Google in Education E-book

Google has just released an e-book titled:  A New and Open World for Learning.  Most of this book is just an overview of apps that Google Apps for Education has to offer(marketing alert!) but what is most intriguing is the revamped Google in Education website.  Teachers will be mostly excited about the lesson plan index and the classroom tools index.  The classroom tools index provides some overviews of the apps available while also providing some tutorials and how-to resources for using the tools Google Apps in Education has to offer.

If you have time in your busy schedules, I recommend reading the e-book (you have to hash through some of the propaganda, but there is a lot of information in there that is nice to know) and visiting the lesson plan and classroom tools indexes where you could easily find some inspiration for what to do with all of these apps in the classroom.

Life in Elementary

Using one of the comics tools from the previous post, I made a comic that depicts how I feel every day when I have lunch duty...Especially when it has been raining and the students haven't been outside for recess for a few days!  Did this comic while demoing the comic tools for 3rd grade Project Learning students.

Lunch Duty by polstonart

Comics in the Classroom

After reading the post  Using comics in the classroom, I went on the web to look for some comic creator tools to use in my Project Learning classes.  Creating comics can be a fun way for students to develop their skills for planning a storyline. Comic creation is also a good way to get reluctant writers started on creating a story.  Here are some of the resources I have found.  Also, I have placed these tools on the web tools page of the school splash site.

Bitstrips

MakeBeliefs Comix

Garfield Comic Creator

Comic Master

Superhero Squad Create your Comic







All I can say is that if these were around, I probably would have written more as a kid.

Moose-terpieces: Nick Jr does Art History

Caught Nick Jr. doing some cool art history the last week while my daughter was digging on some Yo Gabba Gabba (still one of her and mine's faves).  Great little piece with our favorite mascots Moose and Z as they discover Picasso's Still Life with Guitar.  I made a mental note to myself to look for more and promptly forgot, but luckily, An Art Teacher Blog that I follow (Adventures of an Art Teacher)  posted about it and collected the links for me!

Mary Cassatt "Mother and Child" 

Paul Klee "Castle and Sun"

Pablo Picasso "Still Life with Guitar" 

Georges Seurat "Looking Upstream"

Live clay! 4th grade score and slip demo today

This morning I had a student record our scoring and slipping to complete our portrait mugs...

Students are working on them now and they are looking great!

Daily Awesome: Automatoon

Automatoon is a free online animation tool that has simple tools easy enough for a KDG student to use, but in the hands of someone creative and willing could create complex animations that you can post to anywhere on the web.  

Alas, I waited to long to post this find as the link will take you to a message from it's creators which are not allowing any new users and are collaborating with  AnimAction.com to release anew version as well as a version specifically for classroom use.  That was in October.  Let's hope they are at work on this and get it to the world soon because this would be a lot of fun to use in the classroom letting students animate scientific changes or create a verb word and giving the word that action.  Possibilities are endless and students will love to get their hands on this!

Doodle Time!

OK kids, it is time to get out the crayons (or whatever you fancy) and take a swing at the Doodle for Google contest!

The contest is open to K-12 students in the United States. The winner will receive a $30,000 scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for his or her school. Submissions for the contest are due by March 23, 2012.

The theme this year is:  "If I Could Travel in Time, I'd Visit..."

Need some ideas?  The Google Doodle archives is filled with old doodles used by Google (My favorite is the 20,000 Leagues submarine voyage).

Download Google logos and submission forms here.

Happy Doodling!