Saturday, October 20, 2007
This posting is actually a short lecture and lesson dealing with the issues surrounding online art education. Here are the issues and questions being posed:
1. What is online or distance learning when it comes to studio art?
2. What tools are necessary to create or host an online studio art lesson?
3. How do students respond to an online studio art lesson?
4. What advantages do students and teachers have in an online studio environment?
5. What distinct disadvantages can be noted in this learning environment?
6. Complete this online activity and follow the link to the class survey.
1. What is online or distance learning when it comes to studio art?
Many high schools and colleges throughout the nation are now partially or 100% online. This means that the curriculum and assessment is done entirely over the internet or through the delivery of content outside of a traditional classroom, often outside of a traditional classroom schedule. For undergraduate and graduate students this offers the opportunity to earn a degree without the constraints of a school building, a commute, or a schedule. For high school students this allows for extracurricular sports, artistic endeavors, attending to health problems, and even in some cases raising a child. While the online school is not for everyone, many students from a wide variety of backgrounds and levels of need have found this style of learning to be well-suited for their education.
ADVANCED DEGREES
HIGH SCHOOLS
In some programs, studio art is offered as either an elective or a required credit bearing course. Many people pause when hearing this, wondering how students can "take art class online?...doesn't the paint get all over the monitor?"
Experiencing a studio art program over the internet is, again, not for everyone. It does have some distinct advantages and disadvantages, which will be pointed out later. It requires self-starting, independence, confidence with materials and a creative instructor who can frequently imagine a connection in a classroom that doesn't exist.
2. What tools are necessary to create or host an online studio art lesson?
An online or distance art instructor needs to determine early on what materials and objectives he or she has for the students. What is within the grasp of the students, the school budget, the time constraints, and reality? No assumption can be made about the students' learning/ working environment, skill level, time commitment, attention span, prior experience or dedication to a given project. Problems with materials and comprehension of directions need to be anticipated to a higher degree than in a regular classroom. The instructor may not be immediately available to assist a student who runs into difficulty on a given assignment.
Some general basic ingredients to a successful online studio lesson:
- Clear and concise, even redundant, directions. Step-by-step, preferably with pictures and illustrations. Directions and descriptions must align with materials and student reading/ comprehension level.
- A smooth and easily navigable course delivery software system. Even if the online studio course does not depend on the commercial or open-source software available to online schools (such as Moodle, Sakai, Serf, Blackboard, Convene, OntarioLearn are some), the teacher must have some sort of system in place for students to both read directions, communicate with the instructor, and submit studio assignments.
- A school community, which can be as simple as a netserve, or a list of student and teacher emails, or a blog site, or a complex system of discussion boards, archived emails, and virtual classrooms in which instructors and students can meet one on one or as a group.
- A method to deliver materials to students, and a method which allows students to submit original studio artwork for review and credit. Possible hardware includes digital cameras, color scanners, or even snail mail. Students may receive materials through the school/ instructor or may be directed to a local source.
- In terms of tools necessary for online studio art, digital art making lends itself quite appropriately to this learning environment.
3. How do students respond to an online studio art lesson?
This eLecture is aimed at art educators with classroom experience including at least a practicum and a year or two in "the trenches." The reader may be accustomed to 30 students filing in, reaching for materials, working creatively for 35 minutes and then cleaning up and filing out to make room for the next.
In an online or distance art learning environment, an instructor should expect to have a wide variety of contact with each student. Some students may be able to complete the entire studio assignment without one question, while others may be contacting the instructor at every turn. A successful online studio lesson allows for choice, flexibility and self-starting, while also incorporating very specific step by step directions for the students who rely on this. In a classroom, a teacher does constant surface management, however subtle, by coaxing, guiding, reprimanding, reminding, modeling, adjusting and pushing creativity slightly in this direction or that. Online studio art relies on the same conversation between instructor and student, but the conversation may be much slower, or exist only through the written word. Perhaps no feedback can be given until the final studio assignment is submitted.
Just as in the classroom, each online student responds to studio assignments differently. Unlike a traditional environment, in an online classroom the instructor may not be able to gauge a student's reaction to an assignment or prompt until all the effort and interest has been expended, therefore the student may have lost both interest and patience with a studio assignment before the instructor is able to step in. This impresses upon the instructor the need to determine a way to engage all learners from the beginning without the opportunity to grab each learner's attention again in the future. A different way of saying this, is an instructor must deliver the entire lesson, soup to nuts, at once.
4. What advantages do students and teachers have in an online studio environment?
Think back again to that classroom with 30 students filing in every 35 minutes. Which students get the instructor's attention? Which students work at their own pace and which feel left behind or bored? Which students can keep up with the lesson and which students are encouraged to push their creativity?
In an online studio environment, even with the most simple, bare-bones system, the instructor is able to give each student personalized one-on-one attention, time that can be customized to fit each student's level and need. When working with a student on aesthetic or technical questions, the instructor is most likely giving that student his or her undivided attention, and is tailoring answers to his or her knowledge of the student's experience level. Even if instructor-student contact is very brief throughout the duration of the studio assignment, this time is well spent. There are likely no interruptions or distractions, and both are able to concentrate on the exchange.
A secondary advantage for students in an online studio class is anonymity. Many students lose confidence when comparing their work to their peers at the next table in a traditional classroom. If a student is not comparing his or her work to a more experienced peer, there is a strong possibility the student is borrowing ideas and aiming to be creative in the exact same way as his or her peers. When attempting studio assignments independently, an art student may set aside self-consciousness and see the experience as a personal learning relationship between him or herself and the instructor.
5. What distinct disadvantages can be noted in this learning environment?
Let's return to the imagined classroom of 30 students. It is lively, loud, energetic, bright, full of materials, heavily decorated and on a good day brimming with the excitement of creativity. There is frustration, jealousy, disruption, misuse of materials and experimentation. There is a current of electricity as ideas are exchanged purposely or by accident. Many of these feelings cannot be duplicated in the online environment. The instructor circulates, encouraging students to share, improve their work, stay on task, modify behavior. There is brief one-on-one attention given, a hand on the shoulder, and quick demonstration, hurdle help... the majority of these experiences and behaviors cannot be readily migrated to the online environment. Studio art probably relies on community to be 100% successful, but for some students, the advantages of this learning model far outweigh the loss of an artistic community.
6. Complete this online activity and follow the link to the class survey:
Monoprinting
While reading about Islamic art www.islamicarchitecture.org/ you learned that abstraction, pattern, decoration and calligraphy are important elements of Islamic art because of the rules against depicting living creatures.
Look online or in your library for good examples of Islamic art, mosques, tiles, calligraphy, or mosaic art. After becoming familiar with these styles of decoration and pattern, you will make a monoprint.
A monoprint uses the concept of printmaking but results in one unique work of art. It is a fast, messy process that once learned can be repeated and improved and improvised on with lots of neat results.
Here are a few examples of Islamic art, architecture and calligraphy:
Try this link or discover your own: www.islamicarchitecture.org/
Monoprinting supplies:
Acrylic paint
Brushes
An old piece of cardboard covered with plastic wrap (palette)
White paper or for different effect try colored paper, or found paper from books, magazines, etc. Or try an old drawing you don't need to keep?
Old newspapers
Old clothes or an apron or smock
Old sponges
Scissors
Soap, paper towels, water, cleanup stuff
Large wooden or plastic spoon
Method:
Please CLICK HERE to see the step-by-step photos of this project...
The concept here is to first paint your image onto the palette, and then use monoprinting technique to transfer the picture onto white paper like a real big stamp.
Setup:
Clear a table so nothing can get dirty with paint. Spread out old newspapers. Set out all your supplies and a big cup of water. Be prepared to change the water if it gets too dirty.
Have a place to set your art so it can dry safely when you are done.Keep your white paper clean and accessible maybe on a different table close by. Make your palette by covering a piece of cardboard or old cereal box with plastic wrap.
Choose your colors, which you will paint, dab, smear, or spread onto the palette in a pattern of your choosing.Make sure your clothes are protected.
Make sure you have a damp sponge close by. You may also want to cut old sponges into different shapes to use as pattern stamps. Make sure one sponge does NOT get paint on it.
You may have to use this to dampen your paper before printing.Printing:
Begin to paint onto the palette using whatever patterns, designs, calligraphic decorations, or color combinations you think will show a relation to Islamic art. Remember: no living creatures.
Try layering colors, dragging pencils, brushes and other tools through the paint, add large blobs and small strokes of paint, try using anything you can think of along with your brushes.
Cut paper, pieces of sponge, your fingers, be as experimental as possible. you may need to add a little water to your paint as you go, you need to work pretty fast so paint doesn't dry on the palette.When you are satisfied with the palette, quickly clean your hands, and then place a clean piece of paper upside down onto the palette. If you think your paint has become too dry,
maybe wipe the paper with a clean damp sponge first. Press the paper onto the palette and rub it gently with your hand or the wooden / plastic spoon.Rub the paper for about 45 seconds to 1 minute, then remove paper and set it aside to dry.
Does the palette look cool? Can you wipe off color, add color, mess around and experiment? Can you make more prints? Be as creative as you can.
When the monoprint is DRY, scan it, name it your_name_monoprint.jpg and submit! You can use the email system or upload it using our course management software.
Please CLICK HERE to see the photos of this project...
Click Here to take survey on the effectiveness of this studio lesson
: 4:51 PM 
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