Hello, and welcome to my blog. This is not my first blog. Three years ago I started a blog with the idea of discussing musings about art. Thus, the name of the blog traveling ART muse. At the time, I was working in an art museum in the Education department managing school programs for over 120,000 visitors per year. I worked with teachers and docents and tried to meet demand. It was overwhelming and disheartening that physical resources were not available to give all eager classes a guided tour and valuable museum education experience. I had completed a MA in Humanities - Art History and worked on a 2007 exhibition (Venice and the Islamic World 898-1797) before accepting the position in Education. I read all the books about blogging and was convinced that I would be committed to it unlike the 98% that on average fail. In my head, I was going to make millions talking about travels and art! Well, I blogged for one week and made $13.29 through google adsense. Of course, google pays out the first payment when it exceeds $30. So, ultimately, I made money for google.
I loved the idea of musing about art. After working at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for 5 years and upon acceptance into the doctoral program in Art & Art Education here at Teacher's College, I decided to be a full-time student this past summer and entrench myself in the academic environment. My interest lies in the area of museum education and art education in the classroom. Specifically, I want to focus on how multi-media technology can assist in expanding interest and better fulfill the education mission for those who are unable to visit in person.
Based on the model of Teach for America, I hope to expand my research globally and into socio-economic challenged schools. How nice would it be to have an expert in the field leading a video-conferencing discussion about a work of art in a museum with a student in Kyoto, Japan, another student in Africa and a class of visiting students from Harlem? I will never discount the value of being in front of a real work of art. However, virtual technology now allows us the ability to expand our imagination into the areas of realizing our dream destinations. Social networking, and living socially, has given the platform to the masses to have a voice. I see the need for the experts to fill the void with rich content and validity in the art education field.
I am interested in this class to discover how online learning and virtual learning is being used in K-12 settings and how it is being received and evaluated. I do not have any direct experience utilizing distance learning or online classes in my repetoire, but have had some exposure to successful teacher development programs that were taking place at the museum utilizing a distance learning strategy. I am looking forward to this class and to meeting all of you!
Hi Adrienne! What a fascinate background. I'm excited to hear more about your goals for online art education. What specifically about the Teach for America model do you hope to build upon?
ReplyDeleteHi Melinda,
ReplyDeleteThank you! Well, my goals for art education is really to focus on museum education and art history. I hope to collaborate with museums, curators and museum educators to expand educational outreach virtually into the classroom and personal connection (adults and HS age) through online content driven programming. I believe Teach for America as a model that targets the best of the best, is something that is lacking in online or virtual content especially in art museums. Museums are now just getting on the social networking band wagon, but content is PR driven and for marketing purposes primarily. I want to expand and let the experts have voice! Secondly, Teach for America seeks to reach socio-economically challenged students through expert teaching. I think that the experts in the art museums and art education can expand beyond the prestige of visiting groups to reach diverse populations that may never get to visit in person but should have the choice to be exposed to a quality educational experience from the expert. Thank you for your interest in my background and I look forward to working together in this course.