Teaching the Arts Online Newsletter

Willy Lee, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, USA
Cori Wulf, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, USA
http://www.artsmia.org/education/teacher-resources/teacher-resources.cfm

Demonstration: Demonstrations - Session 1

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts monthly "Teaching the Arts" online newsletter for teachers reaches subscribers wherever they receive their email, September through May. The newsletter alerts teachers to upcoming teacher events, as well as presents an informative online resource designed for use in the classroom.

The online features follow one of two formats. The "Object in Focus" format explores a single work of art in depth. The "5 Facts about..." format presents a series of ideas central to a theme that can be explored through the museum's collection, such as "African Masks and Masquerades" or "Indian Art". Both formats also suggest classroom activities to extend the ideas explored in the feature. Often these activities include a link to the Institute's "Art Collector" tool. This tool, a component of the ArtsConnectEd website, allows teachers and students to arrange images in their own way.

This newsletter represents another innovation by the museum's Interactive Media Group. Web templates allow the Teacher Resources staff to construct the web pages without the assistance of web professionals, drawing from the extensive ArtsConnectEd database of images. These efficiencies of production permit more frequent issues of the newsletter, with richer content, than the biannual printed version of the past could ever be. Another advantage of the online format is that past issues are always accessible. Once "published" they remain online indefinitely.

As demonstrators, we will be able to offer two viewpoints of "Teaching the Arts". Cori Wulf, Teacher Resources Specialist at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, will guide attendees through the online newsletter and provide a "behind-the-scenes" look at the templates that are used to produce it. Willy Lee, Webmaster for the Institute, will give input on how these templates were created, and provide advice for institutions interested in creating similar projects.