M6 Art + Tech

The arts have utilized new technologies since the beginning of time. New media relies on new technology, from tools to materials to techniques.  From the printing press to the camera to the computer, artists have adapted technology to serve creative purposes. Now technology can also do a great deal to benefit art students and teachers in making, studying, and sharing art.  

Advantages

There are many benefits of technology integration in the art classroom, such as new formats for creating works of art.  Now even young students can create “high-quality products” such as digitized images, 3-D models, and videos in the classroom (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.366).  New technologies also increase the accessibility of works of art for examples and art history lessons (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.366). Teachers no longer have to purchase expensive art books or posters to use year after year. They can share whole galleries and exhibits through virtual field trips in an instant, based on what is hot in the art world at that time.  Digital formats for sharing art are also great tools that rely on technology. As the authors of our text point out, electronic portfolios are one of the top strategies for integrating technology and the arts (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.358). I can’t imagine how much time, energy, and money I would have saved had I been able to submit my AP Art portfolios digitally, which is now the norm, instead of with manually taken slides!

Here is a great article about tech + art integration!

Disadvantages

The integration of technology in the art classroom brings about a number of challenges that are common in other classrooms. Though the internet brings into the classroom a world of helpful and appropriate resources, it can also expose students to “unsavory materials” (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.364). Especially in an art class, there is a fine line between tasteful and vulgar or pornographic. A lot of art history materials are blocked from web access as they link to images of nude figures (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.364). With libraries relying more and more on computer-based materials rather than print materials, a lot of art materials are lost in filters. 

Helpful Assignments

Two of my most helpful assignments in this course were the social bookmarking assignments (Delicious and Symbaloo) and the Wiki page assignment. Though the wiki page was a huge pain to create because the site is less than user friendly and kept messing up, the idea of having a class “hub” online is great. A lot of what I put into the assignment will serve as inspiration for a class site in the future, though I would choose a different hosting site than Wikispace. I also enjoyed using the social bookmarking sites, because though the concept was not new to me, I had never taken the time to make or use one. A lot of what we did in the class built upon or reiterated things I already know how to do, but these two assignments got me out of my technology comfort zone. I will definitely use social bookmarking sites in the future for both personal and educational use. 

 

Doering, A.H., & Roblyer, M.D. (2013). Integrating educational technology into

teaching (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. 

National Center for Technology Innovation and Center for Implementing 

               Technology in Education, (2009). Integrating the arts with technology:    

                Inspiring creativity. Retrieved from website: http://www.ldonline.org/article

                /30245/

M5 Wikispace Resources

Wikispaces are great tools for teachers to interact with students and parents in one online hub that "encourages collaboration and communication of ideas by having users contribute or modify content" (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.268). Using wikispaces also helps "facilitate students' understanding of ways to communicate using the internet," other than just email or Facebook (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.202). There are great resources online to help teachers create more helpful and engaging wikis.

A great start for creating a new class wiki is to find inspiration from a veteran teacher's wiki site. Miss Lee’s Art Classroom Webpage is a great example of a classroom wiki. Her site features assignments, announcements, a syllabus, and study guides, as well as a section for weekly Outstanding Art Students and a teacher bio. I really like the "Outstanding Art Student" page because it gives students a chance to shine, and even share their work with family and friends by sending them the link!

Here are a couple other wikis that would be helpful to teachers. They are not classroom sites, but rather sites for teachers to use as resources:

TeachArtWiki is a site for "collaboration for teaching and learning about art using wiki."

ArtInspired is a site of "visual art ideas and resources to inspire and motivate your lessons, artwork and art curriculum."

Podcasts are also a useful tool for teachers and students, especially since they can be subscribed to for easy download (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.224). Often they feature interviews or mirror a radio broadcast (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.224).

An interview with artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, as they discuss four decades of work including notable projects such as The Gates and Valley Curtain, would be a great addition to an art lesson on installations. It would also be a great prompt for a paper or research project for older students. It is always interesting to hear artists reflect on their own work. 

A National Gallery of Art Video Podcast on the Life of Gauguin would also be helpful when learning about Post-Impressionism. It is engaging because it features video and dramatic narration that would be interesting to young people. 

Additional Resource:

"12 Podcasts for the Creative Class" is an article that links to twelve intriguing and thought provoking podcast sites about the evolution of art and culture. 

Social Bookmarking Sites allow users to save sites as "bookmarks" and access them from any computer or device (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.218). This is especially helpful to teachers who can share their favorite sites with other educators. 

Christy Vance has posted a great webmix of Art for Kids on Symbaloo. I figure it’s a pretty good one because of all the hits she’d gotten in the past week. Her webmix of "fun, educational, and interactive art websites" spans from games to more educational activities. Many of these would be fun to add to a class wiki or even to utilize in class. 

Widgets are also great tools to add to websites. They add media that is easy to access and is usually visually appealing.  

Flickr is a great tool for sharing art images. It would be great to have the Flickr widget on a class blog or wiki featuring student work so that students and parents could view and share it. The Flickr feed I currently have posted on my blog features the official media feed of the Louvre. 

Scribd is a cool tool that allows for document sharing. Teachers can upload documents, such as a syllabus, that can be viewed within a window on the page, rather than adding files as attachments or that have to be opened in a new tab. The Scribd site also allows access to thousands of free materials, including novels, cookbooks, and art books. The media currently featured on my blog is a web version of a cool art book featuring the art of Petrichor. 

NBCooper's Photostream

NBCooper's photostream on Flickr.

This is a Flickr from my old photography class, used to show how art projects from a classroom could be uploaded to Flickr to share on a classroom blog or wiki.

M4: It's All Online!: Effective Web Based Learning

The Internet has come along way in a short period of time, and it is hard to imagine our world today without it. Understanding various aspects of the Internet is of great use to teachers and students for more efficient, accurate, and helpful web use.

URLs: What do URLs tell you/students about web sites?

Normally if you say to someone, “Go to this website,” you are referring to a URL. A URL, or uniform resource locator, allows any person around the world to find a website, just like a location could be found using a mailing address (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.216). Usually the URL will alert you to what the site is about using a name or acronym, as does the domain designator (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.216). For example, the URL artsbma.org tells that this is an arts organization. Can you guess what organization this is the URL for? Click the link to find out!

Search Engines: How can learning to use search engines help you/students find better information?

If you tell someone “Google this,” you are telling them to use a search engine.  Search engines comb through millions of URLS to quickly find what you are looking for, whether it is a broad topic or something specific (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.219). Google is an example of a keyword search, as it searches for keywords in URLS (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.219). Search engines allow quicker access to information and can help weed or sites that aren’t relevant by using multiple keywords.

Internet Tool: 

A blog, or web log, is a great tool for communicating with students, parents, and the community (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.222). They are mostly very user friendly and give almost anyone a forum for sharing text, images, videos, and more (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.222). Because blogs allow for comments, they are a great place for students to publish their work so that others can view and critique it. A blog is also a great tool for a teacher to communicate with parents and share activities and accomplishments from the classroom.

Web-Based Lesson: 

Electronic or Virtual Field trips are a great example of an online lesson enhancement. I enjoyed viewing many of these earlier in the semester and found more that could supplement a lesson. The Virtual Tours of the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc and of Lascaux would greatly enhance a study of ancient cave drawings. It is helpful to see their overall layouts and how one drawing relates to another.

Favorite Web Sites: 

Last May, Google launched the World Wonders Project, a site that grants virtual access to 132 historic and culturally significant sites around the world (Alpert, 2012). The views are similar to that of Google Earth and would greatly enhance an art or history lesson.  Seeing an ancient city gives students a context for their learning, helping teachers “augment their curricular goals…and deepen their students understanding” (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.238). They can picture where art was created, how it was influenced, and where it is now on display. As the authors of our text point out, web based media can often be “time consuming to develop and implement, and difficult to design in ways that have substantial positive impacts on students’ learning” (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.238). This type of media has such open ended opportunities for integration that it is a gem for educators. Not to mention the fact that it is free!

A few suggestions: 

           Cathedral Square- Pisa, Italy

           Cologne Cathedral- Cologne, Germany

           Versailles Palace- Versailles, France

The interactives on the  MOMA website are a great example of tutorial instruction, because they give students lots of instructions and information (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.245). They can also offer students a multicultural experience, exposing them to art from around the world (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.245).

Suggestions:

           RedStudio for Teens

           Destination Modern Art for Children

           Tim Burton 

Alpert, E. (2012, May 31). Google unveils virtual tours of stonehenge, jerusalem, other 

            'world wonders'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from

            http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/05/google-unveils-virtual-

            tours-of-stonehenge-other-world-wonders.html

Doering, A.H., & Roblyer, M.D. (2013). Integrating educational

technology into teaching (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.