Art Lesson No.3 (25th March 2014)

In today’s Art Class we looked at different media resources and apps that we can use in the classroom such as:

• ·         Screencast matic;
• ·         Tony B Machine;
• ·         Incredibox;
• ·         Voice Thread;
• ·         Flixel;
• ·         And Photosplash.

We then had to come up with various ways we could use these resources in a Primary School classroom in our home countries using local famous pieces of Art. The first picture myself and the other Irish girls chose was a picture called ‘Going Home’ by Jim McDonald. Jim McDonald is famous for his portrayal of the Titanic, the men from Belfast who built her and the area they lived in. Like them, he worked in the shipyard that built and launched the ‘World’s Most Famous Ship’.

 As a group, we thought that a good idea when using this picture for Art in a Primary School Classroom would be to let the children use the online composers ‘Tony B’ or ‘Incredibox’ to set music to the artwork to depict the feelings of the characters in the painting.

The next famous Irish Artwork we chose was ‘The Book of Kells’.  The Book of Kells is a manuscript of the Holy Bible by Celtic Monks. It contains lots of beautiful Celtic Artwork. Here are some examples:

 We agreed that if we were teaching to a young class we would like to put a large sheet of paper on the floor of the classroom. After looking at looks of different Celtic designs within the book, each child will add their own design – a simple pattern – to the sheet one at a time. A ‘Stop motion movie’ will then be created after each child draws their design to show the progression of the composition from start to finish.

I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the lesson as it gave me plenty of great ideas for teaching art in the classroom. I was also introduced to new artworks from different countries and also some of the class were able to contribute their own multi-media resources to the rest of us. Before this class, I was a bit afraid to explore using ICT in art lessons as I don’t have much confidence in my computer skills. However, now I see that it can be a fun and enjoyable experience and can’t wait to try it out with a class someday!

For the remainder of the class we painted our Puppets from the last lesson and were allowed to keep them so we can use them for teaching purposes. Here is the progression of my puppet: