When a dynamic, tradigital component is added, technology becomes more than an information technology, but a tool for learning and communicating. Art teachers have taught folk art units and cultural units forever. Globally inspired art is different. It incorporates globalization, which is an international integration of people, transportation, and communication. It allows students to cross borders and boundaries of all kinds, real and metaphorical.
The Worldwide Color Wheel Project is a . . .
visual arts unit for elementary and middle school students; actually students, community groups, or people of any age. I'll share a simple story with you. In 2010 I was able to teach school short term in Uganda. The classroom I taught in had about 250 children with one teacher and no school supplies of any kind. When I left Uganda I flew home, got home very late at night, went to sleep, woke up the next morning and went to our first day of in-service. I had just left a place where children held the one crayon I had for each of them cradled in their hands like it was a new born baby, crying when they broke it accidentally. Granted I was in a bit of culture shock as I had just experienced something that is very hard to describe in Uganda (it's another post sometime) and had brought home a parasite with me, but I felt the room spinning and as crayons rolled off on the floor the first day of school and students stepped on them and smashed them and just left them laying on the floor, I had a flash back to the Ugandan children treating their one crayon (that's all I had for them-I didn't expect 250 children in one room) as if it was a fragile baby bird. We stopped everything and I told them a lengthier Ugandan crayon story. I made a commitment that day that I was going to teach my students that there was a great, big world out there; a world where students have never even seen a crayon. And, so began our art journey which goes to destinations all over the globe. This year we Skyped with students and classrooms in Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, and several states in the United States. I wrote lessons on Skype in the Classroom and teachers from these countries contacted me and we arranged for times and dates to Skype with each other.
The Worldwide Color Wheel Project ultimately originated from a simple crayon story. It's goal is simple. To color the globe, one student at a time with art and technology. Students create an art project, using the color wheel as inspiration. It can be anything. It can be 2D or 3D. It can be traditional. It can be digital. It can be tradigital. Throughout project completion or when projects are finished, classrooms connect via Skype or other social or virtual media software. Information sharing about students' schools, lives, communities and countries partners with a virtual art gallery. Students share their art projects, discuss project development, idea generation, and share other interesting information regarding art making. Students go on a journey to another destination without ever leaving their classroom or school. They write about it, blog about it, share images and videos. And, hopefully, they will continue their very real friendships made through tradigital art making.
You can learn more about the Worldwide Color Wheel using the links below. I also have a Drop Box file with all of the project information, slide shows, videos, and other supplemental information for educators. Just this past week I sent links to teachers in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, England, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Turkey, and quite a few places in the United States. While the project is only one year old and I've piloted it three times with Barbara Martinez at The American School Foundation of Monterrey, Mexico, it's just now really going global. I hope that by this time next year it will have been completed by art teachers and other educators all over the world, and this art journey that began literally with a crayon, will be linking students in a global visual arts movement that seeks to help them learn more about each other. The rapidly changing world is full of digital super highways that are going to make the world they live and work in as adults significantly different that the one I grew up in and even the one we live in today. Follow the Worldwide Color Wheel Project these next few years....let's see where it goes!
Here are the links:
School Arts Magazine, March 2014, pg. 12:
SchoolArtsRoom Blog, April 3, 2014 by School Arts Magazine:
Skype in the Classroom, Worldwide Color Wheel Project by Trina Harlow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ8ASn8o8hs
Mrs. Harlow's school website about the Worldwide Color Wheel Project:
www.tinyurl.com/crazycolorfulcolorwheel
Worldwide Color Wheel Blog:
www.worldwidecolorwheelproject.blogspot.com
Facebook: Worldwide Color Wheel Project
Twitter and Instagram: worldwidecwp
email: worldwidecolorwheelproject@gmail.com
Coloring the globe, one student at a time through art and technology!
