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Google arts and culture
Google Tips and TricksSTEM/STEAM

Exploring STEAM Topics with Google Arts & Culture

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

When it comes to science education, Google Arts & Culture is brimming with possibilities. Previously known as the Google Art Project, this vast, interactive archive contains high-quality images, videos, and 360-degree views of artworks from around the world and across a huge array of partner institutions. You can even find fun virtual experiments and games to try.

The Artist’s Perspective

Visual art can be a great tool for engaging students of all ages, and can help build context and understanding across a range of subject areas, from history to language arts to the natural sciences and math. 

With such a broad set of tools, however, it’s helpful to have a guide. Below, you’ll find several links to activities and resources for using Google Arts & Culture with your students. Then we’ll outline a few exciting experiments and digital tools on the platform that you can use to design your own lessons and activities.

  • You can check out reviews from educators, a list of pros and cons for the platform, and more on this page from Common Sense Education.
  • Pick up 15 quick ideas for history teachers looking to integrate tech into their lessons using Google Arts & Culture in this post from Peacefield History. 
  • Find suggestions for immersive learning on the platform (including AR/VR) from EdTech magazine here. 
google arts

Experiments and More

Here are a few examples of tours, games, collections, and interactive activities in tech, math, science, and engineering — all conveyed through the arts.

PageTopic(s)TypeDescription
Seven Science Museums Around the Worldspace exploration, engineering, natural history, roboticsvideo, audio, Street ViewThis page collects mini virtual tours of inventive science museums around the world.
Blob OperaAI, machine learning, musicaudio, videoDrag and pull these singing blobs to create harmonies, songs, and more.
Giraffatitan Dinosaur: Back to Life in 360 VRnatural history, biology, geology, dinosaursAR/VR, videoWatch a dinosaur come to life in this video.
Museum of Engineering Innovationengineering, medicine, biologyinteractive, virtual exhibitsLondon’s Royal Academy of Engineering shares 20 online exhibits and more.
google arts

Learning Art with Science

On the flip side, tech can give us tremendous insights into the arts and humanities, from hearing a painting to filling crossword puzzles with images. 

PageTopic(s)TypeDescription
Play a Kandinsky Paintingart, art history, biology, psychologyaudio, music, paintingWhat if you could hear color? This interactive uses machine learning to attempt to convey artist Vassily Kandinsky’s synesthesia. 
Color Explorercolor theory, visual artpaintingDive into the massive trove of art, searching by color.
Puzzle Partyart, art history, collaborative learningpainting, puzzleWork together digitally to create great artworks as a virtual puzzle.
Visual Crosswordsart, history, visual reasoning and thinkingvideo, interactiveLearn about art history, movements, and more by moving images in these visual crossword puzzles.

How do you use Google Arts & Culture in your teaching and learning? Sound off in the comments!

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clip studio paint
Announcements/Important DatesSTEM/STEAM

This Powerful Design Program Can Be Yours for Free

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

The ability to create, design, illustrate, and even animate images is a useful learning tool. Doing so digitally can also help students build digital literacy alongside an understanding of math, design, art, and more. But educators looking to integrate such tools face a mountain of choices — and some of them can be pricey.

Finding a Solution

We’re here to make this daunting task a little easier.

TCEA is happy to announce that it has been granted the exclusive rights in the state of Texas to provide free, six-month licenses of CLIP STUDIO PAINT DEBUT for school-owned computers to all TCEA members of public and private K-12 schools.

With over five million worldwide creators, CLIP STUDIO PAINT is one of the leading illustration, design, animation, comic, and manga-creation software applications worldwide. CLIP STUDIO PAINT allows for a completely digital creative process.

About CLIP STUDIO PAINT DEBUT

Here are a few features of CLIP STUDIO PAINT DEBUT:

  1. Smooth lines with a realistic drawing experience
  2. A huge array of brushes to paint and draw with
  3. Ability to import 3D drawings, characters, accessories, and backgrounds
  4. Text, gradients, and filters
  5. Drawing that uses the latest in AI technology (internet connection required)
  6. DEBUT also supports scanner input and .psd file importing/exporting for creators who want to draw on paper and import/export files when necessary
  7. Ability to create short animations
  8. Thousands of default materials including pens, brushes, and 3D models, or add materials made by other users
  9. Timely user support

Getting Started

Want to get your license and start getting creative? Just fill out and submit the form found here and you’re on your way!

Once you have completed the form, you will be emailed information on how to download and install the software. Please note that we will validate educators who fill out the sign-up form in order to receive a free license of CLIP STUDIO PAINT DEBUT. Check below to ensure your computers meet the minimum requirements, then get drawing!

System Requirements:
  • Microsoft Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 (32bit/64bit) or Apple Mac OS 10.10, 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, and 10.15
  • 300 MB space for application
  • 2.5 GB space for materials and assets (optional)
  • Pen tablet or tablet monitor that supports a pressure sensitive stylus. Wacom devices are recommended.
  • Internet connection for license authentication and access to download links
  • For the latest requirements, refer to the following links:
    Windows
    Mac
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springboard over pool with sparkling blue water
Educational TrendsLibraries

Hack the Library: Relic or Springboard?

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Today’s libraries are in flux. Hacking libraries for a changing future remains essential. In the minds of the uninformed, libraries are a relic of a bygone age. The value of a school or community library often relies on the community’s ready access to technology. For example, libraries can cater to those in most need of access to:

  • Charging stations for mobile devices
  • Computers to complete an online job application
  • Access to job certification study materials and/or online exams for college students
  • General research
  • Censored content banned in other venues (e.g. schools)
  • Safe, private environments

While these are important needs, they are insufficient for the future. As technology access becomes more mobile and ubiquitous in the United States, libraries serve as the final refuge of the poor or disenfranchised, those who seek free access to an increasingly digital world. It should come as no surprise that funding has been cut as other programs enhance home technology and internet access for these populations.

This blog entry seeks to answer the question, “How can libraries hack themselves and ultimately reshape themselves into a future-ready learning environment?” In this blog entry, we’ll explore two hacks libraries can use to grow.

Hack #1 – Job Certifications and Learning Center

Rather than provide a bank of technology that can be used for anything by anyone, libraries may need to take a series of steps to specialize, based on the needs of the community the library serves. Those steps include:

  • Build partnerships with STEM and job certification organizations and ramp up desirable learning opportunities aligned to community needs (e.g. nursing, medical care, pre-law, 3D and industrial printing, drone certification)
  • Establish cohorts of learners that can follow certification pathways
  • Serve as testing centers for Career and Technology Education (CTE) programs

Hack #1 Resources

Here are several sources of top-paying certifications:

Hack #2 – Arts and Multimedia Center

“Financial firms are sending their back-office jobs overseas. But what do fine artists do? They create something new, unexpected, and delightful that changes the world. [These] abilities are harder to outsource and more important in an abundant world,” says best-selling author Daniel Pink. He goes on to say, “Artists give people something they didn’t know they were missing: a dance, a piece of music, a painting, a piece of sculpture. Catering to that need is the best business strategy.”

Libraries are in a great position to cater to that need. One way to hack libraries is to build partnerships with artists to display and teach how to create the new and unexpected. While libraries have served as a staunch supporter of the arts, more action is needed. Increasing access to multimedia workstations and workshops to provide introductory and intermediate level learning opportunities is even more critical now. In addition to Adobe tools, however, much can be accomplished with free multimedia editing tools. These tools can introduce learners of all ages to core multimedia design principles.

Hack #2 Resources

Some  locations where you can find certifications include:

  • Applied Digital Tools: A free computer literacy course (from Google) designed to prepare learners for a growing number of jobs that require basic digital skills.
  • My Next Move: Offers a searchable database of available areas for certification
  • Ed2Go Multimedia Arts Certificate:  The Multimedia Arts Online Training Program builds your proficiency in core tools for interactive development: Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, and examines professional techniques for video production and video editing. You will learn how to create images, interfaces, and motion graphics for the web and beyond. Course projects include video shoots, story boarding, video and sound editing, web page creation, and motion graphics production.
  • Multimedia Arts Professional Certificate:  Course topics include Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects alongside motion theory, digital video editing, digital video production, and motion graphics.
  • Graphic Designer Course: The curriculum of the degree programs covers various topics such as photo shop, design and composition, digital photography, history of art, logo design, branding, and typography.

Hack the Future of Libraries

We must all remember that the world stops for no one. Will your libary serve as a relic symbolizing the past or a springboard for the future? Libraries, venerated buildings and places of learning, must assume the role of on-ramps to degree and non-degree career pathways. In future blog entries, we’ll explore a few more ways to hack your library.

 

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Crafting puts the A in STEAM
STEM/STEAM

Why Is the “A” Important in STEAM?

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

In the past, people were fixated on necessities. The production of more food, more clothes, more shelter, all working to ensure that basic needs were met. With such needs came the focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), where developed countries started specializing in STEM industries to develop more efficient machinery so that more of these necessities could be produced. Today however, where most of our necessities are already met, the introduction of STEAM has emerged.

What Is STEAM?

The “A” in STEAM stands for arts, and it might just be more important than most people realize. STEAM involves the application of creative thinking and design skills to STEM projects, and introduces a variety of new ways to use traditional STEM skills.

The Backdrop

There is a huge controversy whether the A should be included in STEM. On one side is the argument that introducing the arts will dilute the STEM movement, resulting in less time spent on STEM and hence, lesser exposure. However, others have also argued an even greater importance for the arts to complement STEM. With our current focus on STEM, students today are mostly adept at solving theoretical problems, but lack the proper know-how to adequately apply them to real-world problems. In the end, they lose the touch of creativity, or become too hamstrung at suggesting new ideas that push the status quo forward.

Importance of STEAM

Most employers adore employees who excel in STEM. However, the inability to innovate and come up with new applications of STEM would defeat its purpose in the medium term. Instead of placing such sole focus on STEM, schools should start utilizing STEM grants to come up with different ways of teaching students more relevancy to the real world. For example, besides teaching hard coding skills, teachers can facilitate competitions for the best application created (such as the TCEA Robotics contests) and applying engineering design process to a 3D design contest (such as the TCEA 3D Design Contest).

Such techniques push creativity and individual challenge where the focus is not just what students have learned, but how they can best take what’s learned and put it against what is needed and socially valuable. Such learning also helps them find relevancy with what they’re doing to the working world. This fun way of learning helps them better remember STEM and teaches them real-life applications. Furthermore, those traditionally weaker at STEM domains can now find an appropriate “A” niche to colloborate and innovate with those stronger in these STEM areas. This cross-functional team is highly valued in today’s world, allowing the complementary strengths to elevate the work and output to whole new levels.

The Right Combination

Most people consider the addition of “A” into STEM as including arts on an entirely separate level. However, it is more a confluence of developing high-order engineering skills while retaining the freedom to innovate and remain creative. With STEM giving them knowledge on how to work on problems, the arts give them new directions to take their problem-solving forward.

In this sense, the arts don’t dilute STEM. Instead, they complement it. This is especially relevant today in today’s increasingly digital and interdisciplinary world where creativity is highly necessary and valued. Technical skills plus a vital dose of creativity is the way to go today, and one without the other would be for naught.

This is a guest blog by Jacqueline Ang. Jacqueline is an education technology writer who serves as a content writer at Yodaa (www.yodaa.co), an ed-tech startup based in Singapore. She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business management. In her free time, she researches on online marketing and education tips and news.

 

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