A high school teacher located in the west coast is interested in
finding a way to use technology to enable his students to virtually tour art museums
in New York, connect with museum curators virtually and allow students to post
and share critiques to a class website. As described in the Interactive Art Museum Tour solution
challenge, there are three critical requirements , which I then used as the
foundation for my research and identification of two possible solutions. The primary three requirements are:
1) Ability for students to see and tour art exhibits over the web
2) Ability for students to interact with museum curators
3) Ability for a group critique of two pieces of artwork
Before you select a technology platform and resource, you need to
identify the requirements and determine the learning outcomes and understand
the learners characteristics (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012). With these important concepts in
mind, I researched and discovered two very exciting innovative technology tools
that met the requirements outlined above and will also enable the teacher to
achieve their desired learning outcomes.
The two technology solutions I recommend that the teacher implement are Google
Art Project and Google Hangout.
The
Google Art Project is technology tool that solves the requirement of
interactive web access to over 100 museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, National Gallery in DC and museums across the world (Google Art Project,
2012). Many schools and teachers have had a great experience using
this tool and FAQ’s posted on the site share the success stories. There are three school districts that had
very successful experience swith Google Art Project that I like to highlight.
Students from East Aurora, West Aurora, Indian Prairie and Oswego schools
districts helped launch Aurora University STEM partnership. “Students from
Aurora University’s after-school programs participate in exhibits at the
invitation-only launch of the Google Art Project on Tuesday morning at the Art
Institute of Chicago. The project will give students an up-close look at pieces
from the world’s most famous art museums in their classrooms (Sturges, 2012).
Another success story is
described in the blog that shares why Rudin Museum recently joined the Google
Art Project and how held the museum held a workshop for many educators. Stafne, who is the Rudin Director of
Education touted the praises for this innovative use of technology that provides
access and brings works of art to students across the globe (Stafne, 2012).
The Google Art Project enables students from any location
connected to the Internet to interactively explore exhibits and art from
collections around the world. Teachers can create their own
“virtual” gallery of artwork and share it with their students. Students have the ability to view the art and have a robust set of
activities that connected to the specific art pieces and to modern real-world
situations (How to use GoogleArtProject, 2012). It is imperative that instructors
take the time to plan and organize the learning experience when in engaged in
teaching at a distance (Simonson et al. 2012). The Google Art Project does just that. This resource organizes
the art work by artist, collection and exhibit, connects learners and
instructors and provides the ability to share feedback using social media tools
such as twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Embedded in the Google Art
Project is a menu of engaging and interactive icons that students can use to
share comments, posts and exchange information through Google+, twitter, Facebook
and other social media tools. In the Google Art Project the
first sharing tool found under Google+ and is called Google hangouts. A Google hangout allows a teacher to connect with his or her students,
chat face to face, and more importantly to host a virtual meeting. (Google hangouts,
2011) Teachers can schedule and invite a museum curators to a Google hangout
and students could exchange and communicate with them. Additionally, the Google hangout online tool allows participants
to post an image/video and comments. This platform would work seamlessly as an
interactive approach to post two pieces of art and students to provide a group
critique. The Google hangout has a limit
of 9 per live session which the teacher could group their students. Another option if the teacher desired one large group critique
is to utilize the standard link from Google Art Project to a FaceBook page, or
Wiki for students to make comments to art works. All these options would work well and provide flexibility to
meet the overarching requirements and are free to the student and
instructor.
The Google Art Project is a
fantastic platform to bring art to life, provide access, and connect students
to authentic learning opportunities.
-Michelle Cosner
References
Google Art Project by Google. (April, 2012) Art Project how to use this site. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVpqTd2ndYY&feature=player_embedded
How to use Google Hangout Session. (July 2011) Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5kdr7N6nPg
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S.,
Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching
and learning at a distance:
Foundations of distance education (5th ed.)
Boston, MA: Pearson
Stanfe, M. (May 2012). Google art
project for educators. Retrieved from http://education.rma2.org/the-google-art-project-for-educators
Sturgess, J. (2012,
April 8). Au stem academy helps launch google art project. Beacon News. Retrieved from
http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/11697261-417/aus-stem-academy-helps-launch-google-art-project.html
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