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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rq5NnQNPpY

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A blog could be a useful tool for education, in or outside the classroom. Blogs can be used for collaboration, sharing ideas or newly discovered information and it can be spread far and wide. This tool really is limited only to by you, the user. Blogs can be developed subject specific, group specific - school groups, class specific, topic specific, friends or family. No matter the reason for starting a blog, they can be a useful communication tool.
In an educational setting, a blog can be used as a reflection tool. Students can post their thoughts about a given concept from class. They can post questions that they forgot to ask or did not feel comfortable asking in the classroom during class time. For those students that missed class, the blog posts maybe helpful in recovering the information that they missed. Links could be posted of supplemental material available for the students use.
My favorite use for a blog is to collaborate. As an artist and Art teacher, though many aspects of art assignments can be individual, we can always benefit from collaborating with others. I have my students collaborate routinely at various points of their project development to help the students understand others' perspectives of what they are developing. What's to say this couldn't be done also in a blog?
AP students have to select a central idea or topic for their Portfolio Concentration. Why not blog through these ideas in the process of deciding which direction to go? This way they would not feel as though it is such a difficult choice to make and they are able to think through it with others, problem solve. Again, blogs are limited only by the user.

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Mutapic.com is a web 2.0 tool for art students or graphic design students. This tools takes two images and will morph them together. The application then has various tools that allow for manipulation of the morphed design, giving numerious outcomes for the possible design.













How one could use this in the classroom would be as a tool for a lesson on Logo Design. Students could use the images, shapes, icons or symbols available on the application or they could import new images to work with for their design. This lesson could be organized as small group or individually developed projects.
The small group approach would promote collaborative learning concepts and citizenship in the classroom. This lesson would extend beyond just that of design development, but socialization skills and teamwork. Concepts traditionally thought to be fostered in athletics. This lesson would also use technology applications that would foster skills the 21st century learner needs to be productive in our future society.

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A post that Van responded to gives me yet another great tool for my classroom. Kuler is a tool that one can use for Art classes, to help students choose color combinations for their project. How they want their work to be interpreted, by suggesting mood or feeling through color. This application will help grab my Art 1 students with the use of color. It will help them understand the differences in color and it's three properties. How we see color and how we use color, can be explored through this tool. You can select color schemes through a variety of options. You can explore color through tempeture, seasons, mood and even some words and be inputted and creates a color chart of reference colors for you.
Always on the look out for tools that will grab my intro students, they may then sign up for up level classes, which keeps me employed.

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@ ArtsMatter21, I found a post about a web site I had come across awhile back the first time. Like ArtMatters21, I was not overly impressed with this site at the time. What had led me there, I had to really scour the site to find the desired material. Since then I, like ArtsMatter21, have found that the site has re-organized to make more user friendly. Finding an old site that has re organized to make itself marketable among the many websites available on the web.
This site has lesson plans, art samples, link resources, suggested reading lists and more. A one-stop shopping place for elementary to middle school level student lessons in the arts. There are high school level lessons that I have reviewed and found them to not contain the level I am looking for. So I take bits and pieces that I can use and create new lessons with the materials I need for my curriclulumn.

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Disney sure knows how to captivate kids, young or old. This application is no exeption, as it gives you many tools in one place to be creative. Create your own greeting card...I think I may develop my Christmas card here, you can develop your own movies and many other applications in one tool location. I will have to go back and explore more later. Great post!