Advanced Art Class Midterm: Student Art Blogs

In the past I have had my advanced art students create a website to showcase their artwork that they have created this year and previous years (as an online portfolio). This year I decided to do something different. I realized that when the students tried to log into their account second semester to update their website for the final exam, they forgot their passwords and in general didn't do much with the website- making it useless.

I am an avid Pinterest-er and have seen many posts from Apex High School. When I clicked on their actual blog I got inspired. The art teacher at that school has the students create an art blog- what a great idea! My students always ask if they can take pictures of their artwork to post on instagram and other social media outlets, so why not tie into my curriculum what they are actually interested in- social media.

For 3 days we went down to the media center and my students set up their blog. I still wanted to retain the aspect of the online portfolio so those requirements were still embedded in the rubric. By adding the aspect of the "blog" I wanted them to post 5 blog posts. I left it very open-ended; I told them that the idea behind this was to document the process of their art or they could use it as a personal reflection to the projects that they have created

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The requirements for their grade included:

• A page for an artist statement (it could have been about a specific artwork that they created this year or just about their art in general)
• The blog had to look professional, but still show their personality (you can see some students went a little too casual for my liking, we will be doing some updates when we get back from break).
• There had to be a short biography
• The Portfolio or Gallery had to have at least 5 images of their artwork with labels (name, title, size, medium and year)
• ...and their blog posts

HERE is the link to the page on my blog where you can see my student's blogs!

I am excited to see how this develops throughout the school year. I plan on having the students post a least once a week and also doing online critiques through the comment section of the posts. 

Art Teacher: if you have ever tried anything like this before, share below- links, successes, failures and comments are always appreciated!

On another note, at this time tomorrow I will be officially on Winter Break!!!!!!- oh wait scratch that I have a game tomorrow night too-

 #artteacherbyday #cheercoachbyafternoon #wifeandsoontobemommaattheendofthenight