Phil Carter Loughton High School Wigan
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Having analyised what steps a teacher must take in order to plan and implement work using ICT as part of a unit of work, it has become obvious that there can be no one uniform way of developing ICT within the Art and Design Curriculum 2000. The curriculum leaves the implementation and development in the hands of schools and departments. Although many would use the fact of a lack of resources as an excuse not to develop ICT within the department; there must be ways of using ICT in an innovative way that only requires minimal resources. As part of my P.G.C.E. course I was given the opportunity to devise a unit of work that would develop how ICT within the Art and Design curriculum could be approached.
It is a necessity to ensure that pupils develop skills together with acquiring knowledge and understanding of ICT. It encourages the use of CD-ROMs and Internet as a process of gaining knowledge and understanding of other artists and cultures. However it is possible only to use the computer as a resource rather than an artistic tool. The computer should be used to create freehand work that uses a range of mark making and the manipulation of tools. This was the aim of the project. I wanted to produce a successful unit of work that requires only the very basic equipment and materials. It needed to demonstrate that the hardware and software being used could be found in most schools.
The department I was in had two apple Macs, two printers and a scanner. Although this was quite adequate for individual extension work, it restricted the amount of time each pupil could spend on the computers. I decided to see if a room would be available to use on a weekly basis, as the two Macs would not allow a whole class to work on. It was decided to use two year nine classes both with 15 pupils.. This meant I was able to use the bookable ICT suite which had 18 networked computers to use. The computers in this room were standard and adequate for producing word processed documents and spreadsheets. However there were no art packages available on the network apart from the basic paint package found Windows 95and 98. This program is very basic and would not allow the creation of patterns with any real sophistication. I decided to use the word processing package Word 97. This can be found in most schools and was perhaps the most commonly used software within the school.
Creating art work on a computer is an exciting and challenging media to work with. However art almost always seems to demand a hard copy or finished piece of work. The problems of printing work from the computer is mainly concerned with cost and availability. The quality of printed work all depends on the standard of printer and the quality of paper used. Obviously the more expensive the paper and printer the better the quality of the printout. However I needed to find a cheaper version of creating coloured artworks using only a very basic black toner printer.
The pupils were able to create striking coloured visuals when only having a black printer to use. I experimented with various ideas of layering, using different papers to print onto. I tried using acetate to overlay onto coloured collages and soon found that monotone prints could be visually stimulating when printed or when layered ontop of coloured papers.
MICROSOFT MIRO STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
i. Discuss the work of Joan Miro, and his reasons for inclusion into the Surrealist Group.
ii. Discuss the importance and possibilities of ICT in art and how it could be included when producing a Miro inspired self-portrait.
iii. Pupils will produce a self-portrait line drawing, A4 in Scale using either pen or pencil.
iv. The pupils will draw the self portrait using there left hand, their right hand and then mouth. This means that the mark making and shapes become far more abstract by the time the pupils are drawing with their mouths.
v. Pupils will then select areas of their drawings with the most interesting shapes and arranged them to create a disjointed self portrait.
vi. Pupils will then take the drawings of themselves into the computer room and reproduce the images on Microsoft Word using only lines to construct the face.
vii. Pupils will then distort the lines using the software to create shapes that are reminiscent of those used by Miro in his paintings. On certain areas of the face use the toolbars and ÒFill optionsÓ to produce a textured appearance on the portrait. Print the portrait out.
viii. The portrait will then be photocopied on to coloured sheets of A4 paper making a selection of coloured versions of the same print.
ix. The pupils will then construct a collage using the different coloured sheets. As the copies are exact replicas of the original, the overlaying of sections of paper can be made precisely. This then gives the appearance of a multicolured sheet, with a print on top.
x. Alternatively instead of printing the drawing onto coloured sheets of paper the pupils may print the image onto acetate. The acetate may then be placed over a coloured or textured background.