Slot Shelters taking form

Well the idea Slot Shelters, that percolated last spring now has a site and five schools engaged. Hurray! I know it will be a long and twisty path to bring the first year to completion, but it is exciting to be taking steps down that road. Slot Shelters is a collaborative project engaging elementary school students in thinking about local and global shelter needs in innovative ways both online and off line through simple slot building cards and though joint designs in Google SketchUp. A better description is on the site: Slot Shelters

















The lessons are still being fleshed out and rubrics being made. I also need to iron out some upload image features, but the Azerbaijan school and Hawaii school are beginning the first "explore" lessons. Many of the lesson draw upon tools I used in the You Are Here Street Banner Project last year, but one tool is new to me. I am excited to learn more about Google Sketch Up and see what the students create in it using their unique photographic textures created in Repper Pro. What is Repper? Check it out and have fun creating patterns: Repper
We will also be using VoiceThread, a great communication tool for discussions around videos or images.

Artist/Arts Educator Pantea Karimi will be teaching lessons with me here locally and we applied for an NEA Media Arts Grant through the Zero1 Art & Technology Network to support the project as it grows, but we won't find out results of application until May 2012.