Artsonia has become better than any student art show I could host; it reaches more family and friends, regardless of geographic distance or busy schedule, communicates art concepts in project descriptions, reinforces student technology use, and generates funds for your program. It does all that . . . without all the staples and tape.

The benefits breakdown:

Ok, sounds good but. . .
. . . well here are some of the nuts and bolts to help you get you started.

Can’t see video above? Click here.

Permission slips. Depending on your school policy, you may be required to get permission slips for participating artists.  Make your own or download and customize one of these templates: Casual or Formal (Microsoft Word format). Be sure to include a space for parent email addresses on your permission slip. Increasing participation from family and friends is the key to success in Artsonia.  It is worth the extra time to enter emails – parents get an email each time artwork is published or comments are posted, continually keeping them in touch with the learning going on in your classroom.

Volunteers. I started using volunteers to help me last year (I don’t know why I waited so long).  I keep a bin to hold artwork ready to photograph along with a binder holding class lists, and a camera (with extra batteries).  When artwork is ready, I send out an email to my volunteer list.  The first volunteer to “Reply All” agrees to photograph and digitally crop the artwork.  The only step left is uploading – something I still prefer to do myself, but certainly doable for a volunteer.  In the fall I do a training session and provide this Photography Tip Sheet and Guidelines for volunteers to reference.

Start slow and set a goal. My first year participating in Artsonia I promised to put up one piece of art for each student.  I ended up adding more, but I felt like I didn’t raise any expectations too high for the students or myself.

Do you use Artsonia?  Please add your school page and any tips in the comments area below.

It’s that time of the year again.  Over the next couple weeks, most of our readers will be preparing their art classrooms for the new school year.  Wouldn’t it be great to see the creative spaces of other art teachers around the country… or around the world for that matter?  Well this is your chance to share your art space… and see others.

By September 15, send a photo of your decked-out art classroom to info@theteachingpalette.com. We’ll compile all the art classroom photos into one showcase post.  Think HGTV for the art classroom.  We’ll also feature one or two lucky photos on our home page as the new “cover art” for The Teaching Palette.

Regardless of what level you teach, we want to see what you have done with the space you were given, even if it is on a cart or in the corner of a gym. In the end, we hope to receive enough photos to make a healthy online gallery so art teachers around the globe can be inspired for their own spaces.  Now go snap some photos!

Since the launch of the iTunes App Store in July 2008, over 1 billion apps have been downloaded for use on the iTouch and iPhone.  Currently, the App Store has 63,000 apps to choose from and it is no surprise that many of the iPhone/iTouch applications have educational value.  Over the last few weeks, we sorted through our favorites to create The Teaching Palette’s Best Apps for Art Teachers, along with some tips and suggested uses.

1. Love Art-Natl Gallery London This is an absolutely beautiful museum app that integrates audio and video presentations based on the collections in the museum.  A great learning tool containing snapshots of a wide range of art history.
2. Brushes Familiar with the New Yorker Cover that was created using an iPhone app?  It was created with the Brushes painting app and tops our list. Easy to use beginning with the very young. Watch a speed portrait here.
3. TypeDrawing Draw with text. This fun app uses a single letter or phrase as the drawing tool. A completely new way of drawing (and thinking about drawing). See some examples in this Flickr pool.
4. TanZen Familiar with Tangrams?  This app combines math and art concepts together.  Move, rotate, and flip shapes to form a larger image. Great for improving spatial intelligence.
5. Art (Lite version) This art history game features five famous artists.  Can you identify which artist created each work of art? Master this app, then upgrade to the paid version of Art. Another nice feature of this app is the option to load images into your photo gallery for use in other applications.
6. Art2Go This app is an engaging and useful presentation of 19th and early 20th century artists and their work using audio commentary. Useful for all grade levels and art backgrounds.
7. Color Splash This is an extremely simple app to use with some amazing effects.  Teach the principle of emphasis by isolating a single image in color while the remainder of the photograph stands in black and white. See how easy this app is to use in this video tutorial.
8. Animoto Near identical to the traditional web-based version, Animoto coordinates your images to the beat of music.  Great for artist presentations or student portfolios. Completed presentations can be downloaded or emailed.
9. FlipBook (Lite version) This is one of the best animation apps available.  Features allow for replication of images and transparency effects to see previous slide. Click here for a guided tour of the app.
10. PixPop Art – This is a challenging and very fun detail detective game. Utilizing fine art, detail images line the right side of the screen while you search for the match. Work in competition mode timing yourself or work at your own pace in Zen mode.

1. 3D gallery Be a curator of your own museum.  Enter this 3-D room and rearrange the paintings or choose your own images from photo gallery.  This would be a great tool to display artwork created throughout the year or to focus on an art time period or genre. Note: There is currently no “save” feature, but if you click your on/off button at the same time as the menu button, you can create a screenshot that saves in photos on the camera roll.
2. Comic Touch (Lite version) Add some humor to art historical images or commentary to student artwork with this single pane comic creator. Save to photo library or email. Upgrade to the paid version of Comic Touch and get interesting special effects and fonts. Watch an intro video here.
3. Life Strips This is a great tool for creating comic strips.  Utilizes a wide variety of comic strip templates and speech bubbles. Add photos and utilize filters to for adding special effects. Even add a Google map!
4. Light Painting Have you ever created a photographic light painting?  While standard flashlights and LED lights work fine, this app offers additional light features otherwise hard to replicate. Use these tips and tricks to get started.
5. Open Culture - Find a nice group of audio and video podcasts from well known art museums in the “ideas and culture” category.  The same category also contains animated New Yorker cartoons.
6. AP Mobile Create a search for “Art” and get the latest news articles from around the world.  Useful app for older students to reflect on culture and current events.
7. Jazz Sculptor Utilize a wide variety of virtual materials and textures to carve a sculpture from a variety of forms.  Rotate image to view at a 360 degree angle.  Nice exercise to understand the subtractive carving process. See the Jazz Sculptor gallery for inspiration.
8. ScuptMaster3D Create three-dimensional art using a variety of colors with this virtual material that appears inspired by Henry Moore.  Great way to introduce and reinforce positive and negative space concepts. View this video tutorial for an overview.
9. Architect Envi Deluxe – This app organizes architecture by building name, architect, or century created.  It is presented in a slide-show format with the option to learn more about the building and save in the camera roll for use/manipulation in other applications.  Yet, the best feature of this app is the option to view each architectural structure in Google Maps.
10. Color Sudoku Forget the numbers – this is Sudoku in color!  Game has a different levels of difficulty and color schemes.

1. Eyetricks This app has a nice collection of optical illusions.  Good for early finishers or as intro to an OP Art unit.
2. Color Wheel -This color wheel uses advanced color theory concepts to reinforce color understanding. Useful interactive app for older students.
3. Brooklyn Museum Tour the collection of art at the Brooklyn Museum.  ”Randomize” is a nice feature to view artwork you might otherwise miss.
4. Symmetry Useful tool for teaching symmetry to younger students. Watch this video for a quick demo.
5. MovieMaker This is a great tool for creating stop-motion animations and time-lapse movies. Since it requires the camera on an iPhone, this app is perhaps most useful as an extension for students who have access to iPhone technology.
6. PotteryWheel While this is certainly not a a replacement for the hands-on wheel throwing experience, this pottery wheel gives the basic idea of the cause and effect.
7. Artist’s Touch This app requires little artistic talent but is useful when teaching about abstract art.  Non-objective to representational- reveal your image using a variety of textures and paint tools. Be sure to watch video tutorial to get started.
8. Google Earth This is a great app to integrate geographic locations of artists or cultures. Watch this video tutorial to get started.
9. Gallery of Painters Contains a large collection of artists that can be searched alphabetically, by century, or nationality. View basic information or link directly to Wikipedia for detail information.  Useful for research.
10. Juxtaposer and Juxtaposer Lite This is a fun tool for teaching about Surrealism. Reinforce juxtaposition  by taking a photo of your classroom and a selecting objects from a second photo to create a Magritte-like composition. Watch this video review to see what this app can do.

Ok . . so now what?  Here are some additional tips and considerations to start using the apps:

• Not all the apps are free, but once purchased, an app can be used on multiple iTouch’s with no additional charge.
• Most schools do not have access to multiple iTouch’s (yet). But even just one iTouch can be used as an extension for an early finisher or projected on a screen for the entire class to view using a document camera.
• Some students may have access to a personal iTouch or even a parent’s iPhone.  Create a recommended app list for these students to try out at home. You could even tie it into an extra credit option.
• Use it yourself to create your own art or brush up on art history.
• Find useful tips, reviews, and connect with other educators using apps in education at IEAR.org

What are your favorite apps for art education?