MidWinter Conference is upon us!

Click on the image above to see the larger flyer.

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Online Photo Sharing in Plain English

I am double posting this here and here.

To piggyback my previous posts about design and photography and Flickr usage, I would like to offer this short tutorial video about online photo sharing. Thanks to the folks (Lee LeFever) at Common Craft for once again making this an easy to understand topic. So don't let a little fear of a software program slow you down from joining the fun and learning of photo sharing.


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Art and the Art of Writing

For those of you combining art and writing, I thought I would share this blog with you. Natalie and the Big Picture. Natalie is an art professor at Colorado State and also is a student teacher facilitator. She is blogging hard but not getting much in the way of comments. Here is one section I found very interesting from a post called "Sometimes you have to hide the carrots":

Writing in the artroom is kind of the same way. Seems like the most effective writing applications are fully integrated and 'hidden' in the content of the class. A lesson taught by one of my students at the Lab School brought this idea home. Students made a dwelling and then wrote a story about who might live there. But what filled the assignment with artistic goodness was the way the student did it. It wasn't just a story, it was a story that had to reference how the dwelling came to look the way it did. It had to address the visual elements and not just be a story. YES! Full integration - veggies in the sauce!

The added bonus for me as the observer was that this particular student had been reticent to the whole writing process. When we met in the computer lab for our final assessment she lamented "But you told us we were done with the writing part!" And now here she is, hiding the writing so well I don't think kids were aware they were doing it. The room full of 6th graders was totally silent and fully engaged. The best part was they were all thinking about their artwork. What a delicious lesson.

Natalie really brings home the point that writing is a part of a much larger process of learning in all subjects and not just English. If only we could get that across to all of our student teachers and current teachers. Go read what she has to share and then let her know you are there. Gotta help keep those professors blogging, you know. Thanks to Bud Hunt (CSU NWP) AKA Bud the Teacher for sharing the link via a Twitter post.

And while I am on the topic of art, I have been trying to keep up with the 366photo group on Flickr. The object of these educators and students is to take one photo a day for the whole year. Tag your photos on Flickr with the 366photo tag so we can find them. Also do a tag search for that tag to see what other educators are posting. Pretty cool idea to help us focus on design and storytelling. Here is one of my latest photos of my son (the one above is one of mine as well):


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BGBlogging is coming to BWP's Mid-Winter Conference!

Barbara Ganley, in her blog post, announced her intent to present at Bluebonnet Writing Project's Mid-Winter Conference on February 2, 2008. Thanks to Pete Smith we are excited to be able to host her. Folks, you don't get opportunities like this every day. Take advantage of it and plan to attend.  Stay tuned to this blog for more information as it comes available about this wonderful FREE professional development event.


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