Using a Blog for Art Instruction and Student Gallery

Using a Blog for Art Instruction and Student Gallery
Final Project Proposal
OLIT 593 Spring 2010
Submitted by Sumner Walz

Topic
Creating a space for students to be able to maintain a gallery of art work and critical commentary that coincides with the curriculum of an introduction to art course. This 100 level art course includes study of basic elements of art and a survey of art history. The gallery space should be viewable by all members of a course or group following this curriculum.

My interest in this topic
I currently teach an online course on Introduction to Art; the student population is composed of primarily rural New Mexico adult students. Through the process of revising specific aspects of the curriculum, I have found that these particular students respond extremely well to activities that involve web-based discovery learning of artists, works of art, and museums, galleries, etc.

I currently make use of tools within the LMS used at this particular institution (WebCT) for the students to maintain a gallery of their research and to demonstrate skills in critiquing art, however the tool I have been using is limiting and not intuitive. It doesn’t allow students to link to images on the Web, so they have to download images and upload into the tool, which is often a struggle and problematic. There is no mechanism for peer review and commenting directly within the gallery space. The gallery space is removed from rest of the components of the lessons, which can make students crazy. Once the course is over, the students no longer have access to their creative work.

Using a Web 2.0 tool, in particular the blog format, would be a more creative and lasting environment for this type of student work and would foster learning skills that would extend beyond the limit of the course. Through the process of creating their own blog space, students could respond to lesson activities by linking instead of copying images and would allow them to extend their work to include videos, animated and interactive art elements. And I will enjoy being able to expand the lessons to include peer review and collaborative work through commenting. Within this format, I will also be able to incorporate other components of the lessons within the same space as the gallery work, which will be a more cohesive and structured experience for the students.

Outline
I. Instructional blog pages
...A. Header with graphical tie to the course
...B. Links to tutorials and help pages in support of the required work
...C. Links to sources of artworks, art databases, virtual museums, etc.
...D. Main posting area reserved for the current lesson activity
.......1. Instructor-posted image(s) and questions for critique
.......2. Student comments in response to critique questions
.......3. Instructions for student gallery work for the lesson
...E. Links to prior lesson activities
...F. Blog roll of the student pages
II. Student blog pages
...A. Main posting area for response to lesson assignment and comments by peers
...B. Links to prior lesson work
...C. Links to art and art sites of personal interest

I know the outline did not translate well.