Integration Project: Gary Mesa-Gaido

Project Overview

To date, I have 3 of 4 classes being serviced via the web. I would like all classes I teach to be accessible via the web and develop an online gallery of student work and examples used in class for all my courses including streaming video and animation. All classes will be able to access, at anytime, syllabi, readings, links, assignments, course schedules, and take tests. The image gallery would give students an online source for examples of assignments and also give them examples of professionals in the field and other visual artists work that relate to the various assignments. It would also allow me to feature the very best student projects in a virtual gallery setting.

Project Details

I have completed my proposed PT3 Grant project. I created new pages for my web site; these include interactive galleries of student artwork for four of the courses I teach regularly: ART 103 (Color Foundations), ART 109 (Introduction to the Computer in the Visual Arts), ART 309 (Computer Art), and ART 410 (Computer Animation). Each course has it's own gallery containing examples of previous students' creative work for every assignment given during the semester. Many of the examples posted in the galleries are shown in class during my lectures. These examples demonstrate the level and quality of work expected for each assignment. Students enrolled in any of these courses are now able to review or revisit the examples at anytime during the semester to assist them in the creation of their own work. These include still images, panoramas, animation and streaming video. The galleries not only act as teaching aids for currently enrolled students, but also showcase the works of previous students. In addition, I have met my secondary objective as students enrolled in all four courses can now access syllabi, readings, links, itineraries, assignments and tests via my website.

The interface and the interactive galleries were all produced with Macromedia's Flash, a software I taught myself in order to complete the PT3 project. Initially created using HTML editing software, the majority of my original site was updated to incorporate the necessary changes required by the use of this new software. For example, in order for a web browser to display a web page created with dynamic Flash content, it must have the correct plug-ins. Therefore, I added a link to my existing site for those who don't have the plug-in software. In addition, all links connected to the Flash files were updated to point to the corresponding Flash documents' URLs so that they will work correctly on any browser. This project has been an immense undertaking for me, from learning new software to organizing, resizing, rasterizing, color correcting and color formatting hundreds of digital files. The color formatting process, for example, allows images to look good on any web browser. The project has allowed me to experiment, be creative and learn important tools for future projects, course development ideas and curricular changes.

The usefulness of my website will be assessed at the end of the Spring 2003 semester. As part of an existing assessment questionnaire, I will add questions that specifically focus on the quality, helpfulness and usability of my website.