A discussion which I often encounter in conversations with teachers, parents, or at education conferences has to do with the ability to engage students in the classroom. This has been part of the reason for education techniques to shift from direct instruction to more inquiry based learning. Every teacher had their own opinion of how to engage their students, and there are no guarantees that one way is going to be the answer to the engagement question very year. There are just too many variables that are introduced in the dynamics of a classroom or school. In an effort to research the topic of student engagement, I used Google to search the question "how to engage students".
Using the time range feature on the Google search engine I discovered that in the past hour there were over 9,000 results about this topic, over 150,000 results in the past 24 hours and over 382,000,000 results in just the past year. This basic information tells me that engaging students is an endless topic of discussion, and almost is almost the "holy grail" of education.
Many teachers agree, and from my own experience as a student and teacher I agree that an essential part of engaging students in their learning is to bring them as close to the learning as possible. During a medieval unit at school, we take a field trip to a history museum where the students can try on medieval armor. When the students studied weather and tornadoes in science, they had a Skype session with school in Missouri to ask questions to other students who have experienced actual tornadoes. Unfortunately schools do not have endless budgets to allow for trips around the world to experience all the topics covered in the curriculum. This is where Web 2.0 and Google are able to contribute greatly to providing access to distant places on a computer screen.
A intriguing tool I wanted to explore as part of this inquiry project was using Google Art Project (
http://www.googleartproject.com/) my classroom. Google Art Project essentially allows someone to tour art museums in the world. On the screen is an image of a room in the museum, with the actual paintings on the wall. By clicking through different parts of the museum, you are able to travel through the rooms as though you were walking through the actual museum. This is the same idea as using the "Street View" feature on Google Earth where you can see real life images of the streets you are searching for. When you see artwork you would like to explore, you simply click that work of art and the art appears on your screen in a high definition image which you can zoom in so close that you can actually study minute paint strokes.
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| Take a visit to the Palace of Versaille |
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| Choose a work of art to examine |
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| Then take a much closer look |
Although I am not a trained art teacher, I truly enjoy having my students complete art projects in class. It has always been my goal to use art classes to provide my students with an awareness of art history, and we therefore spend a little time studying a historical artist before starting a project based on that artist. A recent project in class studied Vincent van Gogh and specifically his painting The Starry Night. In order to introduce van Gogh and this particular painting, we took a virtual visit to the The Museum of Modern Art in New York City to see where the painting actually sits in the world today as well as to give a perspective of the actual size of the painting compared to other paintings. Google Art Project allows you to locate a specific work of art from a list or you can explore the museum to find it.
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| The room which contains The Starry Night. It is hanging on the wall on the right side. |
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| The screen appears after selecting the painting. |
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Using the zoom in feature allowed the students to get very up close to see how van Gogh created the famous swirling sky.
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| A room that is not so exciting to visit in Google Art Project |
Aside from learning that the image in
The Starry Night is from the view van Gogh had while looking out the window of an asylum, the students were amazed at being able to tour through a museum and look so closely at a painting. Using Google Art Project actually allows you to get closer to a painting then most security guards would allow. A downside to Google Art Project at the moment is that not all works of art from a particular museum are shown as represented in the picture below. Many painting will appear as blurs on the wall. Also, at the moment there are only 17 museums that are available to tour. Considering that Google Art Project was started in February of 2011, this is still an impressive feat, and something I will use often as a way to explore art in my classroom.
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| Completed representation by a student |
Using the time range feature on the Google search engine I discovered that in the past hour there were over 9,000 results about this topic, over 150,000 results in the past 24 hours and over 382,000,000 results in just the past year. This basic information tells me that engaging students is an endless topic of discussion, and almost is almost the "holy grail" of education.
