Art Teacher Present In Content Area Via Video

I really appreciate Mrs. Hoffmann using the power of technology to meet the needs of teachers and students to understand new concepts.

From Sara Hoffmann, Middle School Art Teacher

It seems to be a common theme among teachers that they want their kids to know how to draw PEOPLE either correctly or cartoonish.  So I did a step by step for figure drawing video...the quality is a bit better and I'm getting better at editing too.

We teach figure drawing as a 7th grade project in art, but now art is an elective in 7th grade...so not everyone gets to learn how, so this is great that they can learn quickly through my video.

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Promoting Optional Technology Training For Teachers

A colleague in the education world, @helpreaders , is starting his schools version of Lunch N' Learn or Breakfast Bytes.  He wanted to know tips for making it successful.  Since we have conducted these over the school year and started year two, I thought I would outline successful strategies to include while conducting optional tech tool tip sessions.  We have Lunch N' Learn every Tuesday for high school teachers and Breakfast Bytes every other Thursday morning for middle school teachers.

• Play music as teachers enter!  Make it as festive and non intimidating as possible!  Food a few times throughout the year.
• Choose a topic to begin that they already have...Google is a great place to start!  Our topics from last year are located here.
• Create something that you can send to teachers so they can follow up on their own.  Blog posts serve as a great tool for this.
• Promote the crap out of it!  Send Google forms once in a awhile with choices of topics.  Most votes for a topic is the one that is discussed.  Plan ahead for this!
• Personal face to face interaction with teachers inviting them is THE single best way to get people to attend.
• Post, tweet, and brag about teachers who attend!

Of course videos like the one below are a great help as well.  This is our 2013-2014 promotional video for the middle school Breakfast Bytes.

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