Welcome to this new feature of the IAAE program. We will be using this blog to disseminate arts education information to you and your colleagues. It is our hope that this information will help to strengthen you in the knowledge that this association has the people and programs to support you as an arts educator.
If you are here, you already know that IAAE has a new website. As of 8-8-08, the new website will take the place of smartz.org. I am glad to be a part of this new update. There are a few links that don't go anywhere, yet, but that will change very soon. My hope for the site is that it will provide you with the support that you need in your program, community, or school.
You might like to know who I am and where I came from. I'm adding a little snapshot, so that you can see who is talking to you. I retired last year after 32 years of teaching art and computer technology (and gardening) at North Winneshiek School, North of Decorah, Iowa. I taught everyone from pre-kindergarten through seniors in high school. When North Winn. began buying computers back in the 1980's, I was one of the first in line to ask for a computer in the art room. The first program for an Apple IIC made designs on the screen by using pixels that were coded. It was kind of like making a drawing in the next room by sending a secret code, the artistic version of Battleship. The design was created by typing letters and numbers and then going back to the screen to see what your typing had produced. I've thanked heaven many times for the subsequent ever-improving drawing programs developed for Mac computers since then!
I've been building websites since I took a Graceland class on the fiber optic network, called Teaching Technology. It was the case that I had students who were WAAAY ahead of the teachers. The most valuable class I took to learn how to use html was on-line class from UNI in 1999. I was teaching computer graphics to high school students and needed to know more. And as the mother of two computer savvy teen-aged sons, I was anxious to figure out what they were doing on our computer at home. Our school was ready to have an interactive website, so Tech. Director Dick Dovenberg and I collaborated to build the site for the UNI class. That website has been undated thousands of times over the years.
About that time, Art Educators of Iowa was looking for a new webmaster. I have learned much of what still works by maintaining that site. I am also the newsletter editor for Art Educators. Who knows what computer communication tool will call to me next!
