Color Wheel, Color Theory Interactive White Board

First impressions of the interactive white board included: there is no way I am going to be able to work this thing and how the heck can I get my lessons to connect to the uses of this technology tool. However, I spent about four hours one Sunday afternoon just messing around with the program and trying different things out. Come to find that I really enjoyed creating the flipchart. My mom has always said, "Never judge a book by its cover." I know this is the oldest saying, but it is very true. Especially in today's world, we are surrounded by new technologies and ways of doing things that we have been doing for decades. The challenge comes when we are not open to the new way of doing things that will further inspire and expand the knowledge and understanding of our young people. This flipchart really gave me a new set of skills that I will be building upon in my own future classroom some day.

Creating my own flipchart for the first time meant trying new things and being open for just as many failures as successes. I am a very hands on person so doing everything once for myself was a must. Once, I got past being able to use the program, rememer when to save, and become comfortable with the property objects I really began to have fun with it. I chose the color wheel and color theory because I thought it would be more beneficial for my students to learn about color and color relationships without actually using any color mediums yet. The final project of the whole lesson has students eventually creating their own abstract color wheel. Before they did that I wanted them to learn about mixing colors, what colors can be mixed, what colors are not relatable, and how colors that are side-by-side can either enhance or detract from each other.

I believe that my art background really lent itself to the neatness and creative aspects of this flipchart lesson. I wanted to create a cohesive look and keep the flow of the flipchart engaging for students. For the subject area of art, I believe that the tools I used really complimented what I wanted students to learn and get out of this interactive way of teaching and learning. On the other hand, creating this flipchart lesson around an art project made it a little more challenging to get my students involved and having fun. I did not want to just have them learn vocabulary or use the tools to see what was missing and filling in blanks. While art vocabulary is essential to creating art, I wanted them to actually engage and participate in discussion about color with real life, and to learn how to think about the use of colors without actually touching the paint medium yet. In all, I believe that I did a good job considering that this was the first time I have worked with this program. We are all in this together as aspiring teachers. We will all learn and grow together, expand from one another, and proceed with our future abilities related to the growing technology as one working teacher preparing for a variety of ways to teach and help our students grow.

Interactive Color Wheel
This website is used as a way for students to learn color relationships and mixing colors prior to actually getting their hands on the paint medium. It is a good chance to allow students the experimentation before allowing them to use real paint. We want to be conservative in our paint usage so we do not waste any. This helps students learn to be sparing and that they can always go back fro more.