Thing10

I love the possibilities of this site: Main Page - wikiHow
I'm promising myself to revisit this summer so I can explore and linger awhile. In the meantime, I'm dreaming about what topics I'm not only going to read from others but what I can contribute to the mix.
And then there's this prize: a large collection of wikis organized in (what would you expect?) a wiki! http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+educational+wikis
Which I WILL look over in more depth over those precious summer months that are just around the corner...
In the meantime, hindsight is 20/20 and all that but if only I'd known about wikis when doing group work in grad school and planning all those bridal showers and wedding showers and and and... makes me almost look forward to doing it again soon. :-)

Thing9

ImageGenerator was frustrating (as evidenced by my entries for Thing8)but once I got to Big Huge Labs, it was smoooooth sailing.
I can see the Big Huge Labs site used for introductory image transferring work with my students as well as creating fundraiser products and school spirit items for clubs.
This Thing was fun fun fun!!!

The REAL Thing8 (I hope)

8

I'm determined to get this figured out, so here I go again. Let's see if it "takes" this time... THAT was the challenge of this particular venture: determining exactly how to get it to show up in my posting. I'm still not thrilled with it - it's too large for space, but I don't know how to format it to fit properly.
In trying out the various Flickr fun, I can see the charm of the various activities. But they are a bit too basic for the effects that my kids who use the graphics lab for their artwork expect to accomplish. Also complicating the situation is that Flickr can't be accessed on our school computers.
An alternative to the Flickr Mosaic is something called AndreaMosaic which uses one's own photos at several levels of sophistication. I use it as a digital photography project to get my students to use the digital camera in concert with their original drawings and paintings.

Thing8 again

8
I think I jinxed myself with the first entry about thing 8:
It's supposed to be my FlickrPlay-time but it's more like FlickrBlackHole-time! Help!!!

Oh WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! The preview button worked magic!!!
I SEE Thing8!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SUCCESS!!!!

Thing8

Inserting images is a breeze, from whatever source... here's some I found on our department's digital camera, leftover from student portfolio preparation... it's good to know that inserting visuals to a blog is perhaps the simplest operation of all!

Thing7

Photos are loaded. Tough finding some school photos that don't include students' shining smiling faces. Had an interesting dramatic moment with Flickr when it decided to spontaneously change my user name to something I most definitely did NOT type into the registration window. So now I'm paranoid about cyberintruders accessing my space (I know, I know - I have a very vivid imagination!)

Tagging went smoothly. And it's fun to see all the other photos there with resa23 tags. Can you imagine the HUGE collection for us to peruse, by the time we all get through this?

I am still skeptical of keeping photos, whether for family or for school, open to public viewing when the images are of people...

Thing6

Interesting search at Flickr. I am amazed at how many folks open their private lives so freely to the public - and I share the concern expressed by other 23Thing folks about kids being open to potential exploitation from internet stalkers.

I selected this photo for many personal reasons as well as the immediate impression it made on me with its high contrast of life unfolding, both as ancient and new life forms.

I currently use Picasa and formerly, YahooPhotos, so uploading and downloading images is old news for me. Flickr is similar in concept. So I'm grateful that this Thing6 is a task easily accomplished today.

Thing5

it's good feeling / finding that I'm a tad bit ahead of the game: When working my way through Thing4, I managed to figure out how to get a couple links to pertinent blogs set up - but of course, I'd done it the hard way. No matter - at least I did it.

The clips in these Things are very helpful and give just enough chunk of information that I can process without feeling overwhelmed. The three methods of getting feeds to my RSS worked out very well. A challenge I'm having is finding sites that I want to use that are RSS-able.

As expressed in a comment on Thing5 by someone who uses his RSS to get to links not directly accessible from the school browser, I am hoping that I'll find my way to links otherwise "forbidden" by our school filters because of the word "art" or "image" being such a no-no all too frequently when searching online from my classroom. (and looking back at that statement makes me feel like one of my students trying to sneak onto a game site while knowing I'm expecting them to be researching some important art technique :-)

And I still don't understand why my Thing4 posting is written in invisible ink - I've edited it to change its text color but I still can't see it. It will be interesting to see if THIS posting does the same thing or not. I have my fingers crossed now as I his that orange Publish Post button!

Thing4

WHEWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

I have finallllly made it through that jungle of Bloglines RSSing.
It's like one of the video games that my sons play - only it's reality. Almost too much reality to take in this week. Despite near-death-homecomputer-crashes, accidentally closing windows that I still needed open and having to start all over again from square one, redundant subscriptions and sign-ups and screw-ups and other assorted nonsense, I've conquered!!!! My four folders exist and I can move on to Thing5.
I'll reserve judgment on how frequently I'm actually going to visit/read those things in my Feed list... can't imagine how I'll find any time to look at them much, but I'll confess: some of them sure look tempting!

Thing 3

I've spent soooo much time on this Thing!!! I have to learn to control my curiosity, I guess, because I got way too lost by following links and reading while looking at others' blogs. It's just so INTERESTING!!!!! and I learned ALOT!!!!
I guess that's the moral of this story on Thing3: by blogging with/for the students, everyone will travel to all kinds of unknown as well as planned-for subjectmatter... and horizons will be broadened in ways not imagined at the beginning.

Thing 1 and 2

...when I first heard the term "blog" I conjured images of facing off teethgnashing monsters and finding myself being swallowed in quicksand... two experiences I hope to get through life without. Then a few months ago my daughter, now living too far from "home" in Scotland, decided to keep up with family correspondence by starting a blog of her own - and I suddenly found myself avidly reading her blogs (from Blogger! talk about small world even in cyberspace, eh?) And now here I am, actually writing my own!!! Life does have a way of coming full circle. And I'm grateful that thus far, there's not been any quicksand - but I'm not sure yet about the teeth-gnashing.

I didn't hesitate when I read about the 23Things opportunity (thank you, WayneCounty RESA!) I jumped on it immediately. I want to keep up with my kids - my students. I want to keep pace with the world in which I live. What a thrill for me "back in the day" to walk down the street with my transistor radio jammed up to my ear - and now the kids beg to have the opportunity to listen to their Ipod while creating their artwork. Dimes for payphones and long tangled telephone cords to trip over from the kitchen wall phone have given way to cell phones on which kids today can text fifteen of their friends in the same amount of time it takes me to realize their cell phone is on in class and that I must enforce the school's policy that bans them. And the beat goes on...

When I, as art student, made an error in my drawing and tore a hole in the paper erasing for the fourth time, I had to begin all over again. Today I encourage students to scan their battered sketch into the graphics lab computer and use the waicom tablet to work it out on the screen, printing it when done. When I need them to understand concepts like visualization and cropping their subject while familiarizing themselves with photoshop and a digital camera, I send them out to learn their ABCs from a new perspective - a project that used to be done with old magazines, scissors and too much glue.

Do I still believe in mastering shading values into a portrait with charcoal or Ebony pencil? You betcha. Do I continue to teach painting techniques and do my kids take penned notes on paper and keep up with on-going sketchbook assignments? Most definitely. But I am partnering the hands-on hand-crafting with the hands-on computer work that I believe can make original art become even more relevant to the life and style of today's student. And the more I understand that cyber life and style, the more I can make a difference to my kids.

I think it was Gertrude Stein who said, "Art isn't everything, it's just about everything..." and that means I have to know where to go for everything -- and these days, that means a daily trip to cyberspace. So here I am. Thanks again for the invitation, WCRESA.