Showcase Teacher: Deby Childress

Deby Childress is an Art Teacher at Sommer Elementary. Ms. Childress does an amazing job of providing her students with many different experiences in Art. She understands the importance of using technology as one of the many tools that artists use to create their pieces.

Here are a few ways that she uses technology:

• Friday Art Projects
• Fifth Grade Class Project
• Microsoft Paint
• Online resources
• Student portfolios
• Frames animation software

What is a favorite lesson that you do that incorporates technology?

The Fifth Grade project doing research and presenting about an artist of their choosing.

What is the one instructional technology that you feel you could no longer live without?

Laptops

If wishes could come true, what technology would you want to have available in your classroom to enhance instruction?

One laptop for every student, all the time.

What are your thoughts on using technology in the classroom as part of instruction?

Students are engaged and working at their own pace. Many concepts I teach are understood at a higher level when students do hands-on activities on the computer. The computer frees up the students to create because it is so easy to erase and start again. Students are less inhibited. I love computers in the art room and many of today's art jobs are working/creating on the computer and it will only grow in the future.

Check out Ms. Childress's website!