http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/

It's always good to view sites and resources from many angles. While I probably won't actually ever teach art directly, there IS a movement within ESL instruction towards incorporating language instruction within subject matter instruction. So from that angle, I'm going to file this site away for future reference for the time when I might be asked to teach an art subject as part of an ESL program.

But more than that, sometimes sites are important not only for their content, but for the example they present as a way of PRESENTING INFORMATION itself, or in this case actually, the way this site led me to another site which I would possibly have never seen but is a fantastic example of the way in which educational content can be delivered taking full use of the multimedia capabilities of the computer. You might recall that in my comments on some earlier websites we visited for this class, ,my comment was "it's just a page from a book displayed on the computer". In other words, "Who needs an expensive computer when you can just hand the student a worksheet?" The website I found after a bit of exploration is http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/marthagraham/index.htm
(the first link when you click on the "EXPLORE" tab) an ingenious and extremely interesting site that teaches about Martha Graham's work through the eyes of a dancer who has been assigned to dance several of her most famous roles. The visitor to the site is presented with the dancer's locker , filled with notebooks, journals, background information, music CD's and videos (realistic photos of each object). As the learner explores the locker and its content by clicking on the different items, they learn as if they are really that dancer studying for an actual role. For example, they view a video of a segment from a dance and are presented with several questions to think about basing their answers on the video clips they just watched. It's a site with high production values and was obviously not cheap to produce, but it certainly is a great demonstration of the way educational content can be delivered making optimal use of the delivery technology selected. I highly recommend that anyone interested in using computers to make instructional content more interesting visit this site.