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Why Art
Combine Computer Art
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Why Art “Children today are growing up in a highly visual world, surrounded by the images of television, videos, advertising displays, and other media. The human brain has a visual cortex that is five times larger than the auditory cortex. Is it any wonder that students respond so positively when they have opportunities to learn through the visual arts? And is it any wonder that words alone do not reach all students? A picture is indeed worth a thousand words." ____Dee Dickinson According to New Horizons for Learning, schools that are heavily invested in a strong, successful art program report that they have a significant decrease in behavior problems and a significant increase in academic achievement in other content areas since the institution of their arts program. Level the playing field - Pairing art with computers benefits the acquisition of both art and technology skills. The majority of students give up drawing and the visual arts around the age of nine due to perceived inadequacies in artistic ability. Computer art levels the playing field and overcomes this apparent handicap. Students create professional looking art of which they are tremendously proud. Children learn faster - Children learn computers quicker than adults. High end graphic art programs are among the most challenging to learn. Most children, however, given their natural interest in art and their ability to learn computers, are capable of mastering these programs. Mastery of difficult programs at a young age will make learning any program in the future substantially easier. Long-term student advantage - Surveys of today's college students who have been exposed to computers in schools, reveal a great disparity between their current computer knowledge and the knowledge of computers they would like to have. Mastering computer technology prepares children for the future. Using our approach gives students entering high school computer skills equal to or better than those currently graduating from high school.
Combining Computer Art with Project Based Learning If computer art is used simply as an element in the art curriculum, it has significant worth. However, combined with writing and other academic areas in the curriculum, it becomes a truly powerful enhancement to any learning environment. All studies cited in Edutopia's article on Project-based learning indicate students perform at a considerably higher level when
Authentic, powerful learning results. Students retain far more knowledge. There are significantly fewer behavior problems.
Software
Related Links
Building the Digital Curriculum: Summary
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