1. Website: Incredible Art Department
2. Website Address: http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/artstuff.html
3. Copyright date and/or Last Update: ©2010 IAD online
4. Author/Organization Credentials: IAD Online was created by Ken Rohrer in 1994 for a show case of his elementary students in Indiana. He was told to close it by the school district, but instead he decided to open it up to the world and received an astonishing 8,555 views the first year. According to Ken Rohrer the site currently receives millions of visitors a year. The website is hosted by Princetononline.com giving this website credibility as a wonderful resource for educators.
5. Web Site Design and Ease of Navigation: What is so great about this website is the ease of navigation. The menu bar on the homepage contains a list of eleven subjects with a drop down list of resources on that subject. For example: Under “Lesson”, the first item on the menu bar, is a fantastic list of information for the art educator, including lesson plans from early childhood through college level. When you click on the lesson plan you are taken to another page that is subdivided into, By Grade Level, By Medium, By Subject, By Art Period, By Artist, and By Integration. This helps narrow down the search considerably when you are looking to find a particular resource for a particular art lesson. Of course this is a time saving step that has already been worked out eliminating hours of research. To find just the right lesson plan or combination of lesson plans for teaching across the curriculum, you need only click the “By Integration” button to go to resources that are listed by content area, another great time saving feature on this site. Under the main eleven tabs you will find not only the information pertaining to that subject but also many links that offer additional resources for exploration. It is important to note here that you are accessing hundreds of other sites and should use caution when using this site with children or students.
6. Response and Recommendation for Use: This website is a perfect resource for art teachers; it includes the following information subjects: Lessons, Art Stuff, Toolbox, Jobs, Cartoonists, News, Art Rooms, Community, Pet Peeves and Supplies. What I think is the greatest asset of this website is the lesson plans; they offer a wealth of information to use for a lesson or serve as inspiration to create a similar lesson plan. I particularly like the “Art Stuff” menu as well; it offers numerous resources including Art Lessons, Art Periods and Styles and Artists. Under the submenu “Artist” is Collections, Cartoonists, Black Artist, Ethic Artists, Male Artists, and Female Artists, that could serve as a great resource for a cultural awareness art lesson. I think that sometimes we are not aware of how diverse are the contributions of artist throughout our history, that many contributions have come from ethnic backgrounds and also from women. We need to help students be more informed about these important contributions to help inspire their own creativity and give them important background knowledge about these artist to help them in their art education and maybe inspire them to pursue an art career.
In addition to the wonderful lesson plans is a great “New Teacher Survival Guide”, under the Tools menu. This is one of the best resources for a new teacher I have found so far. It gives the guidelines that help the new teacher focus on to prepare for the first day of class and for the rest of the year. It is organized in seven chapters and contains 72 total pages, so it is very well thought out. It includes great worksheets for the teacher such as seating arrangements, seating charts, rules check lists and student self assessment charts and so on. This guide would work well for any discipline to provide the framework that is necessary for creating an organized classroom, allowing the teacher to make better use of their time.
Although the IAD site is probably geared more toward teachers it could be a great resource for the art students with appropriate supervision, since it contains a great deal of information about art movements, artists and art techniques. However, the teacher needs to be aware this site leads off to many additional sites; therefore its use must be monitored by teachers and/or parents.
Another great feature of this site is the links that are provided throughout the site, links to free information for lesson plans, art education jobs, art museums, and even a menu for art supplies.
The site also offers great resources for students that include, Online Activities for Kids, Art Media Tutorials, Activity/Learning Centers, and Board Games that make learning about art a lot of fun for both teacher and student.
Overall I would rate this website with a ten; it definitely fulfills most of the needs of the art teacher, providing lesson plans, information about art movements, art history and artists. Additionally, the website offers great resources on assessments, brain research (cognitive learning theory), curriculum and discipline, making it one of the best places to go to find information for the art teacher. The IAD website is easy to maneuver through and offers many invaluable resources that I personally use currently to help design my own lesson plans. This site is probably one of the most extensive websites I have found so far, featuring page after page of information; it will take you a very long time to go through just one subject area on this great site. I would highly recommend this site to teachers, art students and anyone who is interested in learning more about art.
