Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh

Informational Newsletter
Volume 96, Number 5
/projects/ckp/newsletter/v96n5.html

Using the World Wide Web in the Visual Arts

The WWW is an environment where one can combine graphics, text and hyperlinks to resources around the world. This makes it a perfect medium for use in the visual arts - painting, sculpture, photography, crafts, and architecture.

The following links take the viewer to visual art resources around the world, an online art exhibit by a PPS teacher, an online exhibit of PPS student work, and a lesson on French Impressionism. Enjoy!

Dale's Page - http://oberon.pps.pgh.pa.us/~dhuffman/art.html
Dale Huffman is a potter who works with students from Schenley High School's Spartan Academy. On his homepage, he has put together a comprehensive collection of visual art resources. The main categories include: Architecture, Artists, Ceramics, Geographical Locations, Institutions, Miscellaneous, Other Listings of Art Links, Outline of Western Art History, and Photography. This is a great place to begin your exploration of visual art resources on the Web.

"More" by Dennis Childers - http://oberon.pps.pgh.pa.us/~childers/more.html
Dennis Childers is a photographer, artist and musician. He is also a teacher of video at CAPA High School. Dennis is working with his students on putting the PPS Friends of Art - /projects/ckp/art-project/overview.html collection on the WWW. This entails taking photographs of donated art in Pittsburgh schools, scanning the photographs, and uploading them to an online collection. In addition, he has put a virtual photography exhibit on his homepage. He hopes to use this as a model for student work at CAPA.

Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the PPS - http://artsnet.heinz.cmu.edu:80/mcg/
The Apprenticeship Training Program at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild teaches inner city, public school students the technical and aesthetic elements of ceramic art, computer imaging, drawing and photography while providing guidance and support for students to pursue their long term goals. The Student Development Department provides personal and career counseling and assists students to meet the challenges awaiting them beyond high school. The following exhibition represents a selection of works by twenty-two Pittsburgh Public School students included in Accomplishment XIII, an annual celebration of the achievement of young artists in the Apprenticeship Training Program. Each student contributed one art piece as well as an accompanying personal statement. Many students also added a link from their exhibit page to another cultural site that they found on the Internet.

French Impressionism - http://grace.carrick.pps.pgh.pa.us/~gaal/impressionism.html
This WWW lesson on French Impressionism was created by Roxane Gaal at Carrick High School.

"You are using the World Wide Web for this unit. It will be your gateway to places all over the world, and will put you in direct contact with other people's wisdom, knowledge, and experience. Because this is the first time you will access information this way, many instructions are included. After you become more adept at handling the mouse to navigate your way around, you will not be given so many instructions AND most future Webpages will be in French!

Amusez-vous bien et bon voyage....

Impressionism is a type of art. Just as fashions change, as music changes, so does the way artists choose to draw and paint. The artists who called themselves "Impressionists" broke with tradition, and decided to paint using techniques that had never before been tried....."

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Why does it take so long for me to view graphics on the WWW?

Answer: Pages that contain graphics tend to be large in size. The speed at which they are accessed is dependent at home on the speed of your modem (14,400 or 28,000), from school the speed of your schools connection to the Internet and how busy the site is that you are trying to reach.

Workshops and Support

We are beginning a new set of workshops for anyone interested in learning more about using the Internet. Each workshop will be two hours long and can accommodate 15 people. Participants will have the opportunity to use a computer for two hours and learn about a particular aspect of the Internet. All the workshops are from 4:00 - 6:00 in Room G-8 at the Woolslair Gifted Center.

Monday, April 29	Email
Wednesday, May 1	Email
Monday, May 6	Newsgroups
Tuesday, May 8	Newsgroups
Monday, May 13	WWW and Netscape
Wednesday, May 15	WWW and Netscape

Obtaining Help

Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh maintains a number of email addresses that provide users with online help. If you have an account on the system and would like to obtain answers to common questions, send email to:

resources@pps.pgh.pa.us (curricular assistance)

trouble@pps.pgh.pa.us (technical assistance, Macslip and PCslip help)

info@ckp.edu (information pertaining to Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh)

If you are a PPS employee and would like an Internet account, call us at 622-5930.