June 11, 2020
When I selected this course I was worried that I might have made the wrong decision. That uneasy feeling lingered inside my heart the whole day but when I joined yesterday’s class I realized that this is what I always wanted to learn. It was an astounding and awe-inspiring lesson which made it clear to me that art just does not revolve around paints and canvases but there is so much more in it.
Our instructor explained everything to us step by step. He then introduced us to certain websites which were very absorbing and engrossing. First, we talked about different private museums like Allama Iqbal Museum, Visual Culture Lahore national history museum Minto park, army museum. They all are interactive museums which are beguiling to everyone. We also learned about different projects like coral history projects and we talked about people who like collecting silver coins, stamps, currency, different models of car and about their nature that they know full knowledge about their collections
I really loved the website “The missing chapter” by Renee Musai which is very helpful for me as a teacher. My favourite part of it was the teaching zone which is very interactive and intriguing for everyone though I explored all sections of it and they were quite interesting as well but this caught attention a lot. This website is very easy to use and it’s not that complex like others, in fact, its functioning is very simple and interesting. When you open the “discover” section there is a wheel in which you discover negative pictures and then you develop them in the darkroom which is the most eye-catching and oddly satisfying activity whose animation is really amazing to give the ripple effect. When you click on the photo it gives you the information about the photographer and about the person in the photo then by archiving it you get more information about it. In the archive section you can look into the photos that you discovered and developed.
Developing the photo that you discovered.
The teaching zone is very informative and I wanted to introduce it to my students in their art classes but before that, I experimented it on my children. I planned a google meet with three of them though we were in the same house in order to give a classroom feeling, we all sat in different rooms and then I instructed them, step by step about the use of this website. My daughter in grade 4 enjoyed interviewing the pictures and here are the questions she asked it
Analysing the image was also very intriguing; it really helps in building an analytical sense.
The next website that we explored was “Histography timeline”. Before looking into it I played with the dots by moving the bar which was really oddly satisfying. This website is really helpful in researching things and it is actually a timeline. I would rather call it a time machine because when you move that bar and search into different phases of the world it feels as if you are in the time travelling and learning new things about the past and then going back to the present makes it look like a time-travelling machine. It is easy to handle however I find a bit of difficulty in finding the information about something as there are numerous dots and you have to check them one by one even if you click the exact time period. On the side, there are general topics of history by clicking them timeline tells you about them which makes it easier to handle.
Background remover was also one of my favourites. It is really helpful to artists who are interested in digital art or photographers. It is very easy to use and the good point of it is that you are free to turn a picture’s background into whatever you want it to be. If you upload a picture on it the website removes the background of the picture and still if you want some changes you can also remove it by yourself using the erasing pen and after that, you can apply different backgrounds to it. Background samples are already given by them but you can also put a background of your own choice as well. Here is a picture whose background was removed and a new background was placed by me.
The Prada spring/summer 2018 women’s fashion show parade was fascinating as well. Though I have never been to a fashion show the 360-degree video made it feel as if you were one of the audiences and the music behind made an environment of the fashion show.
This lesson was really intriguing and amazing for me because these were the things which were new to me albeit art was my major in 1995. I never imagined that art will reach to this extent that it will involve technology in it . Plus these websites were functioned in such a way that the person who visits them is just engaged in the content they have displayed even if it’s of your interest or not. As a teacher, I would highly recommend these websites to my students for research. I can also use them for my art lessons in order to make it more interactive and interesting so that whenever they have their art lessons they are excited and curious to know about what they are going to learn today just like I get the feeling when we have tools and technology in an art education class. Since art is not that popular subject among the younger generation in Pakistan, I want to make my lessons compelling so that more of my students take it as a major.
Tools & Technology in Art Education 