Registration is open for the new The Shape of Things online project by Jennifer Wagner.

• Dates: April 14 to May 12, 2008 (final project due May 12th)
• Grades: PreK – 6
• Description: Based on the use of triangles, circles, and squares, students will create one project (see the 3 options below) and then upload their images to a class photo album at one of the suggested online photo storage locations. Worksheets and suggested activities are included.

1. Students will create a collage or piece of art using ONLY triangles, circles, and squares. The shapes may be of any size, and use any type of material (paper, felt, plastic, jello, etc) The artwork/collage may also be 3-D. Pictures will be taken of completed artwork and uploaded to the online photo storage location.
2. Students will use digital camera and search their classroom, school, city/town, home for pictures that include triangles, circles, or squares. Pictures will be transferred to online photo storage location.
3. Students will use an graphics program (kid pix, paint shop pro, photoshop, kerpoof, etc) and create a Triangle, Circle, Square piece of artwork. Teachers/students will then upload the images to online photo storage location.

tag: online project, collaboration, edtech, k12, math, art, shapes, photos, graphic, The Shape of Things, Jennifer Wagner

Students (ages 5-18) in the United States have been invited to design a Google logo.

The Doodle 4 Google theme is “What if…?” Students are encouraged to come up with their own ideas.

• What if…I could live underwater, or in outer space, or in Colonial America?
• What if…I could see into the future?
• What if…I could build any kind of invention I wanted?

1. 40 finalists will be invited to a workshop with Google’s official doodler, Dennis Hwang, at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California.
2. The U.S. public will vote for their favorites.
3. The winning design will replace the regular Google homepage on May 22, 2008. This champion doodler will receive a $10,000 college scholarship and his or her school will receive a $25,000 technology grant.

• School registration closes on March 28th.
• Entries must be received by April 12th, 2008.
• Visit Doodle 4 Google to register. Here you will find all the details of the competition, plus detailed lesson plans.

tag: Google Doodle 4 Google contest art log What if? prizes

While reading Suzie Vesper’s blog I learned about Magic Studio. Magic Studio is a free site for publishing Image Explorers and Timelines which can include text, images, video, and audio.

Image Explorers remind me of the note feature in Flickr. You click on any hotspot in the picture to have text, images, video, or audio displayed. Here are some examples:

The Parts of a Plant
Computer Systems
Explore! The Tower of London

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The Timeline builder caught my eye since that is something my daughter’s 4th grade class is currently working on. Here are a couple screenshots of a timeline available on the site.

• Women at Work

Readers can click on an event to display the accompanying content.

Code is provided to embed your publication in a website, blog, or wiki. It worked great using the widget button in Wikispaces. I haven’t been able to get it to work in Edublogs, even using the flash button. Obviously you can link to the publication as I’ve done in the examples above. On the webpage for each publication, there is a comment box available to logged in viewers.

You can choose to make your publication private or public.

Each creation can be licensed as Public Domain or Creative Commons. You can view, embed, and copy public items made by others. Tags are used for indexing. This tool has obviously been created for education purposes. It includes a Teacher Notes feature for identifying standards, prior knowledge, curriculum links, and more.

Content: You can access the public content uploaded by other users, or upload your own content.

• Image – JPG (not progressive JPG) or PNG up to 64mb – but preferably not over 4000 px wide
• Video – flv (flash video) only (up to 64mb)
• Audio – mp3 (up to 64mb)

Tutorials

• Here’s a short screencast on how to publish an Image Explorer.
• Here’s a short screencast on how to publish a Timeline.

Technorati Tags: Suzie_Vesper Magic_Studio timeline photos Creative_Commons

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Oh, this is so much fun. artPad is a basic, free on-line tool provided by art.com. When you first access the site, you can watch a series of strokes, as it replays the steps in creating a particular masterpiece.  It even has controls to speed up the animation, jump to the end or to the beginning. There are some amazing pieces to view. You can add to this painting, or choose to create your own.

You have a paintbrush, paint bucket, and text tool at your disposal. You can choose the color and opacity, and set the paintbrush size. Once your work is complete, you can select a frame and view it in the gallery of your choice: vintage, sports, modern or fantasy. Clicking the save and send button will assign a webpage address to your masterpiece and allow you to send the link to someone via email.

I think this site would be especially fun to use on a SMART Board.

Technorati Tags: art artpad smartboard paint draw