Wiki World

Parallel Play or Collaboration–

Leveraging the Wiki Platform for High Quality Work

Paula White tweeted a question about real interactions with students and wikis. "How can we get students deeply involved in a contemporary world of connectivity?" Paula found a wiki online. It described wikis as being 'geographically agnostic' stating that they encouraged brainstorming, this is lovely. But what are some ways to use the wiki? On this wiki, it had some examples of how they are used in the classroom: a place to collaborate on notes, group collaboration, and teachers on best practices. Paula believed that these lacked enough student involvement, therefore not engaging the students to truly utilize the wiki.

Paula discsusses leveraging the platform wikis for higher quality learning. What are the wikis' purpose? Wikis can be an important collaboration or parallel play. Collaberation is a process of shared creation, creating something new. Wiki's are motivating and allow us to share our passions. Discovering the students' passions and letting them explore what they like will create authentic student interaction. The student's in Paual's classroom share their passions on her classroom wiki site; ranging from mathematics to video game hubs. Engagement, interaction, sharing, building, growing these are all words that help describe wiki.

I have been introduced to the world of wikis this semester; I did not understand the wikis importance. I like the process of creating something new for the digital world to see and the feedback received from people (the interaction). We can learn so much from one another if we share and collaborate together. Paula supports this collaboration process, because she sees how it can be utilized to truly benefit the student's and engage them. Student's attentions spans are limited these days and we have to find new ways to keep them interested as our world changes and advances. I was somewhat afraid of the direction technology was taking before taking this class, but after discovering on my own how beneficial it can be my views changed. It can be utilized the wrong way, just like many things in the world; but when it is used for good, like creation and collaboration, it can help the world.

I love the idea of creating a wiki space for my students! I would like for them to share different artists, styles, mediums, pieces of artwork that they like (current) and (historical), as well as, sharing their artwork own personal artwork. The students in my classroom will always be encouraged to create, share, and collaborate and what a better place to do that on, than with a wiki :D

Sam Chameleon

Digital Youth Portrait: Sam

Sam is a chameleon, able to adapt and change with her technological surroundings. A World of Warcraft warrior, social butterfly on Myspace, eBook reading machine, musically inclined and advanced, seventh grade, technological guru of her heyday. Most of us have dreams. Well, Sam's dream is to be a director, sparked by being gifted a video camera when she was little. This piece of technology opened up a digital path in Sam's life. She chose to follow down this virtual road and embrace it. Sam maintains a balance between school, socializing, and utilizing digital media; some examples, texting, eBooks on iPhone, Wii, Youtube, World of Warcraft, MySpace, and Opensimulator. At school, she is involved in activities like band.



When Sam was a little girl she practiced playing a virtual piano through a program, and now plays with the greatest of ease.


Sam has learned numerous skills while using digital media involving, problem-solving, critical-thinking and team-work skills. If robots do ever become artifically intellegent and try to destroy humanity... I would like Sam's WoW warrior on my side, indeed.

When we are given things at a young age they can trigger interest or fascination in our lives. Sam's video camera was similar to my experience with art supplies. My mother would always give me different mediums to draw with. For example, as soon as I would get bored or loose interest using watercolors after a couple hours. She would switch the medium and give me markers, and I would continue to create. I contribute this switching of mediums during my youth, the reason for my success over the past few semesters in my studio classes - Still Life, Figure Drawing, 2d, 3d, and Color all of these require the experimentation and mastery of different materials (mediums - media). Our strengths, my mastery of different media and Sam's mastery of digital technology, may appear to be different, but they are driven by the same force, passion for what we love to do.

The future is headed in various directions, one direction is technology. So, if you are not in the technological know it maybe time to get acclimated and play catch up, if not we fall behind and slowly become digitally illiterate. Students who are interested in art should be introduced and educated at a younger age about graphic art/design. Right now, in certain Edmond, OK schools the introduction of the digital arts does not occur until 8th, 9th grade, or even later. I believe this material and involvement should begin in elementary school or the beggining of middle school, preparing the students earlier will give them a digital jump start.

Pecha Kutcha!

"SHOE SHOW"

For my Pecha Kutcha model presentation I decided to discuss the artwork that was in my first art show at the Shoe Gypsy this spring semester. The "Shoe Show" presentation goes into detail discussing some style, iconography, and different mediums of my artwork. I believe that pursuing what you love is crucial in enjoying your life fully and taking pride in what you do. I wanted to share this with other people and encrourage them to pursue careers they enjoy and love.

Pecha Kutcha "Shoe Show"

View more presentations from tnachelle.

Week 13 Class Scribe

In-class overview of blogs and video

The first blog we discussed was created by Wesley it covered Maria Knee’s New Hampshire classroom and their use of technology in her Kindergarten class. Two other blogs covered were Ipad magic? and Race to the Top?

The class watched a DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a Nation" and discussed the video:

Q: Would this content be relevant in a classroom? What are the issues raised with historical videos like these?

A: The importance of these videos are to teach students to become critical thinking.

Steps of the Petcha Kutcha model presentation:

What is a Petcha Kutcha?

-The presentation will reflect upon the student, instructor, and the university, because they will be posted on our blogs.

*Pick a topic – Will need 20 slides (20 seconds per slide) You will have 6:40 for the presentation pick something that you are interested in or enjoy.

-Best presentations use large images, less text

*Select 20 images using your own photos, compfight, or flickrstorm ( for flickrstorm: click on 'advanced settings' – select 'photos for non-commercial use' – add images to the tray in flickrstorm – save all images into a new folder using “save picture as” right mouse click on image)

-Creating powerpoint with your saved images... go to 'insert' on the tabs and select 'photo album', it will allow you to upload the folder of images (saves time!)

-Saving the powerpoint... ‘save as’ under 97-2003 powerpoint presentation – use ppt file, no pptx (this is necessary for it to work properly in google docs)

-Upload in Google Documents when finished... Make sure you 'publish' your document – put on your blogger site (embedding the video and sharing the link for your google presentation) create new post and describe your Petcha Kutcha

**There is the option of presenting your googledoc presentation in class (week 14 or 15) OR you can record 20 second audio for each 20 slides using Slideshare or Voicethread and post on your blog.

Phonecasting

What is Phonecasting?

This allows you how to use a phone service to leave a voicemail creating an audio mp3file. To break it down… you can use phone to record, the website converts voice recorded message into an mp3 file, and then this mp3 will appear on the site where you are given a link to download, play and pause the mp3.

Friendly Reminder!

Everything is due week 15! Study smart and good luck with finals!

hyperlinks, embedding videos, and comment moderation

I recently made a screen cast on screenr showing

How to insert hyperlinks and embed videos.

Pandas (hyperlinks and embedding videos)

hyperlink...

Giant Panda

embedding video...

Glenda helps Dorthy and Friends!

"The Wizard of Apps" By Joyce Valenza discuss numerous useful applications for students, teachers, librarians, or anyone wanting to utilize the internet in a helpful and productive way.

Glenda the good witch discuss finding applications online that help Dorthy and her fellow friends to explore and collaborate digitally.

Being a good digital citizen...

What does that mean? Ethical Citizenship and Digital Footprint - People search tools like pipl, can show what images are available on people along with, information from social networking sites. This is important because potential admission officers for schools or people hiring individuals can use this information to find out more about individuals (123people) another site, thatsnotcool show videos that help students discuss privacy online issues.

Interacting with intellectual property means using copyrighted material under fair use... Creative Commons licensed materials means that people can share copyrighted work, allowing people to rework the copyrighted images while the original copyrighter still gets credit. Websites like flickr have creative commons search portal. The most liberal 'attribution only license' - means if you cite an image, you can remix it, legally. Some other helpful websites for interacting with copyrighted material are compfight, flckrstorm. When dealing with works cited pages bibme, citationmachine, easybib all aid in the citing process.

Helpful research applications... Researching various topic online can be overwhelming but sites like researchguide, researchwikis (mind maps, research content collecting), and pathfinder help in the research process. Students reflect in wikis on their research and teachers can see where the student's need help. Researching involves critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, and triangulation, and can be made simple through these research apps.

How to use google more powerfully... wonderwheel in google search shows related concepts and allows the exploration of other ideas related to the original ideas, timeline, google squared, and creating a google custom search are a few of the various ways to use google in a new and more productive way.

Some other helpful search engines are wolframalpha (useful in math and science learning), wiki, surchur (can search across social networks), and rss feeds like ebsco.

GIGO stands for "garbage in, garbage out"... Triangulation is developing a filter for "garbage" One website to receive negative publicity as a scholarly source is wikipedia, but it is not always a bad source, it is good for breaking news and can be a good place to start for a basic understanding of the topic being researched. PLN - personal learning network - easywhois (helps to determine where certain information is coming from) Finding primary sources in the past has become a little difficult over time but a site like demotix (organizing and gather new journalism) lead you to the direct source. Another way of having a primary source is to create surveys, these can be created in googledocs.

A database widget site is provided by nytimes widgets (where you can choose from various categories and feeds), along with netvibes (which is devoted specifically to widgets).

Digital story telling portals held aid in creativity and innovation: websites like digitales, Xtranormal,Voicethread, Goanimate, Bitstrips, Wordle, PrimaryAccess (links to database of artifacts), Blogster (poster-like digital storytelling).

Communication Collaboration...

Presenting in front of large audience can be intimidating but when given the right tools it can be exciting. Online global collaboration helps with communication. (can share slides and tools) Slideshare is a site where people can share various slides and tools with one another. Another great network is called skypeanauthor this brings the authors into the classroom digitally. TED is a great place to find video resources and also provides great models for presenting in the 21st century. Googledocs has templates in an archive that help students and teachers collaborate together at anytime of the day and anywhere in the world. Diigo is a social bookmarking website that allows students and teachers to tag, share, and annotate various links.

Another recommended websites for teaching and learning : ala.org

To view the "Wizard of Apps" in slide form it can be found at Slideshare

When citing and research various topics for school, I have found myself overwhelmed with too much information and not the right information at that. Where do you go to find it? Websites like Googlify, googlesquared, and surchur will be incorporated into my searches when researching information online. I loved this video because it will not only help my students in the future, but it is going to serve it's purpose in my life right now. This whole video was dedicated to bringing awareness to useful internet applications. I don't think I will have such a hard time navigating from place to place in the future, not with so many helpful apps.

In my classroom I want my students to understand how to access certain information safely, efficiently, and productively. I will definitely introduce this video to them and share these links with other teachers in the future. Even though my field is in Art part of my planned curriculum is to have the students write a paper over one of their favorite artists and present. Well with them applications I can share with the students and this can help aid them with this assignment along with various presentations and papers in the future.

Wordle is a fun website that lets you create word clouds. It could be used in numerous ways, like digital storytelling or brainstorming. You can change the size and fonts of different words in the word cloud you create. I went to wordle.net and created my own word cloud about Giant Pandas!

A Survey: First Memory

First Memory Survey

For Week 9 in Technology for Teachers we learned how to use google documents. It's quite simple: Find the tab that says 'create new' then select 'form' and instantly you can create an online survey. Another fun fact: You can pick your question types: text, paragraph text, multiple choice, and others. I chose to ask questions involving the individual's first memory.

So far, the feedback has been limited. One person who took the survery answered, "their brother being born" as their first happy memory. A first memory and family link we share; my first memory was a happy one of myself and brother, as well.

:D

A Digiworld described by Digiteens

Digiteens: Digital Citizenship by Digital Teenagers



Students research digital topics and write on a wiki, research with friends around world, then create offline action projects in the area of their digital interests. The students are involved in a project based program called Digital Citizenship.

The students of Westwood Schools in Camilla Georgia give us an insight into Digital Citizenship. They covered various topics briefly about digital literacy, online safety, internet access inside schools, posting personal information online, communicating with students from different cultures, and other subjects. The students of Westwood Schools use websites like Skype, Wikispace, and Google Docs. Some of the more specific digital citizenship sites like Digiteen Island, Woogie World, and Digiteens.

I have been using the internet for many years and had to educate myself on things like online safety and posting personal information online. When I first had access to the internet back when AOL had first arrived on the digital scene I found myself giving away private information that put my safety at risk. Educating our youth on online safety is extremely crucial and would have benefited me when I was a child.

I would like to involve my students in Digital Citizenship by having them help to educate other students who are less educated on these carious topics. The most important thing in my mind emphasized during this video was properly educating children on online safety. Children need to understand what information is appropriate to post and what is considered to be unsafe information to share with the digital world. Continuing this project-based learning is a way to spread awareness to students who may be unaware. Emphasizing the dangers of internet is important, but it also important to emphasize how helpful a tool the internet can be. To obtain important information along with a helpful communication tool, among other various digital avenues. My goal will be to get my students involved with projects like Digiteens and letting students know that the internet is useful when used properly and for the right reasons.

VoiceThread - Color Chart

I recently made a VoiceThread called "The Process of Making a Color Chart" I created this chart for my color class at UCO.

PBL vs. standardization

After watching Project Learning: An Overview I learned what different schools are doing to incorporate project based learning into their curriculum. The students seems happier to complete their school work, simply because it was more interesting. They were learning about things that intrigued them and were able to use their hands in the process. Standarized testing... sitting behind a desk and reading a book can only get you so far in life. It is the hands on experience of actually doing something that motivates the individual.

After leaving middle school and highschool I realized that most of that information I had "learned" had ultimately been forgotten. The projects that made us (the students) become more involved seemed to stick with me more. I believe that is why I am so interested in pursuing art in my life now and teaching it in the future. That was the only class I ever really did something in besides read a book, that I actually remembered. Everyone is driven and moved by different events I believe that is the same with students and learning.

As far as incorporating this into my classroom in some way, shape, or form... The whole point of teaching art for me is to incorporate in projects and discussions with my class. I want to have all of my students involved and interacting with one another and the topics we are covering. Instead of just drawing a box, take the box pick it up, spin it around, do what you will with it, but the actions and intentions are the whole point of this difference in teaching. If you sit and stay in one spot you will become stagnant along with your thoughts. Moral of the story... get up, do something you like, learn about it, share it, love it.

Another interesting article from lesson planet.

Story in 5 Photos

The Process of a Color Chart
Photos taken by - Tiffany Edwards

An Inspirational Community Activist: Luis

Edutopia presents a video discussing the life of Luis, an 18 year old student from Oregon. In this video Digital Youth Portrait: Luis he shares his knowledge of technology with his friends, family, and his community. Some of his favorite technological tools are gmail, facebook, laptop, ArcGIS, and lego robotics.

Luis essentially was taking and giving back to his community and family through various technological avenues. He made use of resources that had been made available to him from the community. In turn, he took what he learned and applied that knowledge to further the giving process. Enforcing a cycle of caring and sharing.

A few examples were Luis shared his knowledge by helping his parents (former immigrants from Mexico) pay bills online. Also, he stayed after school to help with the tech wizard's program, which is an after school mentor program. This helps younger students prepare for careers in science, technology, and math. Teaching them how to use familiar technology in ways that will further their education and future.

Last semester I participated in field experience for the UCO teaching department at Cimarron Middle School. I was surrounded by younger student's who were eager to learn about different forms of art. While watching and assisting my mentor teacher share new knowledge with the student's I gained a similar feeling of satisfaction to Luis.

As far as the inspirational youth of America is concerned Luis is a shining example of determination and responsibility. Seeing someone so young do so much for their community reminds me of the importance to start taking action now. Because of him, I am inspired to become more active with art programs in my community. The idea of starting up a local art program is something I have considered since watching this video. In the future, I want to encourage my student's to interact with their classmates and the community, similarly to Luis. Not just taking but giving back by sharing and applying their knowledge on something they are passionate about.

Avatar! Hardi har har!

Celeste G's: The Ugly Truth on Human Trafficking

Celeste Gonzalez, a student of the classroom 21st Century Global Leadership covers a very important topic discussing The Ugly Truth On Human Trafficking. Celeste brings our awareness to a very important and controversial topic. The problem of human trafficking is increasing in numbers all around the world. I believe bringing awareness to such topics is highly important... but what about the solutions? On a somewhat similar topic there is a site I recommend further investigation for those interested in advocating peace and helping with change. It is easy to discuss these topics but how can we help?

The Ugly Truth On Human Trafficking

View more presentations from guest0fbc3ed.

Technologic (music video)

Daft Punk - Technologic

The robot in the video is somewhat creepy.

And the movie is extremely repetitive.

But I thought it was appropriate,

considering the course topic and all.

Had to share this one.

Enjoy!

Student Blog Post Comments

T4T - Student Blog Post Comments

RBenge's Blog

(comment awaiting moderation)

Brooke's Blog

Oakridge Sixth Grade Blog - Student Blog Post Comments

Akire C's Blog

Rosa V's Blog

Traditional Meets Digital

Rachel Boyd gives us an insight to her six and seven year-old students' classroom. The video "A peek for a Week - Inside a Kiwi Junior Classroom" takes place in Nelson, New Zealand. During this video Boyd introduces WALT (We are learning to), a concept that teaches students to learn independently through technology. This video discusses various categories covered in "Room 9": classroom routines, oral language, listening, speaking, narrative writing, readig, maths, inquiry learning, music, and physical education. She introduces different digital teaching avenues to her students enriching their understanding of technology, as well as adding vibrancy to the cirriculium. Boyd holds true to the traditional learning methods like writing, reading, and mathematics using "old-school" mediums. Pencil and paper are still used by the classroom of 2010... But will this be the case a decade from now?

Room 9 starts the morning of by logging on to their classroom wiki hub on an interactive whiteboard. One of the following activities that follows involves watching and discussing a video clip from the New Zealand news website. This covers current stories occuring locally and internationally. When writing narrative stories her student's collaborate with various classrooms using docs.google. To help with handwriting they practice correct letter formation on the white board. In class the kids improve their typing skills by practicing on paper keyboards and connecting to a BBC website for additional help. For daily fitness they go to youtube to find videos that help them stay active and physically fit. The students use a variety of reading strategies using a website called Delicious. Boyd's classroom uses another helpful called Spellingcity they can leave comments and shares links on this online spelling program. This site introduces proper spelling and familiarity with basic words. Sites like Tutpup help to aid the children with their mathematical skills. Inquiry learning is an interesting category that gets students and teachers involved with a website called Xtranormal. It teaches them how to make animated movies. The children get to share their knowledge with the teachers by giving a tutorial on how to use the site.

When I was in elementary school my favorite time was snack time. Everybody would gather up for story time while muching on snacks! Funcity! Well Boyd puts a little nice spin on this ever so popular wind down time. She created something called 'nibbles time'. This is where the students get to finish their leftover lunch while they read emails and comments on their writing blogs. During this time the students make connections with other classes and communicate with other schools. When international students comment on their links they go to Google Earth to pin point their exact location. How much fun! Seeing technologically advanced classrooms like Boyd's make me wish I was born in the 21st century instead of the 20th. Snack time or nibbles time? Story time or blogging time? Interesting transtions indeed :D

Incorporating Boyd's visual art ideas into my my own opens up many doors in my mind. I love the idea of the students incorporating hands on art with the digital world. A combining of two great forces. The digitally enhanced artwork Boyd's classroom created was so creative and inspiring. Following a similar protocal, I would first have the students take digital photos of themselves, an animal, friend, family member, or any object that they liked. Then they could draw a background to put behind the cut-out digitally photographed image. Prepration for graphic design is something that should be introduced in middle and elementary school. Which apparently New Zealand has got the right idea. Considering how most societies (especially America) are fueled by advertising, it just makes sense to start preping them at an early age. Teaching the students to combine traditional with the digital is an excellent idea.

Hold true to the original and embrace the new.

Some extra links: Prezi, Wikispaces, Animoto

Technologically Immersed From Dawn till Dusk

The video Digital Youth Portrait: Nafiza gave me a glimpse into the life of a technologically savvy young girl Nafiza, an 18 year old senior in high school. This video shows how Nafiza incorporates technology into her personal life, as well as, her educational life. In the morning she wakes up to an alarm clock on her cell phone, walks to school while listening to her iPod, communicates through a social network called Facebook, along with, Flickr and Teen Second Life, followed by playing video games, and using other varying technological activities and gadgets. While in school they discussed higher education in other countries while incorporating this with something the younger adults enjoyed Teen Second Life and Flickr. This helps the students to expand their digital literacy, communication, and leadership skills.

Relating to my own life I can see a few similarities. I wake up in the morning in a similar fashion, to my cell phone alarm. While driving in my car I have an attachment that allows me to listen to my iPod. I know that when I leave my house without my cell phone a sense of panic emerges. "I have to call so-and-so, and pay a bill over the phone" etc... "Oh no, what will I do?!" What ever happened to using payphones? Do these even exist anymore? They do, but not for long if I were to assume. My point being, I can relate to Nafiza's dependancy on technology. But, I like the idea of being able to go without a cellphone, iPod, Facebook, etc. for a day or two.

To keep a student's attention they require visual aid. Incorporating a means of technology and visual stimuli will keep my students interested. Helping them to be digitally literate is something as a teacher I feel compelled to do now. As we advance technologically as a society, so must all of the individuals too, or not. It is my responsibility as a future educator to help them with this. Using technology in a way to benefit the students is the key here. Using websites like Teen Second Life to talk about subjects that hold some value, like Nafiza's discussion on the struggle with higher education in foreign countries, incorporates a sense of morality within the kids.

The Benefits Behind Blogging Buddies

When watching “We Like Our Blogging Buddies: The Write Stuff with Blogging Mentors” I was so surprised to see students in first grade using computers to blog! Wow, how times have changed, and it appears to be for the better. Assigning children to university level students is a wonderful way to approach teaching English. Also, this helps to expand the first graders knowledge on how to use computers. The first graders seemed very excited to blog their stories and receive constructive and positive feedback from their 'blogging buddies'. It appeared that this activity, Blogging Buddies, added an extra element of fun for both parties, especially the younger students.

The English classes I have had at UCO have used a similar technique like blogging buddies. First we would post the writing assignments online, and then we would critique them. Having someone critique your paper is so beneficial; because lets face it sometimes we don't always catch all the errors errors. It's also nice to hear an outsider’s opinion, ideas, suggestions, etc. As well as blogging for English assignments I have been subjected to critiques in all of my art classes. I have been approached in both ways while being critiqued on papers and art assignments. Not all of the criticism I have received has been 100% beneficial, but for the most part it has helped more than it has hurt. You learn what to do and what not to do. What works and what doesn't work. Including positive feedback is crucial in this process. In the video, the university students made sure to provide positive constructive critiques for the students' blogs. Regardless of age, whether you are a first grader in elementary school or a junior at a university, just stating the negative (what's wrong) doesn't help much. In fact, it can do quite the opposite. Doing this will more than likely result in associating a negative feeling with sharing. Who wants to share when you have people telling you what's wrong? Not me! That's why the positive should be emphasized. Don't sugarcoat it, but don't be rude. Find a balance. That way sharing will be associated with a positive feeling.

Most people would assume that a middle school art class would not include technology or English in the lesson plan. Well think again. As times change and progress I want my students to be on top of their technological game. English is where students struggle the most. So, I want to encourage the students to utilize correct grammar, punctuation, etc. Originally, I planned on having the students submit a handwritten short essay on 'the professional artist of the week'. This would be a great activity alone by itself. But lets make it more interesting. What if the students were to blog their essays online? Then, another portion of the assignment would require that the students give positive feedback to an assigned blogging buddy within the class, grade level, or school. This would be a great way to incorporate technology and English into my curriculum. I like the idea and would not have thought twice about it, if not for watching the blogging buddies video.

Tech-knowledge-y

The overall message I gathered from "Digital Youth Portrait: Cameron" was that teachers can be students. Cameron shared his knowledge of technology with his classmates, as well as his teachers. From observing educators over the past few years I have come to believe that some teachers can overlook the information students try to share with them. I don't think that this should be the case. We are all students and teachers, and we should share our knowledge with one another.

The connection I took away from this video was to find something that you are passionate about and pursue it. Cameron is very passionate about his love for technology. He takes the initiative to teach himself on the topics he shares an interest for. I have done this recently with my love for artwork by going to the library to investigate and research different pieces of artwork from various cultures. No one told me to do this, I wanted to. This has influenced my artwork and brought it to a higher level in terms of quality and diversity. It has opened my mind up to further exploration and research for my passion.

As far as technology is concerned my knowledge is quite limited. Cameron's passion has inspired me to do further research to stay on top of my technological game. It appears that most students communicate and express many feelings, ideas, etc. through blogs and outlets like facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. To keep the attention of my students in the future I would like to incorporate these blogging and social networking sites into my curriculum. The key is to use them in a positive and beneficial way to help further their education, while at the same time keeping their attention.

All about me... Tiffany!

Hello friends! I am Tiffany!

Activities I love... creating art, reading, writing, watching japanese movies and anime, playing ping pong, frisbee golf, and cooking.

I would like to be a middle school art teacher. I believe that art can be very therapeutic and is a healthy outlet to express feelings and other issues. Children are very influential in their youth. Having someway to channel their energy in a positive way is my goal with teaching. People have different passions, and art is mine. I want to share this with my students and the knowledge I have acquired along the way pertaining to the arts.