Three key principles which teachers need to know, understand and be able to apply.
Decisions about when, when not and how to use ICT in lessons should be based on whether the use of ICT supports good practice in teaching the subject. If it does not, it should not be used.
In planning and in teaching, decisions about when, when not and how to use ICT in a particular lesson or sequence of lessons must be directly related to the teaching and learning objectives in hand.
The use of ICT should either allow the teacher or the pupil to achieve something that could not be achieved without it; or allow the teacher to teach or the pupils to learn something more effectively and efficiently than they could otherwise; or both.
This will be important, whether:
ICT is to be used by all the pupils: individually, in groups or as a whole class;
ICT is to be used by some pupils only, e.g. for support or extension work;
ICT is used by the teacher, e.g. in using a presentation package to introduce a new topic to the class; in downloading selected resources from the Internet in advance of the lesson so that pupils can browse the material.
Teachers need to know that practical considerations may also play a part in their decisions about whether ICT should be used. These include the nature of the available resources: for example, teaching objectives that could be met very effectively if a suite of computers were available in the classroom might not be attainable if there is just one stand-alone computer.
ICT has the potential to make a significant contribution to art education and to pupils’ visual literacy and understanding, for example:
in the research and development of ideas, e.g. creating and/or selecting appropriate primary and secondary resources;
as part of the creative process, e.g. through manipulating primary and secondary resource materials on the screen and using the result to develop further work;
in creating a finished piece of work, e.g. in printed form; in electronic form only; as a single image, a document, an animated sequence or a multimedia presentation;
in contributing to an extension activity, where ICT has not been used to create the first finished piece of work, e.g. photographing and manipulating images of a sculpture or of works created in other art media;
and in particular through:
providing a medium that can be used to explore visual phenomena and experiment with visual language;
extending the range of tools
and techniques used in art; providing a tool that can:
be used to transfer images from one medium to another;
manipulate an image to convey different meanings;
control a sequence through
animation or time-based work;
enabling teachers and pupils to maintain a visual record of the process of development and the final outcome of their work which can be used to inform formative and summative assessment;
helping pupils to develop their ideas and document the process;
extending pupils’ knowledge and experience of the work of artists, makers and designers from different periods, contexts and cultures through the use of CD-ROM and the Internet;
enabling pupils to share their own and other pupils’ art work at a distance, and to receive and give their comments and reactions;
providing opportunities for pupils to develop research, communication and investigative skills.
ICT has the potential to offer valuable support to the teacher of primary art by, for example: ·
helping to locate sources of art from different periods, contexts and cultures which can be used or adapted for use in the classroom, e.g. by accessing journals, periodicals, art galleries and art education sites that provide examples of good practice using a wide range of art media;
allowing the teacher to respond at different stages to pupil’s art work, e.g. by viewing and discussing a sequence of saved or printed images;
aiding formative and summative assessment, e.g. through reference to saved images, and record-keeping, e.g. through the use of databases.