dnbailey

Teaching art is a lot of fun. I get to work students on problems that they create. We work together to creatively solve their art problems using the skills learned in class. However, working one-on-one with 35 students in an hour and a half is difficult on the best of days. Inevitably some students have to wait for help. Others are able to avoid working, because no one is standing over them making them work.

This fundamental problem of too many students with too little time inspired me to start thinking of a work around. Being a tech head, my natural inclination was to seek out a web based solution. Ideally the solution would have the ability: to deliver instruction on a wide variety of techniques, to give the students a place to store images of their artwork, and to allow me to provide formative feedback based on those images. What I need is a lms, but none of the ones I have found accomplish my goals effieciently.

Knowing what I need, and not being able to find a solution is frustrating. Hence I decided that I would just build the tool that I need. In this way I can customize it to fit the unique demands of an studio art classroom. The lms tools available are primarily focused on academic subjects, and I believe it is time for differentiated tools to match the demands of the related arts.

If anyone is interested in working on the project and has experience developing web apps, please contact me. Find me on twitter (@dnbailey) or leave a comment below.