Debbie Clement's Author-Illustrator Slide Share

OH HAPPY DAY!!! 

~~ SLIDESHARE ~~

Another hurdle on the technological landscape: check!

Look below at one 'slide' that I 'built' in power-point. 

It's the final slide in my first, ever Slideshare show. 

-----------------------------

 Here's the biggest news of my quilted dream career. 

The final slide in my first ever "Slideshare" presentation..... with hotlinks embeded when you're in the Slideshare show! 

SLIDESHARE? Did someone say slideshare? 

Who said Slideshare? What's Slideshare?
D...R...U...M...R...O...L...L... Here's my first!

Author illustrator slideshare from Debbie Clement

SLIDESHARE #1!!

Can you believe it? Did it work? 

I continue to attempt to leap tall buildings in numerous small bounds. 

Enclosed above you hopefully found a 53 slide 'scrapbook' of my travels making school visits -- with some library visits mixed in as well. All of this effort (and I have been working on this non-stop for the last two days) was prompted by five things:

1. I read an article that said that having "Slideshare" presentations will help Google 'find' your work and get you cataloged. I am truly working on my G+ skills and giving it new-found time and effort. So this 'project' seemed like something that I could 'do' to attract those spidey-bots in my direction. +Lisa Nolan has really been guiding me into the deeper end of the  G+ pool. She's shared numerous G+ articles with me and I'm forever grateful. Find her blogging at: "Confessions of a Montessori Mom Blog."  The woman is brilliant & oh, so generous! 
2. I had a fellow blogger, Nicole Lanier of "Lanier's Lions" request info on how to set up a visit for me to come to their school district and she needed something to share with her committee. Nicole, I designed this with you in mind! 

3. My visit last week for "Read Across America" was oh-so-much-fun(!!!) and I'd LUV LUV LUV to replicate the success I've just experienced at other sites. Having a visual 'tutorial-slideshare' of previous success seems like a great way to generate future success. Having Greg orchestrate such an experience for his little monsters was the inspiration I needed to share-thru-slides, just how excellence works! 

4. Then I have +Fern Smith to thank for her sending me to the 3 minute YouTube video on how to embed hotlinks into your power-point program. As this was a whole new skill-set for me to learn. Fern blogs over at "Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas" and has a Thursday Tech linkup every week -- where she encourages the tech-challenged, like moi, and holds our hands. I hope to get to her school one day as she's right here in sunny Florida. 

5. For anyone that has oodles to share and isn't fond of the thought of staring in a video, this is the PERFECT alternative!  BTW: You build the ENTIRE Slideshare show as a power-point presentation and then upload the whole ppp in one action to ss. Make sense? Now I have to figure out how to edit. LOL. Progress!

SUPER HELPFUL LINKS from +Lisa Nolan regarding Google+

Why Google+ Will be Critical for your Blog's Success in 2013

Google+ Isn't a Desert 
How to Improve Google Ranking for your Blog Post (the Slideshare prompt)
Seven Ways Writers Can Build Online Authority with Google+
Author Rich Snippets for Google 

Let's see if it worked. 
Leave me a comment if you can get it to work. I've even included hyper-links from the slideshare program to a variety of places: here, PreK+K Sharing, my dot com store, Pinterest account, Google+ account and LinkedIN. Can someone test drive it for me? 

Leave me a comment and I'll have to give a random drawing thank you to some lucky winner! 

***Note to self. Apparently you can't 'pin' the image of the Slideshare presentation?!?!?! So I went into the Slideshare show, converted the power-point slide to a jpg, uploaded it to the html of the blog and VOILA, I have an image to pin.... is there a better way? As you can see, it does take a village indeed! 

***Second note to self. I could Google+ two of my helping contributors, but not the other two. What's up with that? Baby steps!!






***Third note to self. I just noticed that I now have over 200 followers at my Teachers Pay Teachers store! I have a new product that I just added and motivation to add some more! Look for my songs in zipped files that include an Mp3 of my original song and support materials. 

****One final observation. Slideshare has its own analytics. Who knew? I can see that in the first 15 hours since I up-loaded my slide-show, 47 people have viewed it DIRECTLY from Slideshare. This is PHENOMENAL news to me! Those are people who would have never, ever heard of me without having made the slide-show. HUGE!! People. BLOGGERS! This is HUGE new potential!!! Oh happy day! 

-- Debbie -- 

Graphic Quilt Response Thank You

Fine Motor Friday! Fine Motor Leads to Fine Arts!

Third grade response to Debbie Clement Author-Illustrator School Visit.

People always ask me what grades are appropriate for my author visit to their school. That's a very legitimate question and one that I enjoy sorting through to get to the best outcome for my time on site. As the author-illustrator of 'picture books' I sense that my host is guessing that my time would be well spent with the kinder-kiddos and perhaps add the first graders as well. That's how some visits unfold. 

What I want to share with you today are the amazing responses from two of the classes of THIRD graders from one of my end-of-the-year-spring visits. Imagine my enthusiasm to open a package this summer and find this INCREDIBLE and mature artistic response to my work!!!! Simply over-the-moon. 

Truth be told. After the entire building of second and third graders gathered together in the gym for my songs and dances and antics and sharing and laughter and learning, we had just enough time for me to visit in the classroom of the third grade combined team. What fun to go 'on their turf' with a smaller sized group and offer the opportunity for interaction. Questions. Inquiries. Insight. A synopsis of what their favorite parts were from the huge assembly. 

But then................ it is a brilliant teacher -- or team of teachers as this case demonstrates, that knows how to 'extend' the lesson of our visit and time together, into an exercise of writing and reflection, coupled with individual artistic response. Just how brilliant are these illustrations? Just how amazing is this student work as it reflects the style of my quilts? The ol' Art teacher in me rejoices!!!! These pieces are the dimensions of over-sized postcards. Just perfect!
Each student created their own original Art, most chose magic markers -- and then they each wrote their own letter of thanks on the back. 

When was the last time you had your students write "old fashioned" thank you letters? In the ever pressing crush of student testing and Common Core and evaluations and standards being met and the enormous pressure on teachers to get their ducks in a row and proving their merit -- a package like this is pure gold. PURE GOLD. Because this work represents time. Time was devoted to achieve this level of excellence. 

What a perfect connection between written work and Fine Arts. 

I couldn't have designed a more fitting exercise if I were to design it myself!! 

Here's just a brief recap of some of the Art. 

I think Halmark would be happy to purchase many of these for their greeting card division. 

I am so inspired by this response. 

AMAZING!!!! 

-- Debbie --

Pinterest Directory for Library People

Welcome to my little corner under the rainbow. 

I'm a HUGE believer in the power-of-the-pin.

I now have 52,502 followers of 95 boards.

Finding folks with similar interests is the beauty of pinning. 

I'm a children's music-lady, that's turned 3 of my songs into traditional picture books..... so that makes me an author and illustrator. (I'm the publisher, too... so that's why I need all the help of all the librarians I can find.) 

Look immediately in the left side-bar for my Mp3 freebie entitled "Going to the Library" and please send your book-buddies to get their own copies. I would be so grateful if you would leave feedback/comment at TpT after you download. THANKS!

Today's theme is to bring together all of the Book-Lovin' types! 

This is week #6 of the Great Pinterest Link-Ups

Week #1: The original Edu-Pinners [PreK-12th]

Week #2: Early Childhood Educators

Week #3: Kindergarten Kinder-pinners

Week #4: Primary Grades Pinning People
Week #5: Art Teachers + Teaching Artists

Week #7: Resource People in "Special Needs" 
Week #8: Upper Elementary Perspective 

Find Pinteresting People to follow. 

Honest. This is easy to do. 

• Go to Pinterest. 
• Go to the 'wall' that houses your Pinterest pin-boards collections. 
• Look up-top in the bar with your pinterest identity. 
• Copy that Pin-URL. 
• Go down to the bottom of the link-up below. 
• At the bottom of the list, click on the blue words that say: "Click here to enter".
• Designate your Pinterest collection with a descriptive title. 
• Then paste your Pinterest URL in the URL line. 

VOILA! 

No blog addresses. Just Pinterest accounts, please. 
I will remove any accidental blog addresses. If you're really confused you can leave your Pinterest account in the comment section and I'll add you myself. 

Come back in the future to follow later additions to the directory. 
Next week will be for Pinners from a Special Education perspective. Saturday!

Here's a peek inside my first picture book, "You're Wonderful." I made the illustrations from fabric as small contemporary quilts that we scanned for printing. I travel  about making library visits sharing the quilts and my songs. 
I'm ALWAYS looking for Library people willing to help share my books. 
So glad that you found me!


Here's a peek inside my newest, national Indie Award of Excellence winner, "Red, White and Blue" which is based on a song I wrote immediately in the aftermath of 9-11. I am pleased to announce that it is now available for digital download at Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm brand new there and will gradually bring additional works to the digital download format. 

 
After you get yourself added, please be helpful and pin the image at the top, to ensure that others will find us. If you are a blogger, you're welcome to grab the html in the footer and circulate the entire list from your blog! The more the merrier. Thanks for your help. 

-- Debbie -- 

Painted Murals in Schools and Libraries

WELCOME or WELCOME BACK! 

It's time for another of my 'roundUPs.'

I search back through my photo files --

and pull together photos around a common denominator.

This time the theme is MURALS! 

These are all images I've seen during my travels 

making Author-Illustrator school + library visits. 

ENJOY!!!

The 'old Art Teacher' in me is especially fond of documenting the Art rooms on my visits. Take a look at these exciting portals-to-creativity. 

Last spring I got to make a Florida visit to Garden Elementary and meet my inspirational cyber-blogging buddy, Art teacher Joanna Davis. She is responsible for this reading-incentive mural below and orchestrating the habitat mural by her students on beyond. You can follow her adventures at We Heart Art. 

This is one of my VERY favorite, student created murals! 

Every year the art teacher creates a new mural and has the students create the work! 

OCEAN! 

OCEAN! 

OCEAN MURAL!

"It takes all kinds of fish to make a school." 

These next several 'kindergarten-themed' murals were commissioned by a dedicated kindergarten teacher for inspiration in the kindergarten classroom. AMAZING!

Matching Bulletin Board on Character Traits in Elementary School 

Mural in the School Cafeteria 

Peter Pan Supervises the Library

My day last year in Reggio Emilia, Italy afforded me the opportunity to sing for the Italian children. In the process I was able to photograph some of the most dazzling 'children's murals' I have ever seen. The children's drawings were enlarged and painted by professional artists. These amazing works spanned the two story foyer of the new building.  

Reggio Emilia, Italy Two Story Mural from Child's Drawing 

The ultimate of all the ultimate murals? This one I shared  here earlier from my end of the year visit. It is certainly worth repeating. It was created from 'UPcycled' materials: lids, and tops of all colors and sizes. The amazing part of the story is that its first life was at the Franklin Park Conservatory. The entire mural was REcycled to Sutter Park Elementary for further appreciation. 



In the manner of how all things work together for good........... just hours ago I received an email from the very brains behind the mural above. This post was already scheduled to go live this afternoon. WOW. Here's the email I JUST RECEIVED!!

"I happened to see your post about the Blooms & Butterflies mural at Sutter Park Elementary in Worthington. I am the designer of bottle cap projects as well as that specific mural. It was created in the Spring/Summer of 2007. I designed and painted the mural here in my studio and "capped" the upper 4 feet. Then we installed all 8 panels at the Conservatory and children were encouraged to continue the capping on the lower 4 feet. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and promotion of the mural. Plus, I am happy to hear that the mural has found a new home. I had heard from the FPC that it was destined for a local school...but I did not know where.

I travel the country to visit elementary schools as an artist-in-residence as well! My very first cap project was at Worthington Hills Elementary in 2004 working with the art teacher, Ted Dennison. Since then, I am happy to say, it seems an entire world has been inspired to make art with bottle caps! I've received e-mails as far as away as Australia and China citing my books/web site as an inspiration. Readers of your blog might be interested in seeing my website at: Michelle Bottle Cap Art. "

"Blooms + Butterflies" by Michelle Stitzlein 

Have you downloaded your freebie copy of my Mp3 "Going to the Library"? 
click here

-- Debbie -- 
By all means please pin your favorites!