficient for locating what I needed in the spur of the moment. Then I discovered the Vi.sualize.us website as a way to catalog and collect images. If you like Delicious, you will love Vi.sualize.us for bookmarking images you find on the web.

Vi.sualize.us is a free social bookmarking site that allows you to surf the web as normal, and bookmark any images you find along the way.  Images can be tagged so that you can search through your bookmarks to find what you want for your next art lesson. It’s very easy to use, just add a bookmark button on your browser or install a Firefox plugin and start surfing the web. When you see an inspiring image you want to remember just right click (control + click for mac users) or use the button in your browser.  There is even a free app called Cooliris for your iPhone or iPod Touch that will let you utilize your images on the go. The feature that really sets Vi.sualize.us apart from other image sites is the “Safe For Work” feature.  Just click the “Safe ON/Safe OFF” button in the top right-hand corner of your screen to filter out inappropriate images while you browse.

Below are some of the features Vi.sualize.us offers:

  • Bookmark images you want to remember on the Internet
  • Safe ON/Safe OFF filter for work environments
  • Bulk edit
  • Comment on images
  • Add tags to pictures so you can easily search for them again
  • Wordpress plugin to display your images on blog or website
  • A watchlist to keep track of images posted by others you want to follow
  • Can search with the “And”, “Or” and the negation (“!”) operators. For example, you could search for still life apples or oranges.

You can check out what The Teaching Palette is bookmarking by clicking on this link. We also want to see the amazing images you discover around the web. You can share images by emailing info@theteachingpalette.com with your Vi.sualize.us name or by adding it to the comments section below. Then we will add your name to our “watchlist”.

Below is a short video that shows what the Vi.sualize.us site looks like and how to tag and save an image. There’s no sound, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

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The 30 Best iPhone Apps for Art Teachers

August 3, 2009 by admin · 10 Comments 

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Since the launch of the iTunes App Store in July 2008, over 1 billion apps have been downloaded for use on the iTouch and iPhone.  Currently, the App Store has 63,000 apps to choose from and it is no surprise that many of the iPhone/iTouch applications have educational value.  Over the last few weeks, we sorted through our favorites to create The Teaching Palette’s Best Apps for Art Teachers, along with some tips and suggested uses.

best of show

  1. Love Art-Natl Gallery London This is an absolutely beautiful museum app that integrates audio and video presentations based on the collections in the museum.  A great learning tool containing snapshots of a wide range of art history.
  2. Brushes Familiar with the New Yorker Cover that was created using an iPhone app?  It was created with the Brushes painting app and tops our list. Easy to use beginning with the very young. Watch a speed portrait here.
  3. TypeDrawing Draw with text. This fun app uses a single letter or phrase as the drawing tool. A completely new way of drawing (and thinking about drawing). See some examples in this Flickr pool.
  4. TanZen Familiar with Tangrams?  This app combines math and art concepts together.  Move, rotate, and flip shapes to form a larger image. Great for improving spatial intelligence.
  5. Art (Lite version) This art history game features five famous artists.  Can you identify which artist created each work of art? Master this app, then upgrade to the paid version of Art. Another nice feature of this app is the option to load images into your photo gallery for use in other applications.
  6. Art2Go This app is an engaging and useful presentation of 19th and early 20th century artists and their work using audio commentary. Useful for all grade levels and art backgrounds.
  7. Color Splash This is an extremely simple app to use with some amazing effects.  Teach the principle of emphasis by isolating a single image in color while the remainder of the photograph stands in black and white. See how easy this app is to use in this video tutorial.
  8. Animoto Near identical to the traditional web-based version, Animoto coordinates your images to the beat of music.  Great for artist presentations or student portfolios. Completed presentations can be downloaded or emailed.
  9. FlipBook (Lite version) This is one of the best animation apps available.  Features allow for replication of images and transparency effects to see previous slide. Click here for a guided tour of the app.
  10. PixPop Art – This is a challenging and very fun detail detective game. Utilizing fine art, detail images line the right side of the screen while you search for the match. Work in competition mode timing yourself or work at your own pace in Zen mode.

runner-up

  1. 3D gallery Be a curator of your own museum.  Enter this 3-D room and rearrange the paintings or choose your own images from photo gallery.  This would be a great tool to display artwork created throughout the year or to focus on an art time period or genre. Note: There is currently no “save” feature, but if you click your on/off button at the same time as the menu button, you can create a screenshot that saves in photos on the camera roll.
  2. Comic Touch (Lite version) Add some humor to art historical images or commentary to student artwork with this single pane comic creator. Save to photo library or email. Upgrade to the paid version of Comic Touch and get interesting special effects and fonts. Watch an intro video here.
  3. Life Strips This is a great tool for creating comic strips.  Utilizes a wide variety of comic strip templates and speech bubbles. Add photos and utilize filters to for adding special effects. Even add a Google map!
  4. Light Painting Have you ever created a photographic light painting?  While standard flashlights and LED lights work fine, this app offers additional light features otherwise hard to replicate. Use these tips and tricks to get started.
  5. Open Culture - Find a nice group of audio and video podcasts from well known art museums in the “ideas and culture” category.  The same category also contains animated New Yorker cartoons.
  6. AP Mobile Create a search for “Art” and get the latest news articles from around the world.  Useful app for older students to reflect on culture and current events.
  7. Jazz Sculptor Utilize a wide variety of virtual materials and textures to carve a sculpture from a variety of forms.  Rotate image to view at a 360 degree angle.  Nice exercise to understand the subtractive carving process. See the Jazz Sculptor gallery for inspiration.
  8. ScuptMaster3D Create three-dimensional art using a variety of colors with this virtual material that appears inspired by Henry Moore.  Great way to introduce and reinforce positive and negative space concepts. View this video tutorial for an overview.
  9. Architect Envi Deluxe – This app organizes architecture by building name, architect, or century created.  It is presented in a slide-show format with the option to learn more about the building and save in the camera roll for use/manipulation in other applications.  Yet, the best feature of this app is the option to view each architectural structure in Google Maps.
  10. Color Sudoku Forget the numbers – this is Sudoku in color!  Game has a different levels of difficulty and color schemes.

honorable-mention

  1. Eyetricks This app has a nice collection of optical illusions.  Good for early finishers or as intro to an OP Art unit.
  2. Color Wheel -This color wheel uses advanced color theory concepts to reinforce color understanding. Useful interactive app for older students.
  3. Brooklyn Museum Tour the collection of art at the Brooklyn Museum.  ”Randomize” is a nice feature to view artwork you might otherwise miss.
  4. Symmetry Useful tool for teaching symmetry to younger students. Watch this video for a quick demo.
  5. MovieMaker This is a great tool for creating stop-motion animations and time-lapse movies. Since it requires the camera on an iPhone, this app is perhaps most useful as an extension for students who have access to iPhone technology.
  6. PotteryWheel While this is certainly not a a replacement for the hands-on wheel throwing experience, this pottery wheel gives the basic idea of the cause and effect.
  7. Artist’s Touch This app requires little artistic talent but is useful when teaching about abstract art.  Non-objective to representational- reveal your image using a variety of textures and paint tools. Be sure to watch video tutorial to get started.
  8. Google Earth This is a great app to integrate geographic locations of artists or cultures. Watch this video tutorial to get started.
  9. Gallery of Painters Contains a large collection of artists that can be searched alphabetically, by century, or nationality. View basic information or link directly to Wikipedia for detail information.  Useful for research.
  10. Juxtaposer and Juxtaposer Lite This is a fun tool for teaching about Surrealism. Reinforce juxtaposition  by taking a photo of your classroom and a selecting objects from a second photo to create a Magritte-like composition. Watch this video review to see what this app can do.

Ok . . so now what?  Here are some additional tips and considerations to start using the apps:

  • Not all the apps are free, but once purchased, an app can be used on multiple iTouch’s with no additional charge.
  • Most schools do not have access to multiple iTouch’s (yet). But even just one iTouch can be used as an extension for an early finisher or projected on a screen for the entire class to view using a document camera.
  • Some students may have access to a personal iTouch or even a parent’s iPhone.  Create a recommended app list for these students to try out at home. You could even tie it into an extra credit option.
  • Use it yourself to create your own art or brush up on art history.
  • Find useful tips, reviews, and connect with other educators using apps in education at IEAR.org

What are your favorite apps for art education?

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An Alternative to Adobe: Aviary’s Free Design Tools

July 18, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik · 2 Comments 

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If you’re looking for the image editing power of Photoshop or Illustrator without the hefty price tag you may want to consider trying the Aviary Suite.  It’s a free web 2.0 technology with a pro version available for $24.99 a year. Aviary is not only an image editing tool but it’s also a visual social network.

Users maintain a profile, contacts, favorites, access to chat boards, tutorials and more. Images created in the Aviary Suite can be shared with the community or kept private in a user account, and then saved in a variety of formats or downloaded to your computer.

Plus, users can import images from a URL, Aviary Library, Flickr, Picasa or Facebook directly into any of Aviary’s five programs – Phoenix, Falcon, Peacock, Toucan and Raven.

Phoenix does image editing and has tools like layers, masks, effects, undo history, and more. Peacock is what Aviary calls their “visual laboratory”. It features toolaviary-toolss like generators, effects and controllers. Toucan is their color swatches and palettes. It features many of the usual color palette tools but what really was interesting to me was their color deficiency preview tool. It allows you to choose from a list of color vision deficiencies and see how someone who is color blind would distinguish your color palette. It would be a great way to teach students how other people see the world. Toucan is a simple tool, but in conjunction with the other programs in the Aviary Suite you can create some amazing images. Raven is their vector editor program and the first of its kind on the web.  It allows you not only to create complex vector art but to carefully scale and create logos, clip-art, large print ready graphics, and t-shirt and clothing designs.

The newest program is an image markup tool called Falcon. It allows you to capture images from your desktop or a web page and edit them in your browser. It is similar to Skitch or Jing but with additional capabilities since it can be used in conjunction with Aviary’s other programs. Just install Talon, a Firefox extension for Aviary, and you can quickly annotate, mark, crop and resize your captured images. Or you can transfer the images to any of the other Aviary programs for more in-depth editing. Falcon would be a great tool to have students critique an image of their own, a classmates or from a pool of stock photos.

If you teach a computer graphics program at a middle or high school and are looking for an exceptional resource or additional tools to extend beyond the classroom lab, Aviary might be a solution for your program.  Students don’t have to stop creating once they leave the lab since they can log on and design anywhere there is an Internet connection.

Below are two videos featuring Aviary’s Raven and Falcon programs.

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

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Blogs That Promote Unconventional Discussion

May 6, 2009 by admin · 7 Comments 

SchoolArtsWe were thrilled to see The Teaching Palette as a featured blog in the May/June issue of SchoolArts Magazine!  If you missed the article, “Building Your Personal Learning Network, Part 2,” by Craig Roland, you can read it here.

Like an artist that visits a museum for inspiration, we visit blogs to challenge our teaching and thought process.  Put simply, a blog is like a living website; it continually digests and shares information.  Considering our forum, we thought it might be appropriate to add to the SchoolArts list of blog resources:

There are some amazing art classroom blogs certainly worth exploring out there, so please list yours or any you follow in the comments area below!

Art Education Resource blogs:

Art Inspiring Blogs:

  • Esty – that place where artists sell their stuff has a “Handmade Blog” too.  Great inspiration for art projects.
  • Vi.sualize.us Inspiration in Imagery.
  • Hongkiat Great for digital media and Photoshop users.
  • Museum 2.0 The name says it all.
  • WebUrbanist Great alternative art and architecture.

General Education blogs:  (because we are all in this education thing together)

Blogs are most useful when you are notified that new information has posted; either through RSS feed or via email.  Keep up with new postings on The Teaching Palette by clicking here.

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Review: Elmo TT-O2s Document Camera

October 4, 2008 by Hillary Andrlik · 1 Comment 

Tool Name: TT-O2s by Elmo

Grade Level(s): All Ages

Category: Technology and Gadgets

Product Review: One of the most powerful pieces of equipment in my art room is the document camera. It has really changed how I present to the kids. Gone are the days of a class crowding around a large table so I can demonstrate a new technique. Now I never hear “I can’t see” and “He touched me!”  I simply paint, draw or model clay under the camera and the real-time video is projected onto a large screen. Students pick up the techniques faster and with more success.

The Elmo automatically self adjusts to the changing light conditions in the room. The arm can be re-positioned to project a still-life from a side view as well as a birds-eye view. Compared to other document cameras I’ve used, the Elmo picks up more colors in artwork such as the often hard-to-see yellows. The camera can project a standard piece of 12″ x 18″ drawing paper. No more trimming paper to fit an image. It connects to my computer so I can record images from a lesson to use at a later time. And there are many more technical features that I won’t list but you can check them out for yourself at the Elmo website.

Now every seat in my classroom is a great seat which helps maintain classroom management and focuses student attention. Needless to say I love this product! I’ve used three different brands of document camera and the TT-O2 is by far the best.

Bucket Rating (out of 5):

(5) Love it! Need it! Gotta have it now!

Click here to learn more about the bucket rating system or to submit your own review.

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