Thing 12

This is a fun widget to mess with, but watch out.... it is very addicting. The advertising widget can be removed by clicking the X in the upper left corner or just waiting a few seconds and the abstract Pollock widget will be there. The edges of pages blend in but it is on. Just start moving your curser and you are a budding Jackson Pollock! Don't get lost.....



Embedding a widget in the post of the blog was not so hard. It was much easier when using the Html editor to see just where it was going. The more difficult one was getting the widget to be embedded in the area labeled gadget. I wanted to put up the Jackson Pollock widget there but I kept getting an error message about disallowed characters or code. That would take some learning to understand why they won't allow that code in that place. Now that I'm spending time looking at blogs and such, I do see some that I would like to utilize.

As a newer graduate of higher education, I have had to learn to use online technology. The online communities have been a place to find resources, answers, pose questions, and make friends. I joined Facebook after hearing other teachers at my previous job talk about being on there. As a new employee, I thought this might be a nice way to befriend some of them and I found this to be true. What worked in that school was that the majority of teachers were a good 10-15 years younger than myself. Right now, I find myself between colleagues who have young families (and are very dedicated) and older colleagues who have yet to embrace the technology.

Some of the most useful groups have been, Art Education 2.0, TAB teaching for artistic behaviors, NAEA-Ning, and the Getty Museum Listserv. I also have utilized online educational resources such as Whole Brain Teaching, Teachers.net, ASCD, and Education Week. In my bookmarks, I must have 200-300 in various folders that organize them. The amount of information and resources at ones finger tips is staggering and yet I know I have only scratched the surface. My 16 year old is always finding ways to accomplish a task or apply and use technology in a way I would never have thought of.

As for MySpace and Facebook, I see the usefulness and the inherent problems that are associated with these forms of communication. Right now, technology is creating a gap between those who have and those who do not. Will the educational system be able to close that educational gap, this remains to be scene.