Report on CAA 2012, Los Angeles Art Historians Interested in Pedagogy and Technology, with a grant from Wagner College, sponsored a hands-on learning workshop in LA on Thursday, 2/23/12. Entitled ‘Constructive Use of Technology in the Art History Classroom: A Hands-on Learning Workshop,’it offered audience members more opportunity to learn Art History teaching and learning technologies.
Dr. Kelly Donahue-Wallace conducted her workshop on Teaching Art History Online. Dr. Janice Robertson conducted her workshop on Voicethread. Susan Healy conducted her workshop on Prezi. Stephanie L. Thornton-Grant conducted her workshop on OMEKA. Participants spent a solid hour working with one of the workshop facilitators to engage directly with the technology of their choice. Further information and details about each of these workshops and technologies can be found on our website at: http://ahpt.us/caa-conference-2012/. Each of these workshops was received with great enthusiasm; many participants left with ideas they want to implement at their home institutions. Through the post-session survey, other ideas were suggested for future sessions, which AHPT will be considering for the 2014 CAA Conference.
Report on SECAC Southeastern College Art Conference 2012: “Reflections on Where We Are and Where We Are Going with Technology in the Art History Classroom,” chaired by Marjorie Och, University of Mary Washington.
AHPT sponsored a demonstration-workshop at the annual meeting of the Southeastern College Art Conference in Savannah in November 2011. SCAD hosted the event, and we were particularly grateful to Sandra J. Reed (professor of painting at SCAD) and her colleagues for offering AHPT a classroom at SCAD’s Jen Library that accommodated our session’s need for computer work-stations and internet accessibility. The session, “Reflections on Where We Are and Where We Are Going with Technology in the Art History Classroom,” introduced SECAC members to some new technologies and tools, offered opportunities to try these out with the presenters, and established AHPT in SECAC as a vital group for discussion, networking, and sharing pedagogical insights. The presenters were Fran Altvater (Hillyer College, University of Hartford) on Wikis, Podcasts, and Blogs; Oh, My! Technology and Pedagogy in Parallel in the Art History Classroom, Janice Robertson (Pratt Institute) with VoiceThread Class Projects Turn Text-Based Teaching Practices On Their Head, and Saul Zalesch (Louisiana Tech University) on Ephemerastudies.org and Bringing Original Art Ephemera into the Classroom.
Fran talked about ways we might use technology to address “real deficiencies our students have in fundamental academic skills, time management, and academic culture” so our students might achieve greater success in degree programs. She showed us how wikis can be used for group note-taking, and audio casting of her lectures can help her work with a variety of student learning styles. Janice, art history’s VoiceThread guru, walked us through the steps of developing a VoiceThread and demonstrated her students’ academic revelations in their study of sculptural details on the façade of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in NYC. Janice also discussed how she uses VoiceThread to present works to students in a survey-level class that they probably don’t know, and then challenges them to figure out what they are looking at based on her lectures, their readings, and their pursuit of knowledge as they work to identify objects in small VoiceThread groups. Saul presented his website, Ephemerastudies.org, dedicated to his personal collection of American ephemera (destined for the Winterthur Museum) that he uses in his art history classes to teach, among other things, how “high style” is echoed in a variety of popular media, and how we can study art and history in such objects as late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century posters, advertisements, and music sheets; as an added treat he brought objects from his collection to show the group.
This was AHPT’s first session as an affiliate of SECAC, and we’re looking forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationship in the coming years. AHPT will sponsor a session at SECAC in 2012…so be looking for this! If any members wish to chair a session at SECAC or CAA in the future, please contact me at moch@umw.edu or Sarah Scott at sarah.scott@wagner.edu.
CAA 2011, New York
Business Meeting, Wednesday, February 9, 7:30-9am
Session: Technology and Collaboration in the Art History Classroom
Wednesday, February 9, 9:30-12pm
Chair: Marjorie Och, University of Mary Washington
Team-Based Wiki Building
Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, University of Washington
Step Away from the Podium! Adjusting Our Teaching Style to Accommodate Interactive Classroom Learning
Susan Healy, Metropolitan Community College, Omaha
The Sound of Art: Audio-Casting and Student Engagement
Frances Altvater, University of Hartford Hillyer College
Look, Listen, Speak, Text, Draw: VoiceThread TM Changes the Balance of Power
Janice Lynn Robertson, Fashion Institute of Technology
Collaboration in the Virtual Classroom: A Few Strategies that Work
Eva J. Allen, independent art historian
CAA 2009 Los Angeles
Session 1. Dr. Stephen Carroll, “Pedagogy of Assessment: Assessment of Pedagogy (Taking the Sting out of Assessment).” A 1.5-hour lecture and workshop.
Session 2. Web 2.0 and Art History
Chairs: Kelly Donahue-Wallace, University of North Texas; Eva Allen, University of Maryland University College
Whose Textbook is it Anyway? SmARThistory and Web 2.0
Beth Harris, Fashion Institute of Technology
Steven Zucker, Fashion Institute of Technology
Off With Their Heads: Using Digital Learning Objects to Teach the French Revolution
Andrea Fredericksen, University College London
Case Study: Using Collaborative Technologies to Develop an Online Exhibit in an Art History Seminar
Marjorie Och, University of Mary Washington
The Wagnerpedia “Survey”: A Wiki-Based Study of the Introduction to Art History
Sarah Scott, Wagner College
Visualizing the Maternal Form: Using Wikis for Collaboration in a Graduate Seminar
Denise Baxter, University of North Texas
Toward a Global Local Art History: Wiki to the Rescue
Alan Moore, independent scholar, Staten Island
CAA 2007 New York
Innovative Course Design Competition
Winner: John Garton, Cleveland Institute of Art, Course: “Curatorial Studies: The Art of Dreams, Escape, and Reverie”
Finalists:
Martha Scotford, NC State University
Marcia Salo, Parsons, The New School, NYC
Sherry C.M. Lindquist, Knox College
Mary Quinlan-McGrath, Northern Illinois University
2006 Boston
Teaching Art History Online
Chair: Kelly Donahue-Wallace, University of North Texas
Tradition and Innovation: Using New Technologies in Art History Surveys: A Case Study
Eva Allen, University of Maryland
An Orchid in the Land of Art History
Robert Sweeney, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
The Digital Image Library as Social Learning Environment
Beth Harris, Fashion Institute of Technology
Steven Zucker, Fashion Institute of Technology
If You Build It, The Might Not Come: Remarks on Motivating Participation in Online Art History Courses
Geoffrey Simmins, University of Calgary