Objective 2.1
A minimum of 750 art images/Images and performing arts resources will be available through the Internet along with curriculum and contextual information for use by educators and students. images/Images will come from the collections of the Smithsonian NMAA; the Getty Museum; the Joslyn Art Museum; the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden; The Museum of Nebraska Art; the Kennedy Center; the National Museum of Wildlife Art; and regional performing art agencies.
ActivitiesTimeline
Museums will suggest appropriate
images/Images for which copyright, issues have been resolved
and teachers may select from that pool of
images/Images. 1996-2000 Suggestions by teachers for specific
themes, cultures, or time periods will
be utilized by museum staff in guiding their efforts to
make resources available
electronically. 1996-2000 The museums will digitize art
images/Images from their collection 1996-2000 Hypertextual and contextual
information will be developed to accompany
each images/Image. 1996-2000 Educators will access the
images/Images along with contextual information. 1996-2000 Teachers will review the Smithsonians
thematic cluster CDs for potential
resources. 1996-2000 A database of images/Images will be
created. 1996-2000 Teacher requests regarding arts
resources that would be most useful will be
communicated to partner agencies to guide
planning. 1996-2000 Make teachers aware of new programs
on-line as teaching resources. 1996-2000 Utilize museums' mailing lists for
education packets, materials, and
exhibits. 1996-2000
Evaluation Plan and Performance Indicators
Survey of museums about number of
images/Images selected and digitized
will be conducted. 1996-2000 Analysis of range and quality of
images/Images will be conducted. 96, 98, 2000 Electronic log of "hits" by teachers
and by students on digitized images/Images
database will be analyzed through Web Site
analysis. 1996-2000 Survey of teachers and students using
digitized images/Images resources
will be analyzed. 1996-2000 Survey of hardware and software
availability for teachers and
students will be analyzed. 1996-2000 Structured interview of museum
personnel will be conducted. 1996-2000 Site visits to workshops,
presentations, etc. will be conducted. 1996-2000
Status (Accomplishments, Outcomes, Challenges)
The evaluation team has found that a real strength in The Community Discovered continues to be the close working relationship between the museums and educational institutions. A true collaboration has developed between these two communities, and both are focused on helping students learn through the project. A recent example is their collaboration on the implementation of The Community Discovered ConferNet 99, which was a model event based upon the idea of a virtual conference for students over the Internet. The project was very successful, and is now preparing carefully for ConferNet 2000 which will be undertaken in April 2000 (See appendix for a description of ConferNet).In 1998, The Community Discovered Project added a new museum partner to its original list, which was the National Museum of Wildlife Art. This museum has considerable works of interest to teachers and education and has already moved quickly into a collaborative mode with the other institutions represented in The Community Discovered.
Again, this fourth year (1999), a new group of Community Discovered teachers participated in a week long summer workshop at The National Museum of American Art (NMAA) to review available works, learn methods of integrating these images/Images into various curriculum areas, and plan for their classroom use. In addition, discipline based art training was conducted in a joint workshop with faculty from the Prairie Visions Institute. A variety of other workshops have also been held during the duration of the project, including the co-hosting of workshops focused on contructivism and technology with the Connections Challenge Grant during 1997 (a Nebraska Technology Innovation Challenge Grant). During 1998 and 1999, to support overall project scalability, the summer training process was also revised slightly to include greater training options for teachers, such as attendance at the Cox Multimedia Academy, and other well received training opportunities.Like any innovative educational reform project, The Community Discovered Project is continually striving to keep up to date in its methods and approaches related to teacher training. In pursuit of this goal and building upon the ideas of the project leadership, the evaluation team has hosted several "Blue Ribbon Panels" to advise the project on how to continue to support participation and personnel as the project continues to grow and evolve. The most recent Blue Ribbon Panel took place on February 9th, 1999, and came up with several suggestions which can be found in the appendix. A brief listing of these suggestions made by the panel is given on the next page.
Blue Ribbon Panel on Engaging Past Participants: 1999
Note: The Project Leadership responded to each suggestion.
The Community Discovered Project has held a variety of training activities during each of its four years of operation. These workshops were often conducted throughout the school year to assist teachers and students in learning to incorporate arts resources, the technology skills to do so, and the curriculum changes necessary to ensure appropriate use of the resources in a constructivist teaching and learning environment. The shared vision statements, established from earlier sustainability meetings, reflect this strong collaboration in the project with cultural institutions.
Partner Statements of Shared Vision: Cultural Institutions Will:
Building upon their training experiences, project teachers are continuing the process of planning the integration of arts resources into classroom activities. Teachers are linked to museum and performing arts agency personnel and to other educators by use of a project facilitated listserv, which facilitates ongoing communication between project participants and provides additional information for the formative evaluation process. Docents at the museums also access e-mail with the participating teachers and the project will eventually evolve into desktop video conferencing. The information exchange amongst participants within this listserv is indeed interesting and reflects a true collaboration. The use of this listserv is growing, and during the last four years of monitoring this communication process, the percentage of curriculum oriented messages (as opposed to technical or other content) has increased from 33% to 54% to 62% to most recently 70% in 1999. See figure below.
The messages on this listserv reflect a true partnership process between the project museums and teacher participants, as represented by these example messages:
Listserv Message: (1999)
- Hi Stuart! Just a quick note to thank you for all the work you have done
- on the Torn Notebook. I introduced the sculpture to my students last
- week and they were so excited about all the symbolism. Then, as we were
- talking, we realized it was a great connection to our science unit on
- the cranes and geese - since the "flying pages" stand for Nebraska's
- migrating birds! We'll study it in more detail during our science
- research on the birds. Have a great week! jan
Listserv Message: (1999)
- Hi, I was able to attend a session at the Sheldon on posters last week
- that was terrific. Jan Villotta and I are ready to start the Oregon Trail unit that
- we put together last year. Thought we could tie in the idea of the
- propaganda posters used to lure people to Oregon.
- Does anyone know where we could get sample propaganda posters to
- show the kids--or information about the posters used during the 1850's?
- Any info would be helpful!!
- Thanks. Brenda Krings
Listserv Message: (1998)
- I have just posted the teacher packet for the Charles Burchfield Collection. There are some interesting sections on history, literature, science and politics in relationship to his work that are worthy of perusal.
Listserv Message: (1997)
- Hi! My name is Erin and I am a docent at the NMAA. I did not find more on the story about Zeldis painting "Miss Liberty Celebration" while she was recovering from cancer but I did find background information that talks about the way in which she liked to use her experiences and particularly her childish recall as ideas for her paintings. In a painting called "Cherry Picking" she paints life as it "should have been" she says. Children are gobbling down fallen fruit without fear of punishment for gluttony or thievery. She uses lots of red and gay colors. In two other paintings called "Miss America" and "Beauty and the Beast" painted in l972 and 1973, her paintbrush becomes a magic wand that makes HER the Miss American and the princess in "Beauty and the Beast." Zeldis's family was often on welfare in the post-depression years of Detroit but she has said that she felt very secure and surrounded by the love of her parents, grandparents and relatives. Her many trips to the Detroit Institute of Art with her parents influenced her love of art and of symbolism and narrative in painting. 16th Century Flemish paintings shown at the Institute are filled with symbolism and narrative. In "Celebration" one of the figures represented-- along with Elvis --is her patron, Herbert Hemphill, who introduced Zeldis' work to the public. The convention of including the patron in the painting was used by Flemish painters.
- Malcah Zeldis shows how important childhood memories and trips to museums are even when you are no longer a child but a grownup looking for ideas for paintings.
- Hope to talk to you soon! Erin
In addition to electronic communication occurring within the project, The Community Discovered Project is also using a quality newsletter to communicate with all participants and partners. This newsletter was new during the 1998 reporting period, and has continued systematic publication during 1999. It has been well received by project participants and partners. A sample copy of this newsletter is in the appendix.
Constructivist pedagogy requires holistic thinking and the integration of disciplines. To promote such efforts and empower teachers to employ interdisciplinary constructivist planning and teaching, it was helpful to include a variety of art forms. Therefore, project activities have also included some limited activities with the performing arts, and the project is continuing to benefit from collaboration with organizations such as the Omaha Community Playhouse. Collaborations with other organizations, such as the Kennedy Center have also occurred, and have include visiting artists such as Namu Lawanga and the African Dance Cooperative (1997-1998). These visits have provided professional development as well as student participation workshops on use of movement/dance within the curriculum.
A visit by the African-American storyteller Idu Maduli in 1998 was particularly well received by students and teachers. This multidisciplinary activity was very student interactive, and teachers found that their students were very responsive to this highly constructivist model lesson. The following teacher and student quotes illustrate this enthusiasm.
Teacher and Student Quotes: (1998)My students loved Idu! I had them write reflections after he was here and they would absolutely move you. They also had to come up with their own stories and act them out in front of the class. Here are just a couple of the wonderful comments they had to say."It was like Idu could see into my soul. He knew who I was by looking into my eyes."
"Idu was very respectful to me and I felt comfortable getting up in front of the whole class."
"I learned a lot about reputations, friendships, concentration, and the #1 word ó respect!"
"It was hard not to pay attention, with his interesting stories, creative animals, and meaningful morals."
"I thought I would look stupid up in front of the class acting, but I was wrong. I noticed that I didnít care what people thought or said about me. Idu gave me courage!"
And the list goes on and onÖ.Our sixth grade classes learned more than I could ever put into words. They were truly moved by Idu and would love to have him come back every day! The students will be gathering other tales from around the world to turn into skits and performing them to the class. This fit in perfectly into my unit on Celebrating Diversity! Thanks for allowing my students to have this incredible opportunity!!
6th Grade Teacher
Focusing on the content of:1997-1998
Technology: Word-processing
Art:Performing Arts
Disciplines:Art, Literature, Social Studies
During past activities in the project, teachers have also visited the Kennedy Center (during the summer of 1997) and worked with other teachers who are Kennedy Center Fellows to develop web-based, arts integrated curriculum. Opera Omaha also provided a workshop entitled "Opera Goes West" (during the Fall of 1997) followed by performances of the touring group for students throughout the state. Recently in 1999, a very popular student performance of the Nebraska Theatre Caravan was provided to schools within the project, called "The Cracker Barrel", as represented by these e-mails:
For the visual arts, the National Museum of American Art continues to take a strong leadership role in initiating museum-related activities in the project and has been continuing to work through many technical and copyright constraints related to images/Image scanning and publishing. Their web site, using feedback from participating teachers, has evolved into a model site and is an excellent example of the contribution such organizations can make to classroom learning.
The museum docents are also continuing to take an active role in assisting teachers with their projects via e-mail and through participation in special interest groups. The Community Discovered has sought to encourage this participation through various training sessions offered to these important volunteers, such as a training session at the Westside Community Education Center Technology Lab in Nebraska in February of 1998.
As an outgrowth of the many teacher support efforts in the project, a variety of electronic special interest groups have been used periodically in the project. These special interest groups (SIGs), are periodically facilitated for limited durations by project staff, site coordinators, or museum personnel, and they are linked to the museums through staff at the NMAA and other agencies. These SIGs have been formed for limited times throughout the project and have also met in small groups to collaborate in identifying resources and developing curricular units, all within a web based environment for communication support. A selection of these special interest groups have included the topics described below.
Some Sample Special Interest Group Topics 1996-1999
Picturing NebraskaPop Art of the 60ís
Discovering Our Community Through Posters
Storytelling
Latino Art and Folk Art
Performing Arts
Public Sculpture
1930ís Post Office Murals
Many of the periodic electronic and in-person special interest group activities have been fairly collaborative. For example, this 1999 listserv message describes how extensive these SIGs can be:
Listserv Message on Special Interest Groups: (1999)
> Hi, Everyone!> Spoke to Sister Margaret of the Joslyn today and got a go-ahead for two
> new SIG's built around two future exhibitions -- one on the Pop Art of
> the 60's and one on Picturing Nebraska.
>
> Here are the times and dates for these SIG's:
> "Pop Art of the 60's" -- Tuesday, Dec. 7 in Grand Island from 9 am - 3 pm
> "Picturing Nebraska" -- Saturday, Feb. 19 in Grand Island from 9 am -2 pm.
>
> Each SIG session would include:
> *an overview of the exhibition with slides and teacher resource packets
> * a hands-on art activity with Robin Davis
> *time to work on curriculum connections with Colette and Robin and explore
> the special website for the SIG. Teachers will receive Joslyn teacher packets at
> each SIG along with other materials appropriate for curriculum planning.
> Partners are welcome!
>
> *****We are going to experiment with the Pop Art SIG and give first dibs on
> subs to veterans and their partners since newbies already get to come to
> regular staff developments!!! How does that sound?? That way veterans
> have an opportunity to attend both of these!*****************
>
> Your attendance at the Tues, Dec. 7 Pop Art SIG will count as one of your
> sub-covered days. Your attendance at the Saturday, Feb. 19 SIG will count as a
> non-contract day and you and/or your partner will be paid $75.00 for attendance.
> CD will not pay mileage. Your lunch will be provided by CD at both SIG's.
>
> If you or your partner is interested in attending either or both SIG's,
> please contact me directly by replying to this email message. I will
> collect names and then send them on to your site coordinators.
>
> We are having these SIG's in Grand Island because it seems to be a
> "central" location for ALL of our districts and Grand Island has a nice
> facility for us to use.
>
> So check your calendars and let me know if you are interested in attending
> either one of these great opportunities!
> Site Coordinator, Community Discovered
The project is using these special interest groups, as well as other collaborative inservice activities, to support teacher networking and to help teachers find useful technology based models of constructivist, arts integrated curriculum. Many of the units produced by the project teachers reflect the centrality of the arts in curriculum development and the interdisciplinary links made to these works (see unit abstracts in appendix).
Electronic requests and suggestions for images/Images continue to be used by teachers to facilitate planning for the retrieval of arts resources. The partner museums and arts agencies are well integrated into the project. Specialists are employed at each of the art museums to work with teachers in researching resources and digitizing images/Images and textual materials for access over the Internet. The web sites of these museums contribute substantially to the project and are of the highest quality. They can be accessed easily through links on The Community Discovered site.
Each of the museum based web sites are accessed continually from around the world, and the interest in these sites is expanding rapidly, as indicated by a graph related to growth at the Sheldon Art Museum in Nebraska.
The quality and utility of the web sites developed in the project is considerable. The main website of The Community Discovered project is accessible from http://communitydisc.wst.esu3.k12.ne.us, and from the linked Museum sites. Teachers from around the country have found this site to be useful, as illustrated by these quotes from teachers.
Teacher Quote: (1999)I am so thankful that I found this site. Iím planning to use some of your ideas from your theme units this year. Thank you!California Teacher
Teacher Quote: (1998)
I visited your web site and was very impressed with your detailed instructions for students to create portfolios. Thank-you for sharing your work! I am developing a similar project for my language arts classes as part of my masters program (educational technology degree). Your page will be very helpful in my research.Canada Teacher
In addition to positive teacher comments, The Community Discovered project world wide web site, and the web sites of the collaborating museums have received numerous official acknowledgements and considerable recognition, as indicated by the following electronic communications:
Web Page Acknowledgement (1999):First of all I applaud the member museums for placing biographies of American artists on the Internet via their websites. My hope is that institutions in all 50 states will post biographies of their home statesí historic artists, starting with the earliest and working their way to the present as funding allows.
- John Hazeltine, Editor, Resource Library Magazine
Web Page Acknowledgement for Josyln Art Museum Site (1999):
Congratulations!Your website, http://www.joslyn.org/, has been selected as a featured site in StudyWeb as one of the best educational resources on the Web by our researchers. You will be able to view it in our Fine Arts:Visual Arts:Art:General Art/Art History section very soon.
StudyWeb is one of the Internet's premier sites for educational resources for students and teachers. Since 1996, our expert reviewers have scoured the Internet to select only the finest sites to be included in StudyWeb's listing of educational links. Each site in StudyWeb includes a detailed review describing its editorial and visual merits. If you are unfamiliar with StudyWeb, please check us out at: http://www.studyweb.com/
Inclusion in StudyWeb will increase your exposure and attract new visitors to your site: our reviews have been featured on Webcrawler Select, The Lycos Top 5%, Education World and many others, and StudyWeb updates are provided to media and educational resources around the world.
Web Page Award (1997):
The advisory group responsible for developing the Web site for NetTech, the Northeast Regional Technology in Education Consortium wants to let you know that "The Community Discovered" is featured in this monthís NetTech: Best of the Web in Educational Technology. Check it out at http://www.nettech.org/ NetTech searches the Web for new and exemplary sites in educational technology. Each month NetTech highlights 12 best educational technology sites.Web Page Award (1997):
Your story is featured this month in our Innovator of the Month section of ENC Online. At the end of the month, it will remain on our site in our Innovator Hall of Fame. The direct URL for the Innovator Story is: http://www.enc.org/classroom/iom/nf
The formative evaluation process targeting museum participation has included site visits, focus group analyses, questions on stakeholder surveys, and electronic monitoring of web site and listserv use. Surveys and interviews are continuing to examine teacher perceptions of museum related activities, providing the project with additional formative evaluation information to help further refine their activities and the general educational utility of their web sites.
Site coordinators are also continuing to actively meet with teachers to assist them in brainstorming ideas for upcoming units while also assisting them in locating and integrating appropriate arts resources into these units. Site coordinators are also offering technical assistance to teachers in their search for images/Images and other resources, and in the utilization of these resources in the classroom. A major thrust of the site coordinators is to help the participants create a classroom atmosphere in which students are utilizing the arts related resources and technologies to create their own learning experiences.
The project continues to examine and experiment with the most effective architecture for videoconferencing and distance education, particularly as it prepares for the second ConferNet activity of the project, ConferNet 2000. Consistent with the original objectives of the project and with the expanded view of the arts, it is increasingly important for students and classrooms to be linked to outside resources in a way that promotes interaction on-line.
With rapid changes in telecommunications and technology application it is incumbent on the leaders involved with The Community Discovered to continue to explore and make available the resources necessary for such access and connectivity. To this end, the project is working closely with representatives from cable TV, satellite systems (i.e.: NebSat), telephone companies, and telecomputing agencies to determine the optimal integration of resources and to develop the consortium resources needed to make videoconferencing and distance education available to participating sites.
A project initiative is continuing from initial efforts in 1997 and 1998, into further efforts in 1999 to develop interactive web based curriculum using ACTVís eschool on-line application. Using webpush technology, eschool can provide web resources to various types of video feeds. It also has a built-in chat feature perfect for the ConferNet Initiative.
The success of this interaction and the potential for development of curricula that can be distributed to a broad network of educators interested in using curriculum developed through The Community Discovered is encouraging. Further, with ACTV it is possible that a revenue stream for curricular projects might eventually be generated to further support the initiatives of The Community Discovered. In 1998 and 1999, several pilot curriculums are continuing to be tested, such as one using Georgia OíKeefe video and related web pages (pushed) to further refine the developmental phases of the ACTV curriculum work.
The project is still exploring the possibility of other videoconference activities, particular as it relates to student conferencing with the Projectís ConferNet initiatives. An important advantage of such videoconferencing formats being explored includes an ability to involve teachers still within their classrooms, as well as the potential for teachers to invite administrators or other partner teachers to drop informally into the electronic sessions. The project continues to also explore various such video conferencing and "face to face" formats as potential options for future training and meeting-related activities.
ActivitiesTimeline
Museums will develop and document
outreach programs using the World Wide Web and the
Internet. 1996-2000 Work with museums to keep them updated
on what outreach programs would be
most helpful to teachers (for examples, math
and science areas, multicultural
connections). 1996-2000
Evaluation Plan and Performance Indicators
Structured interviews will be
conducted with museum educators. 1997-2000 Documentation related to outreach
programs and plans will be
summarized. 1997-2000
Status (Accomplishments, Outcomes, Challenges)
During 1999, the museum activities within The Community Discovered Project continue to be a very impressive part of the project. Museum educators are continuing to expand their web sites with appropriate images/Images and other resources while also refining their local process for gaining approval for the digitizing and sharing of images/Images related to their local collections. These arts educators are also contributing to ongoing communication over the project listserv in order to help share lesson ideas and provide periodic suggestions to teachers. Participants and site coordinators also contribute information to museum educators regarding the images/Images and other arts resources that would be the most desirable to digitize. Site coordinators are working with museum educators to provide participants access to educational packets and information regarding new exhibits and shows. Each participating museum is also continuing with project related plans for developing various kiosks (such as the one recently developed at the Sheldon), multimedia, and Internet-based outreach programs. The evaluation process related to this objective has included a stakeholder survey that includes museum partners, a review of museum related written information and brochures, and the monitoring of listserv dialogue. Structured interviews and on-site visits have also been conducted during the past four years of the project. In addition, the evaluation team has also periodically used electronic survey and interview instruments to enhance communication with the museums and provide additional formative evaluation information.
Other outreach and support activities of the museums include the following: 1999
Each partner museum is working hard at contributing to the overall Community Discovered Project and supporting educators through their museum resources. For example, the National Museum of Wildlife Art, a relatively new partner in the grant, has already established a presence among educators in the project. Below is an e-mail message sent by this museum to project participants in 1999.
Example Museum Education Activities: 1999
The National Museum of Wildlife Art
Welcome back for an exciting new school year. Everyone at the NMWA is looking forward to working with each of you during the upcoming year.We are pleased to announce the designation of three of our traveling trunk programs exclusively to Community Discovered participants.
The three programs for loan are "Seize the Prey: Birds of Prey", "Discovering the North American Bison", and "Mammals of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem."
In addition to the three wildlife programs are three folk arts trunks: "Native American Tradition Bearers" which includes beading and ledger book making activities, "The Tooling Cowboy" with blacksmithing and leatherworking and "Mormon Pioneer Heritage" which includes quilting and woodworking. The three folk arts trunks are available for loan, but not designate strictly for Project participants. Get your requests in early to ensure availability during the dates you would like.
To receive a brochure detailing each trunk or to reserve a trunk please contact me directly at creynolds@wildifeart.org or call (307) 733-5328 ext. 35
For teachers who already submitted loan requests, you will be receiving contracts with your specific dates outlined very soon.
Please let us know if there is anything the NMWA can do to make using our resources easier for you or more exciting for your students.
Charlotte Reynolds
NMWA Youth Education Coordinator
Many of the museum outreach activities continue to support a wide range of languages and learning styles and are comprehensive in their use of interactive web technologies. An example is the "webzine" concept, initiated in 1998 and continuing in 1999, from the National Museum of American Art. This innovative "webzine" uses web based technologies to help provide students around the world with access to selected museum resources, and instructional ideas related to interesting educational themes.
Example Mueseum Education Activities: NMAA Webzine 1998-1999On behalf of the National Museum of American Art and the Texas Education Network, welcome to ¡del Corazón!.An interactive webzine that draws on the museum's rich collection of Latino art, ¡del Corazón! provides curricular activities developed by and responsive to the needs of the K-12 learning community.
¡del Corazón! is organized according to four topics: artists, activities, themes, and comments. To aid Web site visitors with navigation, a distinctive graphic identifies each type. Clicking on these icons will bring you to a related topic.
Artists Carmen Lomas Garza, Agueda Martínez, and Irvin and Lisa Trujillo are featured in this issue. Each artist is introduced with contextual and multimedia information. Audio and video clips and many of the images/Images found in ¡del Corazón! are copyrighted and used here with permission of the artists. If you wish to reproduce any of the material on the site, please fill out the request form and send it to us. We will forward it to the artist for you. The Artistas icon is based on the performances and earthworks created by artist Ana Mendieta.
The ¡del Corazón! activities are based on a constructivist educational model featuring primary source materials such as reproductions of collection objects and videos of artists. Curricular activities are provided for many of these materials; however, consistant with the constructivist education model, we invite teachers to use the materials provided to create their own lessons and activities. For example, a Spanish teacher may ask students to translate audio materials not in English. The designs used for the Actividades icon come from the visual tradition of the Taino Arawak Indians of Puerto Rico.
Visitors to the site will also find themes shared by the artists or found in their work. These themes provide educators with an additional opportunity to develop their own activities. For example, Agueda Martínez' use of recycled rags invites exploration of environmental issues or the recycling of materials for artistic or other purposes.
The skull used for the Temas icon is a symbol of the popular Latin American festival, the Day of the Dead.
In addition to being a place to send letters to the editor, Web forms are provided here to allow visitors to share their experiences. We also invite educators to join in the creation of activities that explore the rich resources of Latino art.
The Comentarios icon is an adaptation of an Aztec drawing. The Aztec artist used this images/Image as a symbol for speech..
The project has built upon a continuous and strong foundation of collaboration. For example, early collaborative efforts within the project included a 1997 effort between participating museums and educators associated with the exhibit of the works of William H. Johnson which was located at the Joslyn Art Museum. These works are from the holdings of the NMAA and were the centerpiece for a number of curricular units being constructed by participating teachers. In conjunction with this exhibit students also worked with docents from both the local and national museums via e-mail, to help develop student-docent tours of the exhibit, to assist both teachers and students in utilizing the educational packets prepared in conjunction with the exhibit, and for the effective integration of important performing arts works available from places such as the Kennedy Center and local artists. The e-mail participation involving students was wide and varied and was eventually expanded to student-to-student interaction between schools. A review of these e-mail messages indicated significant ongoing motivation and interest by students, as reflected in the samples below. Such motivation continues as students as well as teachers communicate regularly with the museum personnel.
Student E-mail Examples (1997-1999):
(1999) Since I really got a lot of time on the Internet, Iím pretty familiar with that and I can probably get projects done a lot quicker next year.(1997) To Cheyenne Penn, Hi. My name is Lauren and I am an 8th grader. I like to play
sports, shop for stuff and baby-sit. What are you doing for your
relief sculpture? I am doing a set of hands reaching together. I
have 1 brother and 1 sister. There names are David and Lindsay. I
also have 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 1 rabbit! My favorite food is any kind
of Chinese food and pasta. What is yours? Well talk to you later!
>From Lauren :)
(1997) Dear Angie, My name is Alexis Rothenberg. I'm really excited about this
docent program. I like drama, writing speeches, debating things,
sports and other things like those. I also like art because it
gives me a chance to express myself. I have picked two pictures.
Focusing on the content of:1997-1999