around the world in 80 minutes
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We're beginning our journey around the world in 80 minutes.
This interactive website provides students with a means to guide themselves through the globe, with the freedom to explore their desired destinations within the perameters of the assignment. The project begins with students watching a series of introductory videos on my personal blog for Art Ed 322. Because wix only allows YouTube or Vimeo videos to be uploaded, this second website was a necessary link for me to upload the .wmv video file. The series of short videos introduces students to the scenario that sparks their travels--they are street artists who accidentally create art in the wrong location. With the police on their trail, they quickly go off the grid to explore existing street art in an attempt to understand how some artists are successful with creating public art. Following the first video, students are asked to complete their first assignment: a signature to tag their street art with. This short, beginning project is meant to immerse students into this street artist persona prior to finishing the introduction videos. Once the intro has been viewed by everyone, students will be directed back to the wix website to the "monday" tab for further instruction.
assignments
At the top of the page, a tab labeled Monday has a drop down menu with directions for each day of the week. The beginning of the week has instructions that guide students through the wix website. Directions start to get less specfic on Wednesday in order to allow students to contemplate the format of their final project. The title of this project sums up their exploration of the globe in the first two days of class only (a total of roughly 80 minutes). Once they read through the Wednesday tab, ideas for the final project are posted and they will begin to spend the class periods working on their personal creations. Their projects will take up most of their time during the week, but they also are expected to write a very short artist statement at the end to elaborate on their work. This statement should be about 1 short paragraph (5-7 sentences).
The days of the weeks tabs have links that direct students to the next step of the assignment. They will mostly be using the Maps pages. One page has a link to a street art website fueled by Google, and the other has an interactive map with links that should be accessed to indulge in each location's culture.
standards
The NAEA standards that are outlined by this project are under the Standards tab in their normal form. However, under the Goals tab beneath the Final Project, the standards were re-written into more colloquial language that students will be able to understand more fully. This will help them compare what they are learning to the standards that are guiding them.
communication
During their travels, students are encouraged to send me messages via the "contact" page, which will be sent directly to my gmail. I would like to know where they visited, what they liked or did not like about the art or culture there, and to keep a line open in case they have any questions during the assignment. They should be able to guide themselves easily through Monday and Tuesday, but because the final project is a little more general than they may be used to, I expect they might need clarifications or guidance. During the span of the webquest, I would like you to emphasize that I'm here if they have questions about anything!
The information that students update me with via the contact page will be synthesized into blog posts under the Blog tab. I would like to chronicle their respective journeys, and their screen shots will be especially helpful for me to blog about it. The blog is specfically meant for the whole class to compare their experiences with each other. They have access to hundreds of works of graffiti art, as well as the ability to view hundreds of people's stories along the way. Despite the two pages of resources that I have given them, each student will inevitably have a different experience in their travels; this is precisely what I would like to show on the class blog.
Finally, upon the completion of the final assignment, I would like to see pictures of their projects. After a week's work, i think it will be amazing to see how each of them interpret the project and how exactly they synthesize what they have seen in their work.
overall goals
The ultimate goal of the assignment is for students to understand that there is a connection between art and culture. Whether they see art influencing culture or vice versa is a consensus they will have to come to on their own accord. One's personality is made up of everything they have been exposed to, experience, seen, and known. By expanding their own personal horizons and seeing how other parts of the world are influenced by their culture, this project is meant to inspire students and allow them to reflect on how they have personally experienced that in real life (not just through a webquest!) I hope that once students see that this connection exists, it will carry into their future artwork, allowing them to always ask themselves the essential questions of this project, and allow them to apply this critical view to real-life instances.