Blog post 1

I hope to gain a well-rounded knowledge of not only educational websites and there potential, but also new and different programs that can help me stay connected, and organized within my classroom. I look forward to gaining a knowledge base with sites like moodle, webquests, wikis, and others that I do not yet know. I also want to learn about where technology is heading in terms of education and what the current ideas are on student laptop ratios and testing online. For me technology is huge in my district and as the art teacher, where most of the learning is hands on and project based, it is challenging to find new ways to integrate technologies into state standards within my curriculum. Some experiences that I may be able to offer to other students during this class session would be my knowledge of smart boards, document cameras, and visual sites such as photoshop, and illustrator.
When considering a technology integration project I would like to find a website or program that is free and easily maneuverable for fourth and fifth grade students that we could create artwork on. Programs like Paint seem out dated and I would like to try and find a newer technology to share with my students and have them create a work of art on the computer and then recreate the same image using art materials and compare and contrast the two. I feel like I will use a lot of the information gained from this class to not only make my life easier and have that much more information available for my students in a differentiated way, but I feel like the class content will also help my confidence in my own technological abilities.