How
is the course organized?
This
course is organized into four units.
In Unit
1, during the first week, you will learn how to use the Web site,
communication and resources tools, and get to know the instructor
and other course members.
Units
II and III cover identity and place. Although these are interconnected
concepts, they are covered separately so that you can examine issues
involving identity and place in greater depth.
In Unit
IV you will collaborate and converse with classmates to develop, reflect
on, and post your culminating course assignment.
How
is each week of instruction organized?
Each
weekly course of study for weeks 1—9 is organized into eight
sections. These sections are listed under an index that allows you
to navigate (or move) quickly to any of the major weekly topics.
1.
Getting Started — Always begin your weekly inquiry by reading
Getting Started. This area provides an overview of critical ideas
to look for in your investigation. It also functions as a glossary
with a description of terms used in the section.
2.
Inquiry Questions — Inquiry questions are designed to help
guide your inquiry of Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century.
Use the inquiry questions to focus your study of complex ideas and
issues. The questions help you to reflect on how identity and place
pertain to art, education, and art education. Use the inquiry questions
to think critically about ways that you might teach identity and place
to your own students without oversimplifying these complex ideas.
3.
Teaching through Contemporary Art (TCA) — This section provides
an in-depth look at art and identity or art and place.
Each TCA section focuses on one or more of the artists featured in
the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century videos. It
contains exemplary, cautionary, and or instructive examples about
identity and place that you can use in teaching these ideas and issues
in educational settings.
This is
also where you will find the course readings and related visual information.
It will guide you in using the course resources in order to complete
the weekly assignments. The TCA sections are divided into the following
areas:
A.Introduction
B.
Artist Stories: Telling Tales about Ideas and Issues through Contemporary
Art
C.
Personal Connections
D.
Weaving What You Know
E.
Teaching through Inquiry
F.
Extending Art Education Practices
4.
Weekly Assignment — The weekly assignments are for students
enrolled in the course for graduate credit or the certificate. A description
of the weekly assignment, instructions for completing it successfully,
and which tools to use to post your submission are given.
5.
Visual e-journal — The Visual e-journal is a set of personal
Web pages that you will be posting each week as you answer the questions
for the weekly assignment. The Visual e-journal section contains the
specific weekly assignment questions and a set of online forms for
each week, on which you will directly type your answers. After completing
all of questions, click the submit button. Your text will automatically
be posted to your own personal series of Web pages. Posting the weekly
assignments on the Web allows you and your classmates to view and
respond to each other’s work.
Use the
questions in the Visual e-journal section to help you to generate
your own inquiry for teaching about contemporary art. We will draw
from some suggestions highlighted in the Art:21 Educator's Guide
and discuss how these suggestions probe ideas of identity and place.
As you answer and reflect on the weekly assignments, you will, in
effect, be translating the more theoretical and conceptual information
contained in this course into practical information that can be used
by teachers in their everyday classroom settings.
6.
Communication Tools — We will be using five different types
of online communication–e-mail, listserv, discussion forum, chat
room, and Visual e-journal–as course communication tools.
Online communication will be used to examine and discuss weekly
ideas and assignments. Your participation is critical. Here is a brief
description of these communication tools:
E-mail
— You will use two different forms of e-mail in this course:
(1) e-mail (personal correspondence) and (2) listserv (group correspondence).
Use e-mail, sent to an individual’s personal e-mail address,
for messages that do not concern the entire group.
Listserv
— You will be automatically enrolled in the listserv, and any
message you send to the "LIST" will automatically go to all of the
class members. Use the listserv for general correspondence to your
classmates and the instructor.
Discussion
Forum — A discussion forum is like a listserv, but it is
posted and maintained on the World Wide Web. You will need to use
your browser (Navigator or Explorer), and not your e-mail application,
to access the Discussion Forums. The discussion forums allow
us to communicate with each other and will organize our conversation
in one location on the Internet. When you post your assignments,
you’ll enter the First Class site and open the assignment folder
by clicking on it.
Chat
Rooms — Chat room conversations take place in real time.
Therefore, we will only use a chat room conversation in small groups.
In order to log-on at the same time, group members will be asked
to arrange a common time to have the chat.
Visual
e-journal — The Visual e-journal is a series of personal
Web pages that contain your answers to weekly assignments. Responses
to the Visual e-journal entries of fellow class members should be
posted to the corresponding Discussion Forum. Follow the link at
the bottom of the Visual e-journal to enter your comments.
7.
Resources — In this area you will find the Art:21 course
readings, videos, artist index links, and Web links. Online readings,
text passages, videos, and artist pages about each weekly
topic have been prepared and identified. Online Web pages about
identity and place have also been identified and annotated about each
of the weekly topics and related ideas. The Resources section serves
as a quick index to all of this information. During each week, you
can use the Web site and these online resources to inquire more deeply
into the course content.
Plug-ins:
In order to access the Art:21 Web site, you need to
first install Flashplayer 4 or greater. This application
can be downloaded for free, www.flashplayer.com.
In
addition, to access the video resources on the Art:21 Web site you
must have Realplayer 8 Basic installed. This application
can be downloaded for free at: www.realplayer.com.
Important:
Realplayer 8 plus is a different application and costs money.
It is not necessary for you to purchase this application.
Note:
This link lists System Requirements for accessing online
multimedia. http://www.roland-collection.com/cgi-bin/get-real?low=666_16.ram&med=666_28.ram&high=666_90.ram
8.
Easy to Print Text - You can use this tool to print out text on
the Web site.
