New links
Portal sites
Interactive art sites
Galleries and sculpture parks
Teaching and learning
Professional associations
Free downloads and applications
Animation
Digital video
Last, but absolutely not least ...

NGA Washington Kids' Zone
http://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/

The recent Tate Modern show Jungles in Paris opens next month across the Atlantic at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. The NGA have added a new Shockwave interactive game to their collection of utterly engaging activities: art you can make online - for children (and adults ...) of all ages. Create an imaginary landscape inspired by the jungle paintings of Henri Rousseau. "Mix and match the colorful characters, control the environment by changing weather and lighting conditions, or construct flowers, trees, and plants using special tools. An "AUTO" button generates random compositions, so you can sample program options and experiment with special effects as a starting point for your own designs." You can print your work or save a digital version by taking a screenshot. There's even a guide to how to do this. I think you could make a colourful animation from pupils' creations. The classroom section also has information about Rousseau's life and work with discussion points, student activities, printable worksheets and links to other resources.
http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/art_and_ecology/art_monkeys.shtm

Boom Video Academy Teacher Seminars [19 - 30 June]
http://www.boomacademy.co.uk/

BOOM! is back for its third year. It is running a nationwide series of training seminars between 19 - 30 June for teachers who want to  teach their students how to make music videos. For full details of dates and venues, visit the Seminars section of their website. EMI has announced this year's selection of music tracks, which students can work with to create their music videos, including Gorillaz, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Kooks, Jamie T, Graham Coxon and Captain. These will be posted on the Resources section of the website. The teachers' section has QuickTime movies of past winners to download, useful help-sheets, templates for CD labels, posters and lots of other resources. There's also a student website. Go for it!

Myartspace
http://www.myartspace.org.uk/

The Myartspace website is an innovative project commissioned by Culture Online to enable visitors to a group of three Dorset Museums to become virtual museum curators by using mobile phone technology. Students can choose their own exhibits, photograph them with their mobile phones, edit the pictures back at school and publish them to the website to share with fellow students, family and friends. As an educator who has long been frustrated by galleries and museums in the UK banning photography, even with obviously amateur quality equipment, I think this is a welcome innovation that will have great potential for teaching and learning. I hope that other venues will soon follow suit. Read more about the project on the Becta website by following the link to the Secondary ICT Advice Newsletter:
http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=il&catcode=nwslttr_index&ict

Crazy Talk video magic
http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/home_video.asp

Reallusion has developed an amazing piece of software called CrazyTalk that will allow you to bring your movies to life with a virtual cast of fully animated speaking actors that they say you can create "in just moments" from your own digital photos or drawings. Add animated narrators to your movie featuring characters from famous paintings, well known artists dead or alive, or even let the school guinea pig tell the story. The company claims that "CrazyTalk gives you the power to transform any photo into a starring role as an animated talking character for any video project." Sounds too good to be true? Download a free trial version and see for yourself. CrazyTalk Messenger is another new product that will allow you to send talking e-mail and create your own animated e-greetings.

Doodle4Google

'Doodle 4 Google - My Britain' is a nationwide design competition open to all UK school children. They are being invited to design a Google doodle explaining what it means to be British today. The winning doodle, which will be displayed on the Google UK homepage for 24 hours, will be seen by around 18 million people.

From a shortlist of thirty doodles by Regional Winners, the public will vote to choose their favourite  in each age group. Dennis Hwang, Google's original doodler,  will then choose one National Winner who, in addition to having their artwork displayed to millions,  will be flown to Google's HQ, the Googleplex in California, where they will help Dennis to design a doodle.

The website has full information about the competition including a downloadable version of the School Pack with sample Google logos and lesson plans for teachers.

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/events/doodle.html

Google Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/index.html

Google have developed free downloadable picture software to locate instantly, edit and share all the images on your computer, including those that were accidentally misfiled and have been lost ever since. It sorts them into visual albums, rearranged by date into folders with recognisable file names. This is a great tool for departments to organise their picture resources systematically, logically and consistently, so that the right file can always be found on demand by everyone. Picasa also has picture editing features for improving image quality and adding effects; it resizes and attaches pictures to emails for you; it allows you to create slideshows and burn them to CD or DVD for archiving or to give as gifts; and it also enables you to make the stills into movies. 

Google Sketchup
http://sketchup.google.com/product_suf.html

Latest free download from Google - a 3D modeling program that  even younger children can master easily. A colleague writes "Try working through the tutorials – you’ll be impressed with what you can do!". Create 3D models of houses, sheds, fantasy buildings, product designs for D&T briefs – even, so Google claim, space ships. "You can add details, textures and glass to your models, design with dimensional accuracy, and place your finished models in Google Earth, share them with others by posting them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies".

Showcases
http://www.hayward.org.uk/britishartshow6/showcases/
Would you like to be a part of British Art Show 6 by getting creative with your mobile phone? This site, compiled by artist Goshka Macuga and supported by the Hayward Gallery, offers students the chance to help create a virtual art show by sending in images from their camera phones which they think represent British art now. Selected pictures will be framed and exhibited in a national touring show. 

Chew on this!
http://www.chewonthis.org.uk/
Guardian Education's site of the week (Feb 2006): the Food Commission has launched a new website for key stage 3 using animation and cartoons to encourage pupils to ask questions about what they eat. It uses a humorous approach to explore four key areas of concern: nutrition, labelling, marketing and ingredients. There are many online activities as well as downloadable activity sheets and links to other free resources. The site could be used as a starting point for cross-curricular issue-based projects with Science, PHSE, Citizenship and/or Media Studies; or for an image/text graphics project for a poster campaign, t-shirt designs, a digital video montage of still images with a soundtrack, a mixed media whole class installation, or a National Curriculum Self-Image project based on "You are what you eat".

Object Lessons: Islington Artefact Library
http://www.objectlessons.org/
The handling collection of Islington Education Artefacts Library has been a key resource for local  teachers for decades and was the inspiration for many of my art room installations (see the Virtual Artroom Gallery) and projects. Its cleverly named website now presents their collection, which contains objects from the Romans to 20th century, online to a wider audience. It has images, information, rotating objects and interactive environments to engage younger visitors.

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/
Flickr is an increasingly popular online photo management and photo sharing application which also has great potential for classroom use. Basic accounts are free. If your school network or website has limited storage or display, this could be the answer. With Flickr you can:

• Show off your pupils' or your photos and artwork to the world, or securely to friends, school and family
• Blog the photos you take with a camera phone
• Add or invite comments (for peer evaluation, for example)
• Set privacy levels to determine who sees or comments on photos
• Make themed albums
• Use the search facility to find images on a specific theme

You're invited to view my Cuba photos as a slideshow (but, be warned - there are rather a lot of them). Annoyingly they appear on the homepage in reverse order:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtualartroom

Axis Arts
http://www.axisweb.org
Axis Arts lists artists currently working in the UK, while the Axis Learning section aims to promote collaboration between artists and schools. It provides a database of artists working with schools and ideas for setting up projects. Teachers' TV has a 15-minute programme for art and design in which head of art, Marc Berrett, of Waddesdon C of E School in Buckinghamshire, demonstrates the Axis website to a class of Year 9 students. He says, “Axis art is more than a website, it's really a journey” ; “To widen their experience and suddenly find access to filmmakers and designers is a real experience for pupils”.  http://www.teachers.tv/resourceReviewItem.do?transmissionProgrammeId=210505&itemId=139957

VJing: digital video clips from the BBC archive
http://www.bbc.co.uk/calc/radio1/
Download free video clips from the BBC archive on a Creative Archive Licence that allows you to make derivative works provided sources are acknowledged and the new work is also distributed freely on a Creative Archive Licence. This states that the clips must only be downloaded and shared within the UK and for non-commercial purposes. The clips are organised into 10 main categories: Animals and Plants, Geographical Locations, Genres, Times of Year, Actions, Objects, Historical Periods, Times of Day, Weather, Environment. Mix with your own footage or create new compilations. 

Find out more about video jockeys. VJs are the video equivalent of disc jockeys, mixing and scratching film footage to accompany the DJs' mix of music tracks. And watch out for a forthcoming competition organised by BBC Radio 1 to make a 3-minute VJ mix. You could win £250 to spend on VJing equipment and the chance to VJ live along to a mix on Radio 1 or 1Xtra. Watch Coldcut's mix backed by their single Everything is Under Control for inspiration. This is a great way to get creative with digital video. 

The British Council
http://www.britishcouncil.org/collection
The British Council has just made all 8,000 works from its extensive permanent collection available online for the first time. The collection, which includes work by Chris Ofili, David Hockney, Sam Taylor-Wood, Tracey Emin, and Damien Hirst, has been organised into themes and virtual exhibitions - the main navigation categories being exhibitions, artists, themes, portfolios and glossary. 80% of the work is on show in touring exhibitions in more than a dozen countries around the world at any one time. One of the most innovative features for potential classroom use with an interactive whiteboard is that visitors can curate their own exhibitions of chosen works and save them online: tailor your show to a current theme and give it a name. When you create your exhibition you can also give a longer description to contextualise it. For visitors who want to comment on it, the feedback system that public exhibitions provide is also available for your personal exhibition: choose add feedback when browsing your exhibition.

Artisancam North
http://www.artisancamnorth.org.uk
As the name suggests the site allows visitors to see live action of artists and craftspeople at work. For example, currently you can watch Chinese artist Chun Chao on site creating a 42 metre outdoor drawing, Mondays to Thursdays, supported by videos of a range of stimulating workshop activities to develop drawing skills with some delightful Primary children. The resource, which covers ceramics and other crafts, is provided by CLEO (Cumbria and Lancashire RBC). There are also videos of different artists in the workshop explaining and demonstrating techniques, an online demonstration of making coil pots and an interactive Flash activity called Slip Decorator that simulates ceramics painting. See my inexpert attempt below.

Portal Sites

Artchive
www.artchive.com
A highly recommended, informative and fully illustrated archive for educational purposes created by Mark Harden. It now includes art and CD-ROM reviews; online exhibitions and galleries (for example a virtual reconstruction of the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874); seminal art theory texts; a sculpture section divided into Egyptian, Greek, African, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern; and a virtual tour of the little house called La Quinta del sordo (cottage of the deaf man) where Goya created the "Black Paintings". 

Axis
http://www.axisweb.org/HOME.aspx
Axis is an online database of artists practising in the UK today. The directory can be searched by artist's name, theme, technique or approach. The Learning section of the site includes documentation of projects, resources linked to curriculum themes, news and case studies of good practice. For example, ongoing documentation on David Mach's project Lost Marbles, a large-scale photomontage, describes his studio practice, and updates current progress - view the montage week by week. The piece is about the British Museum "and, more broadly, about ancient treasures, art and artefacts, who they are created for, and how they are treated." It will show "swarms of people running off with precious objects from the British Museum - even pieces of the museum". Who's losing their marbles ...?

The 24 Hour Museum
www.24hourmuseum.org.uk
An online gateway to UK galleries and museums, the 24 Hour Museum has listings and links, a zone for kids plus teachers' pages, and heritage trails around the UK, for example on the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. 

Artcyclopedia
http://www.artcyclopedia.com
A searchable database with many options for finding what you want: search by artist, movement, medium, subject, nationality, gender (at least you can filter a list of women artists - they now have over 750) or title of work. 

The Web Museum, Paris
http://www.southern.net/wm/
The Web Museum Paris has an index organised by themes or artist and a glossary of terms. It's clear, comprehensive, illustrated and easy to navigate. 

World Wide Arts Resources

www.wwar.com 
World Wide Arts Resources is a very large gateway site that also has discussion forums. Access the arts databases via the Arts Search drop down menu and select Visual Artists, Museums or 22,000+ Artists in History for further sub-categories.

Teacher Xpress
www.teacherxpress.com
A popular general portal site or one-stop shop for all key stages and subjects - just keep scrolling down until you find the category you need. It has links to major museums, teaching sites, professional associations, government agencies, and now also specific links for Art and Design. The main disadvantage is that when you follow a hyperlink you don't get the new URL in the address bar if you want to copy and paste it into your own list of links. 

Kent National Grid for Learning
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/websites/art.html
These are Kent NGfL's recommended links for secondary art and design.

The Global Gallery
www.globalgallery.com
The Global Gallery is an attractively presented and well-illustrated online database that can be searched by artist, genre or subject. Although it is a commercial print gallery, it is comprehensively illustrated and has artists' biographies, featured work, a knowledge centre exploring art historical movements.

Art4Net
www.art4net.com
Art4Net is another worldwide database of artists, movements and museums, which also includes sections on fashion, photography.

The Open Directory Project
http://dmoz.org/Arts/
The Open Directory Project is a meta-search engine with a comprehensive directory of categories of visual and other art forms, which is also accessible in many different languages. 

Art Movements
www.artmovements.co.uk
Art Movements is a concise reference guide to the major art movements and periods with clear navigation and simple text. 

Artifact
http://www.artifact.ac.uk
Artifact is a free guide to the best of the web for the creative industries

Top

Phillip Lawrence, black history paintings
http://www.phillipscollection.org/lawrence/index.html
A chance discovery led me to the vibrant graphic paintings of Phillip Lawrence. View an interactive Flash tour of his life and work, with short audio clips of an interview with the artist and fascinating contemporary photographs. Phillip Lawrence (1917 – 2000) was a black American artist whose paintings of Harlem and of black history convey a strong political message through expressive, flowing graphic design, colour, mood, rhythm and shape. 

BBC arts online
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/digital/index.shtml
BBC arts online is an exciting multimedia interactive site with features from art history to contemporary BritArt. Its education section has useful links to other recommended sites.

Painting the weather
http://www.bbc.co.uk/paintingtheweather/
A virtual exhibition of paintings that show different types of weather - click on a weather symbol.

Painting Flowers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/paintingflowers/
This site accompanies the BBC Four series Painting Flowers. Zoom right in on a detail of a painting with the picture detail viewer and find out more about the artist and the work. There's an interactive quiz, a section on 4 contemporary botanical artists and a competition.

Colour scheme generator
http://www.wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html
Although the intended purpose of this interactive colour scheme generator is to help web designers create "well balanced and harmonic" web pages, it is also a useful tool for exploring colour palettes and combinations of 2, 3 or 4 colours with pupils planning any design or graphic design project. You can see how accessible your scheme is for different types of visual impairment. The author, Petr Stanicek, is Czech and the content of the web is bilingual. 

Access Art
http://www.accessart.org.uk/
As its name implies Access Art is accessible site with an expanding resource of engaging creative workshops and imaginative Flash interactive activities for Primary or younger KS3 e.g. What is sculpture? Workshops are very well structured and include drawing, photography, installation art, colour and visual literacy. There are teacher notes and pupil worksheets. The site also documents the Immersive Learning Project - a multi-media creative collaboration between teenagers and professional makers.

Henry Moore: The Mysterious Object
http://www.tate.org.uk/detective/mysteriousobject.htm
The Case of the Mysterious Object: this is an exciting and innovative interactive introduction to looking at Henry Moore's Recumbent Figure, 1938, at Tate Britain in particular and at works of art in general. Although aimed at younger pupils, it will engage Years 7 and 8 too. It looks at materials, body language, abstraction, the artist, sources of inspiration and more.

The 24-hour Museum
http://www.show.me.uk/index.html
http://www.show.me.uk/topicpage/teachers/tArt-and-Design.html
This is the children's site of The 24-hour Museum, which has many interactive activities from UK galleries and collections. Content is targeted at Key Stages 1 & 2, but selected activities could be used with lower Key Stage 3. Art teachers can access relevant content more easily by navigating via the Teachers button on the left and scrolling down the page to Art and Design. 

Face It!
http://www.show.me.uk/hosted/faceit/index.html
Face It! is an innovative interactive online resource commissioned and developed by www.show.me.uk in partnership with the National Portrait Gallery. It is designed for pupils aged 7 – 12 and explores four very different portraits in the collection - from Elizabeth 1 to Sir Bobby Moore - through colour and symbols. You can download a line drawing of the paintings, which can also be printed out on a raised image printer as a tactile image for visually impaired pupils. Click on the silhouette of the child to create and describe a virtual portrait of your own. 

Art Attack
http://www.artattack.co.uk/#splash
The Art Attack interactive site has projects from the current TV series and an archive of past projects with printable versions and a non-Flash version of the site. Turn the volume down before going to the Home Page! 

Mr Picasso Head
http://www.mrpicassohead.com
Drag and drop your own modern masterpiece and email it to a friend, or add it to the gallery. 

Andy Warhol
http://www.warhol.org
This is the official Andy Warhol site: make a screen-print online and email it to yourself. The interactive screen-printing demo gives a clear step-by-step guide to the process Warhol used.

Exploring Leonardo
http://mos.org/sln/Leonardo/LeoHomePage.html
Exploring Leonardo from the Museum of Science in Boston has interactive activities on Leonardo's perspective and other sections on his inventions, mirror writing and a geographical history of his work. Not the easiest site to navigate.

DARE
http://www.dareonline.org
DARE is the Digital Resource for Education for the Institute of International Visual Arts. Its interactive resources for culturally diverse contemporary art feature 36 artists work, based on the themes of Play, Space and Place, and Translation. 

Harcourt School Publishers
http://www.harcourtschool.com/menus/art_express.html  
Harcourt School Publishers have developed an education site. The art units of study are organised by USA year grades and then by category. For example, at Grade 5 there are interactive exercises on colour, linear perspective, photography, murals, and mosaics. The activities are fun as well as informative.

The Artist’s Toolkit
http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/  
The Artist’s Toolkit, designed by the Walker Art Centre and Minneapolis Institute of Art, explores the visual principles of art divided into the key elements of line, colour, space, shape, balance, movement/rhythm. Each section has sub-categories and three types of activity: an animated demonstration, examples of the concept in works of art, create your own composition based on theses principles. The site has excellent navigation. 

Art Edventures
http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/
http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/play.html
Here are interactive online games for teachers and students. The Art Edventures pages have engaging animations that help pupils understand how famous artists made their masterpieces with  tips and techniques for their own art. For example, the Art of Crime Detections animation explores the difference between the right and left side of the brain through an interactive PDA identikit mystery. Other activities include landscape composition, portraits and playground design.

Art Detectives
http://www.eduweb.com/pintura/  
The Art Detectives website offers an adventure in art history - solve the Raymond Chandler type mystery. Useful links are provided for resources for teachers. The Wildlife adventure also has a good animation illustrating the principles of design and composition.   

Keith Haring
http://www.haringkids.com/
The Keith Haring Foundation children’s site is mainly for Primary children: it has an interactive colouring book, and a morphing shape animation that could be used to introduce a project making Flash movies/animations. There is also an illustrated biography of the artist and a database of lesson plans for teachers. 

The Museum of Web Art
www.mowa.org
The Museum of Web Art showcases web artists using new technologies and has interactive activities and examples of good graphic design for websites. Take the virtual guided tour.  

Top

UK

The Museum of London 
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Unfortunately this site uses frames which do not always display well in your browser. However, two of its interactive displays are really worth a visit despite this.
Eastward Ho! and Home Again: two famous Victorian narrative paintings by Henry Nelson O'Neil have recently been purchased for the collection - Eastward Ho! shows soldiers leaving their families and boarding their ship at Gravesend to fight in the Indian Mutiny, the first Indian War of Independence in 1857. The companion painting Home Again, 1858 shows the soldiers' return the following year. The site explores and compares the characters in the two paintings (a 'before' and 'after' activity), their costumes, the Indian Mutiny, the artist, critics, the paintings' owners. 

London Look: the website accompanies the exhibition of the same name. It is an interactive exhibition exploring "London's famous fashion sense" The exhibition shows men's and women's wear from 1803 to the present with designers such as Alexander McQueen, Burberry, Paul Smith, Vivienne Westwood. There are five themed areas that highlight the diversity of London's fashion scene: innovation, tradition, alternative, fusion and current contemporary trends. The site can be searched by theme, designer, tailor, retailer or garment.

Photos: RKM 
From a pre-exhibition display at London Metropolitan University (City Campus), 2005

Barbican Education
www.barbican.org.uk
Barbican Education's e-learning website is an exciting interactive site that showcases work from the 2004 Communicate exhibition about graphic design from the 1960s to the present. Aimed at KS4 and KS5, the site introduces pupils to the visual language of graphic design and to design processes, from initial sketch to final product. It is well-illustrated with key examples of graphic design and case studies that feature real designers and real design briefs.

The Design Museum
http://www.designmuseum.org/
The Design Museum, London, has some helpful Teachers' Packs on the work of different designers or themes available to download in PDF format, although they are difficult to locate. From the home page select the reduced HTML version of the site rather than the full Flash version; choose Education from the links at the bottom of the pop up window, then find Teachers' Packs at the top right of the next window ... Click on this link to reach the first pack, then navigate through the list using the arrows at the top of the frame. Topics include Verner Panton (radical Danish product designer credited with the design of the first injection-moulded plastic chair), Innovation (how manufacturers like Dyson and design teams such as IDEO are keep the industry innovative), Memphis (furniture and products created by the Memphis collective in the 1980's), Chairs (C20th and C21st chairs, from Gerrit Rietveld to Jasper Morrison).

The British Library
http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation6.html
Turning the Pages is an award-winning interactive program developed by and for the British Library that allows  public access to rare and precious books while keeping the originals safely under glass. This site is a magical digitized treasure trove of some of the greatest books held by the British Library. Browse the facsimile pages as you listen to the audio commentary and use the magnifier to look more closely at details. Highlights of the collection are: Leonardo's Notebook, the Lindisfarne Gospels, an illustrated medieval prayer book, a "lavishly illustrated" C14th Hebrew manuscript, an ancient copy of the Qur'an with its beautiful Arabic calligraphy, and a Chinese Buddhist scroll dating from 868.
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/
Collect Britain is another fascinating site from the British Library with much to offer art teachers. It is a vast and growing resource of historic images and sounds, with virtual tours and interactive quizzes, and collections of treasures from the past. 

The National Gallery
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
The National Gallery, London. There are different routes to explore the collection online, for example a beginner's guide, the collection at a glance, by artist, by most popular works. 

Take One Picture
http://www.takeonepicture.org.uk/index.html
Take One Picture is the National Gallery's countrywide scheme for primary schools. Each year the Gallery focuses on one painting from the collection to inspire cross-curricular work in primary classrooms. It documents current and past projects, including  one on stop-frame animation, with inspiring work done by Primary children.  

The National Portrait Gallery
www.npg.org.uk
The National Portrait Gallery, London. Through the What's On section explore the collection by century or exhibition. 

The Tate Galleries
www.tate.org.uk
Access all the Tate collections from the Home Page: Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. 
www.tate.org.uk/ita/index.jsp
Register for an online course on Modern and Contemporary Art at the Tate developed in collaboration with the City Lit - level 1 is free. There are 8 units on art and ... the Tate galleries, materials,  landscape, everyday life, politics, storytelling, identity, and value. Accreditation is on the basis of completing 4 of the units and participating in the moderated discussion areas. This is a good opportunity to experience e-learning first-hand and to consider its potential for your students. 
www.tate.org.uk/modern/default.htm
The Tate Modern site has an audio tour and information about current, past and forthcoming exhibitions.

The Hayward Gallery
www.hayward.org.uk
www.haywardeducation.org.uk
The Hayward Gallery now has a dedicated education site, although it is not yet fully resourced.

Goodwood Sculpture Park
www.sculpture.org.uk
Goodwood Sculpture Park site has an introductory Quicktime movie and can be explored by artist, concept, current work and an archive.

The Henry Moore Foundation
www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk
The Henry Moore Foundation has a biography and work chronology of the artist, 3D panoramas of his studios; a virtual tour of the Perry Green outdoor sculpture park; and a Schools' Blackboard with documentation of workshops and the chance to submit your pupils' projects.

The William Morris Gallery
www.lbwf.gov.uk/wmg
The William Morris Gallery site has online exhibitions of his ceramic tiles, stained glass, arts and craft designs, print illustrations, plus photographs, information about his links with Walthamstow and links to other useful sites. 

V&A Museum: Every object tells a story
http://www.everyobject.org
Sharpen your pencils and have your cameras at the ready! This fascinating new image and text site is a collaboration between the V&A Museum, Ultralab at Anglia Polytechnic University, and Channel 4. Contribute a photo of an object that is meaningful to you together with your story about it (125 - 175 words), or read and comment on other people’s entries. Objects and stories have also been provided by staff from the V&A and Tyne & Wear Museums, with more stories to follow from Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and Brighton & Hove Museums. They are keen to encourage contributions from schoolchildren and young people. Find my story Old Fires at: http://www.everyobject.net/object.php?id=1151

International

The National Gallery of Art, Washington
http://www.nga.gov/kidshttp://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/zone.htm
The children's site of the NGA, Washington, is a treasure trove of hands on digital activities and project ideas for younger children (but Year 7 might find it fun too)- the Kids' Zone has a wide range of interactive art to make online and save. Try out the collage machine, colour mixing, virtual mobiles (adjust the orbit speed and make the pieces spin, "see how your mobile casts shadows on the wall, then change your point of view and watch it create spirographic patterns"), design and add texture to 3D shapes, create geometric sculpture, or an interactive portrait and paint symmetrical designs on a virtual wall.
 

The National Gallery of Art, Washington
www.nga.gov
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, has online in-depth study tours and tours of collections by school or medium, including painting, sculpture, graphic and decorative arts. There is a comprehensive and wide-ranging list of study tours based on their collections including Picasso's painting The Tragedy, Mark Rothko, Matisse and the Fauves, Jasper John's Perilous Night and early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron's The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, which includes an explanation of the collodion process she used to produce albumen prints. A highly-recommended site.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/splash.htm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an interactive art timeline that runs from 2,000 BC to 2,000 AD. Time-travel by date or geographic location; follow the first-time user guide; watch the video clips.

The Getty Museum
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet
The Getty Museum has a wide range of fascinating video introductions to the collections and to art and conservation techniques, while the education pages also offer many useful resources, including its own education site. Find the Video Gallery via the Explore Art link. You can view the clips at different download speeds with RealPlayer. Highlights for me are David Hockney talking about how he made his large photo-collage, Pearblossom Highway, which he calls "painting with a camera"; and Walker Evans on his photography for the Resettlement Agency to document the conditions of the rural poor and migrant agricultural workers during the Depression, resulting in his collaboration with the writer James Agee on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.  There are also a series of Making Art videos which demonstrate the processes involved - including Greek vases, bronzes, manuscripts and marquetry. 

Van Gogh
http://www.vangoghgallery.com/
A comprehensive resource of Van Gogh's drawings, paintings, sketches and letters with a world map of where the works are currently located, but no bibliography and only a little critical analysis as yet. 

The National Museum of Women in the Arts
www.nmwa.org
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC is the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the contributions of women artists - search by century or name. 

The Louvre Museum
http://www.louvre.fr/
The official site of the Louvre Museum, Paris. Take a virtual tour. 

Top

Drumcroon
http://www.drumcroon.org.uk
http://www.drumcroon.org.uk/Sketchbooks/sketch.html
Drumcroon is Wigan's Centre for Art Education. The centre holds exhibitions by contemporary makers, which are contextualised by workshops, artists' residencies and other practical activities in the community. The website is a stimulating and thought-provoking resource for art teachers and students with generously illustrated examples of work produced by pupils through recent themed projects, links to related websites, useful downloads, an archive of past projects and other teaching resources. The section on sketchbooks is a motivating and comprehensive introduction to the potential, range of practice, different formats and value of keeping a sketchbook for pupils.

University of Florida - Sketchbooks
http://www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/sketchbk/sketching.html
One of the links from Drumcroon is to the pages on the University of Florida's art education website that look at how to get started keeping a sketchbook with examples of artists' books and instructions on how to make your own.

Tracey 
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ac/tracey/index.html
Tracey is the Contemporary Drawing Research website of Loughborough University School of Art and Design, which promotes drawing as a way of collecting information, working out ideas or solving problems and 'as a form of "visual thinking"'. The site has an online collection of sketchbooks and visual notebooks that will stimulate and inspire pupils, students and other artists alike. There is also an interesting gallery of 'found drawings' (which they define as possible 'by-products of other processes, organic forms or discarded materials - images arising by accident rather than from any conscious process.') that range from vapour trails to stains on a pavement and cake crumbs. Contributions are invited. 

Teachers TV
http://www.teachers.tv/home.do
Teachers TV celebrates its first birthday in February 2006. Its website gives programme guide and valuable resources across all phases. View programmes you missed online. The KS3/4 Creative Arts section in its Secondary Zone includes digital photography resources - reviews of cameras and printers, software, tips and links to related websites. Take a look at their excellent programme on Contemporary Art in which Henry Ward, head of the faculty of media and visual arts at Welling Specialist Art School, introduces composition and art appreciation to a Year 8 mixed ability class through a contemporary approach to photography, taking as inspiration film genres and the work of Cindy Sherman. Students who might otherwise be reluctant to draw begin naturally to use drawing as a means of developing and communicating their ideas. 
http://www.teachers.tv/subjectBlockProgramme.do?transmissionBlockId=213599&zoneId=2&transmissionProgrammeId=211498

Photojournalist's notebooks
http://www.daneldon.org/
Of particular interest is the site of a young Californian photojournalist and war correspondent Dan Eldon, who was killed  in Mogadishu in 1993. From the age of 15 he kept notebooks. These are reproduced on his website as interactive facsimile pages and will give students another fascinating introduction to keeping a personal journal or sketchbook:

Serif in Education
http://www.serif.com/store/serif/education/tutorials/edu_tutorials.asp
The Serif website has an education section where you can download tutorials in PDF format with software-specific supporting resources that I have created for mPowerNet at Anglia Ruskin University for primary and secondary phases. 

• The Serif Resource Pack for DiDA will help students gain the skills they need to create different types of graphic product for Unit 3 Graphics (levels 1 and 2). It takes them through a preparatory course in clear manageable stages, as it teaches them how to plan and manage a project over a set timescale, meet deadlines and learn new graphic skills. By working through the guided activities and independent mini project briefs, they will be ready to undertake a Graphics Summative Project Brief (SPB)* with confidence. (available from mid October).
• The teaching resource pack for DrawPlus vector drawing program has 6 projects: Logos and Emblems, Banners and Friezes, Animation, Web Magic and Repeat Patterns, which are aimed at key stage 3 or even Year 6. 
• There are 9 projects in the resource pack for PhotoPlus image manipulation software, including file management advice, animation, patterns, photo-montage and CD cover design.  
• The MoviePlus Teaching Resource Pack contains general resources for introducing digital video with support materials and 7 different curriculum based projects linked to the Key Stage 3 National Strategy.
• The Primary Design Suite tutorials have resources for projects to introduce pupils to DrawPlus,  PhotoPlus, digital video editing with MoviePlus,  simple web-authoring with WebPlus, and desktop publishing with PagePlus. The projects are fun and linked to National Curriculum schemes of work at key stage 2, although they could also be used with  key stage 3 classes. 

Blast: creative arts website from the BBC 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/
This is an exciting new vocational website from the BBC that targets young people interested in the creative arts. It covers art, dance, film, music, and writing. Find out about artists and designers currently working in the creative industries, ask an expert, contribute to the gallery and get help with your own creative projects. The site also has useful links for careers in art and design, message boards, listings for local events of interest, a creative toolbox (giving, for example, 5 steps to get creative, including how to Feng Shui your workspace to improve your creativity!), awards and work experience opportunities – get involved across the BBC. There is also news of the Blast Game Plan competition for 2005. 

Art Images for College Teaching
http://arthist.cla.umn.edu/aict/index.html
Art Images for College Teaching - a free-use image resource for the education community.

Academy of Art, San Francisco University
http://www.academyart.edu/
Inspire and motivate your students: click on View Student Work on the home page of the Academy of Arts at San Francisco University to access a rich variety of student portfolios from the Schools of Advertising, Animation & Visual Effects, Architecture, Computer Arts, Fashion, Fine Arts, Illustration, Film, Photography, Graphic, Interior and Industrial Design.

Room 13
http://www.room13scotland.com
Based, as the name suggests, in room 13, this is the original arts studio managed entirely by pupils of Caol Primary School in Scotland with support from artist-in-residence Rob Fairley. Other similar projects have since been established around the UK and can be visited online via links from the site, which also has a virtual gallery and details of exhibitions and projects.

The Apple Learning Interchange
http://ali.apple.com/
The Apple Learning Interchange features lesson ideas such as making Pop Portraits or electronic portfolios, how to  create iPhoto books, tips and techniques to assist in the creation of a digital video project with planning documents and video examples to illustrate concepts and skills. Useful for PC users too. Video demonstrations use QuickTime movies.

The Library in the Sky
http://www.nwrel.org/sky/mat.asp?ID=3&search=2&m=23&d=1
Teaching resource links from the Library in the Sky, a US curriculum database.

ArtsEdNet
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet
ArtsEdNet is the dedicated education site of the Getty Museum and is a rich resource of  themed virtual galleries, lesson plans and curriculum ideas, and an online community.

Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/artists/
Enchanted Learning has biographical information, projects and colouring activities for younger pupils on a great number of artists organised by artist, nationality or historic period. 

Becta
http://www.becta.org.uk/
The main site of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency. 
http://www.becta.org.uk/leaders/display.cfm?section=20&id=2104
TTA advice to Ofsted inspectors on good practice in using ICT to enhance teaching and learning in art and design provides a useful checklist of the range of practices linked to NC Programmes of Study. If the link above fails, follow the breadcrumb trail from the Becta home page: Home > Schools sector > School leaders > Policy and practice > Inspection > ICT in other subjects > Teaching > Secondary > Art and design. 

The Teacher Resource Exchange
http://tre.ngfl.gov.uk/
The Teacher Resource Exchange is a moderated database of curriculum resources and activities designed to help teachers develop and share ideas for good practice. All resources are checked by subject specialists to ensure they are of the highest possible quality. 

ICT Advice
http://www.ictadvice.org.uk
The ICT Advice site provides advice, services and tools for those who use, implement and manage ICT in schools. If you have any queries about choosing resources, classroom management, new technologies, or most effective use of ICT in your subject and at your key stage, this is the best place to start. 

Art Teaching
http://www.artteaching.co.uk/
Art resources by Barry Lucas, Head of Art at King Edward VI Five Ways School, Birmingham. These include teaching schemes from Year 7 to 11 and a project planner, as well as information on how to apply for HE courses.

Sir Robert Hitchams Primary School
http://www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/ict_art/index.htm
Art projects from Sir Robert Hitchams Primary School's excellent site include lesson ideas for art and ICT projects, including digital video, as well as guides to 3D, drawing, image manipulation and digital video editing software - for example: Windows MovieMaker 2, Serif ImpactPlus, Revelation Natural Art, Paint Shop Pro 7 and Animation Shop, Serif DrawPlus, and Dazzle Plus. It also has guidance on using interactive whiteboards and graphics tablets. 

Julia Stubbs
http://www.juliastubbs.co.uk
This is a teacher created site with a large archive of virtual galleries of student work, which is well-documented and helpfully organised by year group, or examination level and grade. The site aims to inspire and encourage art and design students from KS3 to KS5, but is also a stimulating visual resource for other teachers. There is some contextualisation of sixth form work, plus links to syllabuses, and a section on outreach work with Primary Schools, which has some  information sheets for skills workshops in PDF format. Julia Stubbs is an AST at William De Ferrers School, Essex. 

The Northumberland Grid for Learning 
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/art/default.htm
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/art/infosheets/default.htm
The Northumberland Grid for Learning has printable, illustrated information sheets on different art elements and processes: drawing, 3D, tone, colour, ICT, shape etc; resources for the paint program Dazzle; a year 10 digital photography portrait project and visual documentation of a pinhole camera project. 

National Curriculum Online
http://www.nc.uk.net
The art and design pages of the National Curriculum Online site include Attainment Targets, support materials and information about standards with links to recommended websites, examples of pupils' work and teacher created resources in the Virtual Teacher Centre.

The National Curriculum in Action
www.ncaction.org.uk/subjects/art/index.htm
The National Curriculum in Action site uses pupils' work and case study materials to show what the National Curriculum in art and design looks like in practice. There are examples of work at all ages and key stages for different media with project context, aims and commentaries. 

SMART
http://smarteducation.canterbury.ac.uk/home.asp
The SMART Education website has been created by staff from the Faculty of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University College. There are links to interactive sites that could be used with a Smartboard. Teachers can download free resources for their boards by registering.

The National Whiteboard Network
http://www.nwnet.org.uk
The National Whiteboard Network website launches its Summer Package - a set of planning and teaching resources aimed at supporting teachers and children in making effective use of the inter