Back to School= A Blank Piece of Paper!

Welcome back to a new school year everyone!

 I love the time of year when brand new sketchbooks are available and new pens, pencils and supplies (and sales) are everywhere! I even love the SMELL of said supplies. When I was younger and my parents would go into a bank in England I would grab lots of the colored blank deposit slips with built in carbon pages. My Dad would bring home old stamps from the office. My sister and I would use these supplies to play "office" for ages- stamping the forms and writing and playing.....such fun! Nowadays I go in to Staples or Office Max, Target or Wal-mart and practically salivate at the over-abundance of supplies.

White paper and new books has always signaled new beginnings to me. I start my new visual journals in January only because I can then write the year on the side. (I know..a bit OCD...don't ask.) Everything else in my life starts over when school starts again. In Belgium, growing up, it was called the "Rentree des classes" (back to school!). One of my FAVORITE things to do was to choose my "Journal de Classe" which was basically a homework agenda. It was cool to fold each page over when you were done with it so you could easily find the next page. I guess my love affair with paper started a long time ago!

New beginnings this year include a daughter who has moved into her first apartment, a son who is entering high school and a son entering 2nd grade. As for me- I am starting my 21st year of teaching art! It only counts on the books as the 19th though so I still have about 12 to go before retirement! I do still love doing this though- from my Coastal students to my high school students (on and off line!) I enjoy sharing my love of art with them.

I am also working hard on my blog to fill it with my favorite links and pages, so when someone asks about the trip to Greece next summer, I can say "look on my blog!" Links- look on my blog! Current events in the art world- hopefully,... on my blog!

I have also set a goal to walk/run a 5k with my best friend in September. Hopefully the health benefits of this training will give me more energy to keep up with the new soccer seasons that both boys are about to embark on!

Life is good. I hope we all have a wonderfully exciting year, full of discovery, learning, creativity and imagination!

NHS FALL SEMESTER students please click here: Click for information form.

CCCC students please click on the form in the Icebreaker information in the Getting Started folder. Thanks!

50 Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom

CLICK HERE for 50 ways to use Wordle in the classroom!

Hello, my name is Sara, and I am addicted to technology.......

The good news is....I don't want to be cured!

Check it out- Technology in the classroom is not a new idea!

I attended a three day online symposium this week that was offered through the NC Virtual Public School. It was both overwhelming and tremendously exciting- overwhelming because I want to be able to absorb everything and put into practice as much as I can, but there is a LOT of it! It is exciting because I am so very interested in learning about all of the new technologies that NCVPS is putting into practice. Sometimes I wish the f2f schools moved as fast, but understand that when you are dealing with huge budgets and staffs and other constraints sometimes it is hard to keep up. I do think Onslow County Schools does a great job with keeping up with technology...OCS and NCVPS are moving at lightning speed!

Today I am going to share some of the great sites and tools I learned about with you....and if anyone is actually reading this and wants to participate, I would love for you to join in and voice some ideas. (See below.)

Tomorrow, I am going to send all of my family members a simultaneous call using DialMyCalls.com. This will be my first practice all using a "blast" that will reach them all at the time that I designate. (7am? Haha... just kidding!) You have all seen this with the calls that the schools make to reach lots of people at one time. Did you know that YOU can do it, for free?

My family members will all receive a recorded message from me that is less than 30 seconds. This is a great way to reach all of my online students, parents and DLA's that I must contact on a weekly basis. I can touch base with them and let them know what deadlines are coming up. I can even use this with my f2f students at Northside.

In the first week of school I can have students create Wordles that we can post online or on a bulletin board. I have played with this great tool many times (my online Coastal Art Appreciation students do one and love it! They often share it with their children if they have kids....) I am going to use it more with my f2f students.

Some other sites that I have yet to explore include Voicethread, sharing safe, educational YouTube videos in a safe environment at schools which block YouTube at SafeshareTv, , creating a quick poll at PollEverywhere.com and others which include jzip, wallwisher, quizlet, grooveshark and google voice. I can't wait to go exploring and plan for incorporating many of these in my online and f2f classrooms.

One thing I have done is re-open my Twitter.com/saragant account! I had one over a year ago, and just didn't use it- I was thinking about it in a more personal sense. I didn't even think about it in a professional sense. So- now I follow Shu, one of the technology guru teachers at NCVPS, and I follow other professional organizations and people that influence how I work and interact with others- and learn! Of course the personal links are important too! Richard is one of my oldest and dearest friends from when I grew up in Belgium- we went to school together from Kindergarten to 12th grade! Now I am following him, too, on Twitter. I can also send a tweet out to all of my online students and remind them that an assignment deadline is coming up. I can use it ALSO for my f2f students.

Have you figured out the theme yet? The tools and technologies that I am learning about and using in my online world carry over into the f2f classroom. This blended modality is becoming more and more popular. The presentation that caused the most excitement with the 300 plus educators that I was online with was by far the Mobile Apps presentation. (Have I mentioned how much I love my iPhone?! I am so very grateful that the bus driver in Rome whose bus I left it on returned it to the group...talk about GRATITUDE!)

Dr. Bryan Setser, the executive director of NCVPS has tasked us with coming up with a way to incorporate lessons using smart phones and touch iPods into our virtual classrooms. I have a few ideas already, but I have decided to poll YOU, the blogosphere, and Facebook world, and NHS family, and Twitter pals, to see if you have any suggestions! As you know, creativity shared is creativity squared, (?!! just made that up, don't know if that makes ANY sense, but you know what I mean!) so please put your thinking caps on and head on over to my Google doc and throw some ideas out for me. I appreciate it! Click here!

(Don't worry, nobody will see what you write except me!)


Oh yes, and.... see you on Twitter? "saragant" Tweet me. :)

Thanks for stopping by.