Software for Art Education
History & Philosophy
My college degree was in "Selected Studies", a major which allowed me to design my own curriculum by selecting courses from the whole University while working toward a BFA. While I got a good education, I was not trained for any job which would pay a living wage.
After working with elementary children during my second round at college, I landed my first high school job teaching studio art, mechanical drawing, and architectural design. This meant I had better teach myself mechanical drawing and architectural design quickly...
The next job was more my style, teaching Studio Art and Painting and Drawing. Working in a smaller public school gave me the opportunity to spend 2 or 3 years with the same students to develop their talents.
Around 1990 our school received a grant to buy 14 of the first color Mac computers. A parent of one of my students donated a color printer and Adobe Systems donated enough copies of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop to put together a small computer graphics class. The class evolved as my students and I became more comfortable with this new medium.
Meanwhile, my students began to receive full and partial scholarships to major art schools, one even winning the Pratt National Talent Search. I was photographing their work for their portfolios, so had a large collection of student art. At the same time I was sharpening my computer skills, so I thought; 'Why not create a CD-ROM to showcase all of this great student work'. I titled it "Ideadisc". The idea was to create an interactive CD so that students could learn through the art work of their peers. It featured student work, the materials used, and the idea behind each project. It was delivered in a simple point and click CD-ROM.
I took the finished CD to the New York State Teachers Association conference and did a presentation. There was enthusiastic support from teachers and our state arts administrator. Next I approached the company 'Sax Arts & Crafts' to see if they would sell it in their catalog. In the next couple of years thousands of copies of Ideadisc would be sold all over the country and in Singapore. (Sax continues to support my products and currently distributes ArtSite Basic.)
At this point the Internet was beginning to gain a little steam. The Kennedy Center in Washington DC created 'ArtsEdge', one of the first websites which showcased student art. They asked for lesson ideas, so I sent then a copy of Ideadisc. The submission resulted in a collaboration we called "IdeaWeb". It not only displayed the student work, but explalined the motivation for the work in the student's own words. My students were thrilled to see their work on the Internet, even though not one of them had a computer at home.
Next I entered Ideadisc in a competition sponsored by the National Educational Media Network and won a Gold Apple Award of Excellence. A trip to California followed to do a talk at their conference and collect the award.
After 12 years of teaching I left the classroom to concentrate on building a program which I hoped would go to the core of creative teaching. My own students' success was based on the simple idea that if you give a student a great challenge, they will figure out how to carry it out. The technique or skill came after the idea, not before. Each new project was introduced with a concept and an example of previous student work (before I had examples, I did each project myself). I also integrated art history whenever I got a chance. That way students could emulate great works of art rather than the popular culture which surrounded them through advertising and print media.
By this point, the Internet was a part of many peoples lives and the great museums of the world were beginning to display their collections online. For teachers, this provided a wonderful free resource of art images and information. The idea for ArtSite was to give teachers a way to organize images and information into their own museum and for students to have easy access to it. An extension would be to include writng and studio project suggestions based on the art on display. Students could then become curators of their own art collections by writing their own descriptions from the museum or adding new works of art. They could also share their own studio art by contributing to the portfolio section of ArtSite. All of this information could be displayed and shared on a classroom computer or school network. A later addition, the ArtBlog, would give students the ability to enter into a discussion about the works of art in their personal galleries.
ArtSite needed to be a dynamic resource which could grow and change. The museum would carry over from year to year, and teachers could choose which student portfolio pages from each year to inspire new students. Teachers and students could access the art and information at any time from a classroom computer or school or district network.
It took a couple of years of development before ArtSite was fit for delivery. I'd like to thank the museums who gave me permission to use art from their collections.
After leaving the classroom, I rely on the comments teachers send to improve the programs and to develop new ideas. The idea of the ArtBlog came from a teacher and many other teachers began to ask for an easy way to display their student art online. The first priority was an art gallery which included the ability to search an individual student's portfolio. The result was ArtWebsite.
When I was teaching, the only way to share my student art with the school community was to display it on the walls of the school or the less than ideal display in a cafeteria during the intermission of the spring or winter music concerts. The Internet now allows teachers to have continous art show which can be seen at any time, in any location.
I developed ArtWebsite to provide a really easy way for teachers to create an online student gallery linked to their current school website. It is an advocay tool to gain the support of the school community and display the accomplishments of school art programs. The student gallery, class descriptions, and educational web links give parents insight into the importance of art and art education. In addition, students might work harder when they know their work will be seen by family and friends all over the world.
I'll continue to add new museum pages to ArtSite and welcome any suggestions you have for either program. My sincere thanks go out to all of you who are using ArtSite and ArtWebsite.