Information and communication technologies can be used to broaden and enhance children's experience and understanding of art. Computer art is an exciting addition to the art media available to them. It offers supportive experience to working directly with materials and tools and an additional means of expression, communication and design. The technology also allows children to view some of the world's major art works from the classroom. It can be used most effectively for these purposes as follows:
- The two basic types of computer programing for art and design are called 'painting' and 'drawing' and there are many programs available commercially. Great care should be taken in choosing programs and in directing their use: computergenerated artwork should be soundly based on the principles of visual arts education. Open-ended programs that allow the children to decide how to use the drawing and painting tools on screen are essential to creating expressive and imaginative compositions and to ensuring that the children, rather than the program being used, determine the outcome. The computer is also a very useful tool in designing, as it allows images to be manipulated on screen, decisions to be made quickly, and different phases of a design to be stored for reference.
- Computer activities may be designed by the teacher to teach specific aspects of the visual arts programme. Objectives must be clear, and he/she must be able to appraise the activity with reference to them. Activities could include experimenting with
- the ways in which colours affect each other
- shape
- layout
- organising space
- suggesting the third dimension
- elementary perspective.
The children will be keen to print out and keep some of their work. A high-quality colour printer is required for work involving colour, otherwise the print-out may not match the colours on screen.
- A page make-up ('desktop publishing') program could be used to extend the children's graphic work. Images produced using painting programs, scanners and digitisers can be combined with text to produce newsletters, posters and illustrated stories and poems.
- Computers have a multimedia facility, which combines images, text, sound and video. Multimedia software is available on CD-ROM, a type of disk that stores large amounts of information, and many are interactive. Programs produced by museums and art galleries that allow interactive exploration of their collections are especially useful. The teacher can use them to devise projects and tasks in looking at and responding to art, to be carried out by the children.
- The masterpieces of many important museums and galleries around the world are accessible through their web sites on the internet. Schools too can set up their own web sites to communicate with other schools and to share information about their art activities. They can also communicate by e-mail.