Does anyone have experience at any level of using Moodle with Art students? I mean, students who paint pictures I have an ex colleague who now works at an organisation with students aged 18+ who are studying Art, and while her organisation wants to use Moodle a lot more, she struggles to see many ways she can use it for the actual practical side of Art -ie - how to give constructive feedback on the pieces of work they produce. She says, even if they take photos of their work and add to Moodle (or have an eportfolio such as Mahara) she still feels she needs to see (and touch) the physical piece of work to be able to give worthwhile criticism. This isn't a problem in that she does see the students face to face once a week but I wondered if anyone had any comments on this or experience of it? She says she can see the benefits of Moodle in other aspects - understanding the history of the subject, researching and writing about techniques etc, but it's this actual practical side of it that she can't get her head around. So I said I'd ask...
One suggestion would be for her to make videos of her critique, use video files for feedback in assignments etc.
There are a few ways to do that, one of the more insteresting would be:
Then upload the videos to Moodle or wherever you want them, you could capture group work or face to face feedback like that and give students something to refer back to later on, something to discuss in forums etc.
Hi Mary,
Re: "she still feels she needs to see (and touch) the physical piece of work to be able to give worthwhile criticism" -- I can see why; digital photography and computer screens and displays are another medium with their own characteristics and properties.
On the other hand, digital media and communication are becoming the norm for art galleries, shows, catalogues, etc. and students/would be artists do need to learn how to document their work with these tools.
Perhaps a productive avenue to explore would be the "make learning visible" movement, which is focused on learners and teachers documenting the processes that they go through, physically and/or digitally, to make them visible to themselves, their teachers, and peers for reflection and possibly constructive criticism (more along the lines of sharing views and understanding them than making judgements). The emphasis is on examining and reflecting on the learning processes (developing learners' awareness of their own and each others' creative processes) rather than on the artistic products, so perhaps this would be a more appropriate application of digital media?
I haven't come across anything for Fine Art specifically, and even less for elearning, but perhaps she could find something in professional journals or research?
Hi Mary,
Matt has an excellent point here. I have two monitors on my desktop, different brands, connected to two video cards, different brands, and the colors noticeably different on each screen. Yes she needs to see the final product.
I scanned our art classes sites, I am sorry to say that none of our instructors are posting feedback. Most are posting explanations of their assignments in Documents.
I would think this would be a great use for the "offline activity" assignment. To take it a step further, maybe use "online text" assignment for the students to post the link to their work with a brief explanation. Instructor can leave feedback there.
I think I will recommend this to our instructors, thank you for making me think about this.
Hey all,
like the sound of all this. Totally agree art/creative related courses tend to focus on process....stages of application e.g. technique, style., decision making etc and there is a need for both a reflective oppt about such processes as well a need for ways in which to share with others for feedback both with teacher and peers.
I would add, nothing beats a gallery visit to view end products/outcomes...to see the original stuff...however I do think Itamar's work on the dataform/database feature in Moodle...has a lot of potential for on-line gallery development...that can link with the above processes/features/activities/resources in Moodle-tis making this explicit for practitioners and students, that really matters-perhaps.
I suppose some joined-up work with existing features and the new items (e.g. slider in dataform- in Moodle) would be a good way to go...maybe so back to the devs-maybe
...or it could be a question of UI...and the way in which teachers/students might be able to be innovative in order to make such links across the Moodle features....if navigation were a bit easier.....just some random thoughts.
cheers,
Dawn
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This is quite nice for image galleries:
https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_lightboxgallery
One suggestion for an activity is to get learners to do journaling with a Forum module instance (more flexible and collaborative than traditional journal module activities). Each learner has a forum thread for photos of his/her work in progress, notes, reflections, additional sketches, other works that are influencing them and how and why, etc. In a way this is taking the artist's sketchbook (which is usually much more than just sketches and notes) and sharing it with peers and allowing them to also contribute, like a kind of on-going art college peer-led, tutor-moderated tutorial session.
How does that sound?
Sorry for the delay acknowledging replies here - but am saying thanks now and will pass on your comments