For some 20 years the literature has been highlighting a range of benefits to be gained from integrating information and communication technology (ICT) in the teaching of visual arts. However, little research has depicted the "state of play" regarding visual arts teachers' approaches to technology within the Australian context. This…

A few years ago, the author was introducing her students to David Hockney's "Pearblossom Highway" photo collage, when she decided to try his technique herself. It turned into an assignment that her students love and request. Hockney states that "Pearblossom Highway" gives "a sense of closeness to everything yet at the same time depth can be…

This article presents the idea behind Projected Identities, an art activity wherein students fuse art-making processes and digital image manipulations in a series of exploratory artistic self-examinations. At some point in every person's life they've been told something hard to forget. Students might, for example, translate phrases like, "Good…

Children's learning involves, in the simplest terms, assimilating knowledge and understanding and acquiring skills though being, doing and feeling. This requires a connection at a personal level. Furthermore, learning is given to fluctuation determined by the needs of the individual and the requirements of the educational system. This research…

External assessments are pervasive in education, particularly with the testing environment created by the "No Child Left Behind" reform initiative. To solidify its position as a core subject within education, art needs to be accountable to its standards at both national and state levels. Art can be assessed for accountability purposes…

Each school year, the author's intermediate art students look forward to this unique self-portrait assignment. Chuck Close's photorealistic portraits are the inspiration for this assignment. The lesson incorporates technology using digital cameras and an image-manipulation computer program. The lesson is introduced with a brief overview of Chuck…

Fifteen sixteen-year-old Fenno-Swedish compulsory school pupils' descriptions and evaluations of significant, i.e. more or less "strong", experiences relating to dramatic art (film, theatre) were analysed and compared with reported experiences in other aesthetic areas (music, nature etc.). The drama area was represented in many…

This author relates how she came upon the idea of using an image-editing program to virtually install monumental sculptures into real-life landscapes in her desire to bring technology and sculpture together in her art class. In this article, she describes how she made her class create tabletop-sized sculptures and photographs of digital…

Instructional strategies make a difference in whether students are engaged in learning and are profiting from their time in class. High schools, technology centers and middle grades schools are encouraging teachers to adopt new teaching techniques and are providing opportunities for teachers to work together to improve their instructional skills…

Since 1997, the author coordinated a large-scale billboard project. Coordinated to coincide with the National Art Education Association's celebration of Youth Art Month, strong commitments from faculty, students, administrators, public-relations liaisons, local press, radio, TV, and community businesses have made this project a success. The first…

This Instructional Resources continues our 2004 series on forms of "public art" that included Susan Goetz Zwirn's contribution on images of work in the 1930s (March 2004), Carol Argiro's exploration of public sculpture (July 2004), and Mary Jane Zander's work on WPA post office murals (September 2004). This Instructional Resources explores an art…

This article reports how corporations and local businesses can be considered as motivators for the art programs that art teachers create. This industry can provide resources for the implementation of unique artistic endeavors. The art competition sponsored by the Huffines Auto Dealerships to middle and high school students in Denton, Lewisville,…

An important revival in art education seeks to provide adolescents with art projects that are culturally and politically relevant to their lives. Stimulated in part by both a postmodernist attitude and the attention to visual culture, such projects address content that is meaningful to students' families, their futures, and their society. These…

The main focus of this article is the representation of the third dimension. The sample is sixty adolescent 14-year-olds. Our research is concerned with the study of the drawings of the same array of 3D objects in three cases: the representation of 3D objects without the presence of models (through verbal instructions), by observation of physical…

This author relates how she used to hate bugs but a museum visit changed her perception about them. She realized that in her panic of shooing insects away, she failed to recognize them as living models of the elements and principles of design. It made her realize that insects can provide an opportunity to teach this important lesson to her seventh…