Technology in the Art Room

Teaching Learning Unit (TLU)

In today's society technology is growing at a rapid speed and understandably it is moving into the curriculum. I teach the new visual art both at senior and junior level. Our subject does not have a text book, thus I relay on technology quite heavily both to present work to my pupils and the new curriculum allows the use of computer programmes to assist pupils in creating artworks. Since I began my teaching, one aspect of pupils work always stands out, and that is the lack of research of other artists work. Pupils always express how difficult they find researching relevant artists to their discipline. The last project my first years are completing is a 3D self portrait in clay. In order for them to research an artist I implored the use of the schools iPads and pupils with phones were allowed to use their own device, to download the app Google Arts and Culture. This app is not only a great resource for the pupils but the feature I wished to utilise in the class was the ‘Art Selfie’. The pupils had to take a selfie and the software matches your face with a portrait by an artist. Using the app further to gather the title of the piece, the artist, the date, and any additional information they can source.  The pupils are always excited to use their phones in class, specially the first years as they are not allowed to have them on their person. With this generation selfies are a daily occurrence. I’ve watched countless pupils outside the school step and even in class taking selfies, even walking down the street you bump into people taking selfie. So it came naturally to all the pupils and they were extremely happy with the results. I can see the concerns around technology, as teenagers and even younger spend most of their free time on their phones. However if we can show our pupils how to use technology to their advantage and to help them academically it will be beneficially all round.

Once a week I see two fourth years for a double class, this was a great opportunity for me to teach the group SketchUp. This is a free computer programme powered by google that allows you user to create 3D design to life size scale. At the beginning of the year the pupils redesigned the library, they sketched their ideas by hand using a scaled ruler. Hand drafting is valuable skill, thus why I taught them this first. In the art room we have a desktop computer with a projector. I gave my own laptop for the pupils to share and as I demonstrated the different feature they may utilise to create their library design they took turns trying it out. Once the pupils where comfortable with the programme they developed a skeleton of their design, which we printed and they hand rendered.

4th Year Library Redesign, Study Nook