Open your classroom to the world.One of the most exciting and powerful ways to use the Internet in your classroom is to participate in a student art exchange or collaborative art project with a school in another country. Such exchanges typically require students in each location to creatively respond to a common theme or issue and share the resulting work with the other school, via snail mail Mail sent via a country's government-regulated postal system. (messaging) snail mail - (Or "snailmail", "smail" from "US Mail" via "USnail"; "paper mail"). Bits of dead tree sent via the postal service as opposed to electronic mail. , e-mail, or on the Web. Combining this activity with e-mail conversations between participants offers the potential for students to interact and gain insight into the culture, interests, and life experiences of their peers in other countries. While arranging an international art exchange may take some work, it is well worth the effort. Fortunately, there are a number of organizations whose mission is to match teachers seeking partner classrooms for international and cross-cultural exchanges. Art Link (www.vsarts.org/x1484. xml), sponsored by VSA arts VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith. It was originally called Very Special Arts. Although VSA no longer explicitly acts as an acronym, the three letters of the name are intended to represent "Vision of an inclusive and Creative Connections, invites students from grades three through twelve to share their culture, heritage, and communities through visual art with an overseas partner art class. Instructions for joining the Art Link exchange, which is arranged to take place in the fall of each year, are posted on the VSA arts Web site. Student work from this project is displayed online at Creative Connections (www.creativeconnections.org) and at an annual art exhibition in Washington, DC. VSA arts offers fee waivers for a limited number of applicants. Classrooms not receiving a waiver The voluntary surrender of a known right; conduct supporting an inference that a particular right has been relinquished. The term waiver is used in many legal contexts. must pay an enrollment fee. The International Education and Resource Network, or iEARN, is a nonprofit organization Nonprofit Organization An association that is given tax-free status. Donations to a non-profit organization are often tax deductible as well. Notes: Examples of non-profit organizations are charities, hospitals and schools. made up of over 20,000 schools in more than 115 countries that encourages teachers and young people to use the Internet and other new technologies to collaborate on projects that both enhance learning and make a difference in the world. Their Web site (www.iearn.org) lists numerous art-related projects and exchanges, all initiated and designed by teachers and students. Teachers or their schools must join iEARN (for an annual fee) in order to take full advantage of the services and resources available on the site. Another site worth checking out is Intercultural in·ter·cul·tur·al adj. Of, relating to, involving, or representing different cultures: an intercultural marriage; intercultural exchange in the arts. E-mail Classroom Connections (IECC IECC International Energy Conservation Code IECC Intercultural E-Mail Classroom Connections IECC Informix Enterprise Command Center IECC Integrated Electronic Control Centre (UK Railways Signaling Control) ), sponsored by Teaching.com. IECC is a free online service designed to assist educators at all levels in arranging intercultural e-mail exchanges between schools in different countries. Their site (www.iecc.org) includes brief descriptions of curriculum projects proposed by teachers all over the world. While many of the projects focus on the language arts language arts pl.n. The subjects, including reading, spelling, and composition, aimed at developing reading and writing skills, usually taught in elementary and secondary school. , I found several that involved the exchange of student artwork. To view the listing of projects, or to post one of your own, you need to first register on the site for a username The name you use to identify yourself when logging into a computer system or online service. Both a username (user ID) and a password are required. In an Internet e-mail address, the username is the left part before the @ sign. For example, KARENB is the username in karenb@mycompany. and password. Lastly, ePALs (www.epals.com) is the world's largest online classroom community with over 6.5 million students and educators from 191 countries involved in penpal exchanges and cross-cultural learning projects. You can browse (1) To view the contents of a file or a group of files. Browser programs generally let you view data by scrolling through the documents or databases. In a database program, the browse mode often lets you edit the data. See Web browser. or search the huge database of projects underway on the site. Free registration is required to post a project of your own and to take full advantage of all the site has to offer. Craig Roland is an associate professor of art education in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Florida University of Florida is the third-largest university in the United States, with 50,912 students (as of Fall 2006) and has the eighth-largest budget (nearly $1.9 billion per year). UF is home to 16 colleges and more than 150 research centers and institutes. in Gainesville. He is the author of The Art Teacher's Guide to the Internet (Davis Publications, 2005). rolandc@ufl.edu |
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