A New Year Of Choice

After a whirlwind first year I am wondering what new surprises await us in the NPE Art Room for this new school year. Some of the highlights from last year were Alex's Dragon mural, the myriad of self-generated drawings, paintings, collages, construction sculptures, textile works, prints, animation films and computer art and electronic portfolios created by students throughout our school. It amazes me what our kids can do on their own with a little support from teacher. Just give them an opportunity and they will "take off." This year I am going to look for more opportunities to record student reflective thinking via writing or audio recording or digital video. Clark showed me a cool feature on PowerPoint. All one needs for recording audio directly to a file is plug in a microphone to the reciever jack on the back of the computer, when the file is opened with an image, click on the Insert button, click Movies and sound, click "record sound," click the record button and begin speaking into the microphone. Upon viewing in slide show mode, click on the audio button and there it is! Instant audio recording! This is one of the coolest features on PowerPoint I have seen and I plan on exploiting this feature quite a bit this year. I am going to tell those kids to write up what ever it is they are going to say so they will have a foundation to speak from. I want them to have an opportunity to hear themselves talking so they can critically self-assess their own thinking....another way to get at meta-cognition! Ok, time to go to school so I can get the room ready for the new year. This should be fun! Check back later! Clyde