“Born to Draw” iBook Series are viewable on Mac Laptops and Desktops with Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks

What a gift from Apple iBooks

Both iBooks in the Series are now viewable on mac laptops and desktops

Anyone with Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks installed on their laptop or desktop can now view iBooks right on their computer.

“Born to Draw” and other LIONap iBooks are now viewable on your desktop and laptop!

The MAC OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is a free download that allows you to view iBooks. You can now view, click on the step-by-step illustrations in the Born to Draw iBook and project the assignment in the classroom for your students to draw.

This Common Core aligned drawing program allows teachers the interdisciplinary advantage of offering drawing with their lesson plans via Apple Laptop, Desktop, iPad, Mini iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Read more →

Guest Author Terry Heick

His blog is one the best on learning in the classroom

08/26/2012, Terry Heick,

Implementing iPads isn’t exactly a just-add-water proposition.

While they’re wondrous little devices capable of enchanting learners for hours, to get the learning results you’re likely after will take planning, design, and reflection.

It can help to start out by asking yourself some important questions, such as “What can the iPad do that is not possible without it? Put another way, what problems does the iPad solve?”

But the learning environment you’re starting with can make a big difference as well. It’s one thing to come up with individual lesson plans high on the wiz-bang factor, but low in terms of sustainability.

Below are 4 distinct areas of instruction and instructional design that can help frame the concept of iPad integration. Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and Integration. Read more →

INTERNET SAFETY

Protecting Children’s Privacy Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

Below is a video link that outlines the rules of COPPA and our privacy policy links can be found in the footer of every page on the website.
In order to for your child attend the Born to Draw Virtual Online Classes parents need to register and fill out and return the Registration form that allows their children to attend the online art classes. This is a strict rule that conforms to the law in order to retain compliance and integrity for the Born to Draw program, in order to lawfully obtain your email link and allow you access into the classroom. Please follow the directions on the Virtual Art Room page. Please be sure to read our Privacy Rules.
Protecting your children is our responsibility, as well as, protecting the privacy of our client’s information.

Read more →

Teaching art for nearly three decades is the best way I have found to give children skills that last a lifetime. I have been hauling around art stuff that amount to a 10’x15’ storage space.  The expense over the years is awesome when it is totaled so I cannot “just throw it away.”

iBook app shares in class

I have to tell you these materials comes in handy now that I am moving my teaching online starting one day a week, Wednesday’s starting September 18^th, 2013.  Registration for classes has started. Many lessons are from the Step by step instruction projects found in the Born to Draw™ iBooks published through iTunes and the LIONap, who specialize in children’s educational books.

You can find all the resources you need to teach drawing and or follow along with the first year’s lessons, all 35 weekly lessons.

Now if you just want to learn art for yourself, your children or teach it in a classroom setting you can enjoy all the benefits of having taken art classes by experiencing the lessons found here. Whatever your needs, this site is sure to keep your creative juices flowing and provide the interactive online training one needs. Read more →

There are several classes being offered for adults at the North Valley and Highland Senior Centers. Please see our web page and sign up. You can pay for the class online or come to class and pay. Please remember to sign up if you are interested. We try to have at least 3 people and the  limit is 8 people per class. Classes may cancel if we do not have the attendance needed. Whether you are experienced or a beginner you are welcome. Depending on the experience of the class each lesson will be geared towards the students interest.

The workshops covers primarily landscape painting however, if you are interested in figurative work I can work with you on your projects. Consider working on at least two painting while in attendance.

If you have take the program before come back and work on another project.

Below are the links for the North Valley Senior Center fliers:

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Below are the links for the Highland Senior Center fliers:

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Remember to sign up so we know that you are interested in the program.

Registration for the Born to Draw Saturday Morning Classes Begin on Saturday January 26 for the first Session.

Born to Draw Saturday Mornings

Jacob age 11 completed charcoal drawing is the Summer Session of Born to Draw

2 sessions:  Total length of class time 2 hours including set up and clean up

Session 1: January 26 – March 2, 2012 10 am – 12 noon

Session 2: March 23 – April 27, 2012 10 am – 12 noon

Read more →

Are you using mLearning to present core studies to your Classrooms? If so, you should check out the Born To Draw digital learning resources. Our program includes professional development training and offers a website membership subscription that gives secure access to all the resources on the Born To Draw website. This helps integrate art education into core studies and gives children a chance to learn to draw.

Mobile devices such as the Apple iPad, iPhone, are an investment into the achievement gap by offering digital educational curriculum, presentation and interaction into the learning environment. More digital learning resources are now being offered, such as my products for integrating art education for common core learning or offering art education as required.

The Born To Draw digital learning products are definitely a niche offering. I cannot begins to compete with the likes of Scholastic or other the corporations. Read more →

By Caleb Jacobo, Guest Writer

Creative Commons 4.0 Attributions

Nation of Change photo Credit Creative Commons 4.0 Attributions

With my daughter soon to be entering the public school system, I’ve become more and more concerned with the quality of exposure to the arts that our public schools provide for our children. That includes music classes, drama clubs, and any other ‘extra-curricular’ activity that is suffering from budget cuts. Read more →

I would like to preface this editorial by saying that Terrance Pratt could just as well be talking about the state of education in America. Education is being corroded by extreme right wing tax policies that are literally cutting the budgets of schools to the point of even closing schools. These ideological policies are destroying the foundations and principals that built a strong educational and Democratic system. Today reform is the hot topic and exactly what ideology prevails in the short and long term is what will determine the building of a strong social society or one that plunges our children into poverty and all the misery associated with it.

We have a moral responsibility to give our children the strongest education we can.  The Born to Draw art education platform advocates visual literacy, integrates art into core curriculum and it gives children and adults the permission to express the creativity of the Human Mind.  As Terrance Pratt so rightly states,

We study art, not because it will get us a job at Atlantis, but because it shows us and allows us to express the creativity of the human mind. In short, a good education system awakens in its students a sense of awe and wonder and engenders in its students a love of learning for learning’s sake.

I am a life-long learner working on the third, maybe fourth, act in my life which is allowing me to give back to a system, that when it was strong, gave me the tools to help change children’s lives. Let us develop a common core value for a future of critical thinkers who will pass the torch and allow light to shine on our Democratic principals on keeping our society strong in all the correct ways. Read more →