Engaging, Fun, and Easy to Use!

My Take

This website/application is dedicated to sharing art, photos, and primary source documents from throughout history and all over the world. This app enables you to get closer to these works of art than you ever could in real life. In addition to it’s vast collection of art, you can also take 3D tours from places and museums all over the world, take a selfie to find if you look like an artwork, and play tons of games that help enhance learning of art and art history.

When trying to see where this tool lies on the SAMR framework, I firmly believe that Google Arts & Culture resides in the R or redefining stage. Due to its ability to let us walk into famous artworks, take part in AI-illustrated adventures, experiment with color and sound, and play games such as visual and cultural crosswords, puzzles and more, this app has taken learning about art far and above what we could've thought possible even 5 years ago. In the TPACK framework I think that this tool, depending on how you use it, can fit in the center. This means that the content knowledge, technological knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge is the basis of effective teaching with technology that requires using the technology in constructive ways. This tool can build on students' existing knowledge and help make some concepts that can be difficult a little easier to understand.

I would use this tool in a variety of ways in my classroom. The first and most obvious way being to show works of art, but this tool gives us the ability to zoom in and see such details we might not even see in a museum. Being able to see the individual brushstrokes an artist took can be a very cool experience. Another way I would use this tool would be the as a source for my students to get information on certain art movements or artists. Because of it’s vast collection of art, students would be able to use the easily accessible tabs and search tools to find what they need. While working on a specific area or moment in time I can even send my students on virtual field trips to those historic places.

I think the tools and games in this application can truly enhance how my students get to experience art. It can be difficult to show the importance of art when so many programs like mine are being shut down. With this application in my tool belt I can take more and more steps to extend my students' learning of art and art history.