Web Critique: Chicago Artists' Coalition

The list of services on the Chicago Artists' Coalition site makes the advantages of membership very clear. If I were trying to make a living primarily as an artist, I definitely would consider the health care resources and access to the job bank worth the membership fee. Also, the way the galleries are organized really showcases members' work nicely, and you can search for work using a variety of criteria (artist, media, subject, technique). The artists' profiles are great--I liked reading their artist's statements and being able to find links to their own sites.

The calendar is kept up-to-date and it's very informative--you can actually read a description of the events rather than just seeing the titles and wondering what they're all about.

The layout of this site is pretty simple and it's organized well--I didn't have any trouble finding anything I was looking for. It sort of looks like they might have used a Dreamweaver template!

Knitted Village

Now I feel really, really crappy about that one scarf I've been trying to finish knitting for a year now.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/8017645.stm

Bulls Logo

I've had logos on my mind since discovering the great lesson plans on the Cooper-Hewitt website and thinking about the role of design in art education. So I was pretty amused by the recent discovery among sports bloggers that when you turn the Chicago Bulls logo upside down, it looks like a robot sitting on a park bench reading a book:


I am wondering (1) whether this was intentional when the logo was originally designed, and (2) why people are assuming the robot is reading a bible. It looks like a generic book to me...and I would guess most robots aren't religious. Artbot, your thoughts?

How Do You Make It?

Vimeo

A recent Slate article called YouTube for Artistes caught my attention after all the video viewing and making we've been doing. It's about Vimeo, a video-sharing site used by people who the Slate writer describes as "a high-art, film-buff set—the kind of people who, when making movies for the Web, pause to consider such virtues as cinematography, framing, music, and composition."

I watched some of the staff picks and definitely found some great videos that I wish I had seen before getting so far on my own video project. (I still really like mine, but the videos on Vimeo are really inspiring and creative.) I really liked this one because I found it extremely calming and I'm a fan of black-and-white artwork in general:


ultramar from yoonar on Vimeo

Check out the site if you have a chance or if you need some last-minute inspiration!

Web Critique: Street-Level

This site is certainly on the fancier end of ones we've seen so far this semester. When it looks like an experienced web designer had a hand in making a site, I expect it to be well-organized, and this one is. (What a treat after Mess Hall.) But at first I was a little confused--the larger categories of About Us, Programs, Get Involved, and Media are clearly visible across the top, the subcategories in orange bars on the right are not noticeable at all. So when I clicked on About Us and just saw their blog, I initially thought they didn't have a mission statement until I figured out where the subcategories were. The subcategories definitely should stand out more--either as a fly-out menu when you scroll over the main categories, or just bigger and more prominent on the right.

The stop-motion piece, Vroom, is super cute. In general, I'd love to see more info about the projects on the Media section of the site in addition to just the projects themselves. What was the context--did Street-Level go into a school or have kids come to their storefront space? What type of filming and editing training did the kids go through before creating these pieces? How did they determine the subject matter of their assignments--on their own, or through guided assignments by Street-Level?

Uncle Envelope

Uncle Envelope seems like a really cool idea and I thought some people in our class would be interested. It reminds me of Meredith's artist trading cards presentation in C&I, and I would bet Uncle Envelope and Artbot would really get along.

They mail subscribers "an exciting paper object or craft" once a month. It's geared toward kids...or people like me. I am curious about how successful it is; an annual subscription is $36, and they pay artists $200 for their designs.

If you were in Eth/Ped last semester and are an expert zine-maker, send something in and you could get $200 from them. Keep it in mind when you're looking for something to do on May 12!

Cheap Art Things

http://www.chicagocraftmafia.com/DIYODS/index.htm

Web Critique: Chicago Art Dept., Pros Arts, Mess Hall

Chicago Art Department (www.chicagoartdepartment.org)
The school-themed layout of this site is very cute, and not too cute--it's a fine line that they navigated successfully. In general, the organization of the site makes sense to me and the page density is not too heavy or too light anywhere I looked.

The classes/workshops look great--I hope they're still offering them (the latest listings were for Summer 2008). Are they really free?! It doesn't say anything about pricing for most of them, and one of them requires a refundable $100 deposit (which is a great idea to get people who signed up to actually show up). If I'm not missing something and these classes really are free, that would be a wonderful resource for people who are interested in art but can't afford to pay for a class.

I noticed that the info on the Exhibitions/Events page was pretty sparse. Actually, it was just the date, title, and one or no image--about as sparse as you can get. I eventually found more details about some events on the blog, so more substantial content already exists. It would be great if it could just be copied and pasted to the Exhibitions/Events page so everything is contained in one place.

Pros Arts Studio (http://www.prosarts.org/)
I miss making bowls, even though every one I made was lopsided and a little bit (or maybe more than a little bit) heavy. I just remember the excited feeling I got when I walked to ceramics class and wondered whether the bowls I glazed in the last class were out of the kiln yet. I liked the surprise of not knowing for sure how they would turn out...and I always hoped they'd look like the ones on the ProsArts homepage.

OK, so they get points for appealing to my nostalgia for ceramics class, but that probably wasn't intentional. But the things they did do intentionally while building their website earn points too. I like that the mission statement is on the homepage so I know exactly what they're all about right away. (And since I like their mission so much, I'll forgive the accidental line break in the first paragraph.)

Their in-school programming (arts integration!) sounds terrific, and I love that they offer Parent Arts Workshops to engage parents in their kids' learning. My mom was always enthusiastic about helping me get the supplies for art projects I liked making in school so I could do them over again at home. If she weren't an artsy person, she might not have known what materials I needed and where to get them. This type of workshop would help parents who want to encourage their kids to make art but aren't sure how to do it.

The calendar is very well-organized and easy to follow. It's simple and to-the-point, much like the design of this site. A little jazzing up wouldn't hurt (maybe just a colored background instead of white? Or a font other than Times New Roman?), but the most important thing is that the content is comprehensive and well-organized.

Mess Hall (www.messhall.org)
I can't figure out what these people do, but they definitely don't want me to know. The attitude in the FAQs is defensive and off-putting, and Mess Hall, whatever it is, is never open except during events. These two things suggest to me that it's kind of exclusive, which doesn't seem to be in the spirit of most arts organizations (if, indeed, this is an arts organization?) we've looked at.

The random assortment of links on the bottom and right side of the homepage include a few sites that might be cool, but I certainly wouldn't use a block of tiny white text in no particular order as any sort of home base for useful links.

I've heard of Mess Hall before and I know a lot of people are enthusiastic about it, so maybe I need to just check it out in person. (If they let me.) But based on their site, I'm much more likely to check out a more welcoming organization instead.

LambdaMOO

In class on Tuesday, we will be checking out some MOOs like this one:

http://lambdamoo.info/

Feel free to get a sneak peek before then!

Web Critique: MCA, threewalls

Museum of Contemporary Art (www.mcachicago.org)
It's rare to see a homepage that uses Flash but doesn't take forever to load or make you sit through an intro to get to the rest of the content of the site. The fancy Flashiness also serves a purpose: it switches from the new Buckminster Fuller exhibit to highlights from the MCA collection and back again. This is a good way to provide links to two different parts of the site in one space, preventing the homepage from getting too crowded.

I clicked on the Buckminster Fuller exhibit info because I read an article about him a few months ago and he seemed like an interesting guy. The page for the exhibit is incredibly comprehensive--everything you'd want to know related to the exhibit is right here. I'm really glad I could read about Fuller and definitions of key concepts in his work before visiting the museum on Tuesday. I'm curious to see if this info is also incorporated into the exhibit at the museum, or if people who visit the site get all this extra stuff.

I also checked out the teacher resources section of the site. It's pretty basic design-wise and there seems to be an issue with formatting bulleted lists, but there are some good lesson plans and ideas there, not just for art class but other classes as well.

www.three-walls.org
I think something is wrong with the hosting for this site. I typed in the address and got a "This page cannot be found" message, but then I googled "three-walls" and clicked on the link with the exact same URL, and I was able to get there. So...they might want to get that cleared up.

This organization seems to do some great things for artists in Chicago, especially thinktank, which is an opportunity for CPS teachers to get some new ideas from working artists. But how do you participate? There is no link to sign up or request more information on the page that describes this program.

I hate to be all super-critical of their site, but I was really confused by the whole Calendar section. The main page for it has very little information about what's coming up--just people's names and nothing about what the event will be about. Then, in the subcategories under Calendar, they list a bunch of other events that aren't listed on the main calendar page, but the dates for many of them have passed. So I'm left scratching my head about what's actually happening and when. They don't seem to have a ton of events going on; one comprehensive page probably would work better than subcategorizing.

Their bookstore sounds cool and Quimbys-esque. Also, they make it easy to become a member and donate money. And their blog seems fairly active. See, I'm not 100% mean.

Drawing Top

I love this drawing top! I bet it's not too hard to make one from random stuff around the house.

Spiral Workshop

Many people in this class read a little bit about the Spiral Workshop at UIC last semester, but I just wanted to point out the great lesson plans on their website:

http://www.uic.edu/classes/ad/ad382/sites/Projects/P_index.html

Web Critique: Creative Audio Archive, AREA Chicago

Creative Audio Archive (http://www.exsost.org/creative-audio-archive/)
The mission of the Creative Audio Archive is such a valuable one. The technology for recording and listening to sound has changed so much since the earliest recordings this organization has archived--from records to tapes to CDs to mp3s (with the eight-track making a brief appearance somewhere in there). By cataloging and preserving non-mainstream sound from the days before Garage Band and podcasts, they are rescuing sound that definitely would otherwise become lost forever.

But really, not a single audio file on their entire site? Am I missing something? Seconds after I went to their homepage, I plugged my headphones into the computer, expecting to hear lots of cool stuff. Obviously they have an enormous amount of sound archived, which can be accessed by appointment, so I don't expect their staff of five people to convert every single recording to mp3 format. But maybe one or two? I'm not very familiar with non-mainstream sound or experimental music, so I'm curious to just hear a sample. That might make me interested in making an appointment to hear their whole collection or even becoming a member. I wonder if the lack of audio files on their site is a conscious decision; are they anti-podcast? Are they clinging to the good old days of records only? Do they really, really, really want their collection to be available in person only so they can control the environment of people's listening experience?

This web critique would not be complete without acknowledging that their searchable archive seems impressive; that must have taken ages. I see that it's done with XML, which I sort of dabbled in at work (we published both textbooks and online courses, and it made the process of converting from one to the other as automated as possible), and it seems to be the magical key to searching/automation in general. Hmmm, can XML automatically write a thesis?

AREA Chicago (http://www.areachicago.org/)
After spending some time with this site, I still can't decide whether I like the noticeable lack of color. On the one hand, it conveys seriousness; on the other hand, it's awfully serious. Since its content is, in the end, pretty serious, I'm going to go ahead and say the black and white thing is OK with me.

I really appreciate they have several different ways to find your way to different articles. You can find them by issue, a list of topics, a list of contributors, or a good old-fashioned search box. Through testing out all of these options, I came across interesting articles I probably wouldn't have found using the other methods. The staff obviously put a lot of time into organizing and tagging their content, which further convinces me to not really mind that they didn't seem to focus too much on layout.

I just love the People's Atlas of Chicago! I really enjoyed looking through people's maps and now I'm thinking of all the different themes for maps I can make. I've always wanted to make a list/map of places in the Loop where you can use a restroom without buying anything*, but I was devasted to find out that someone did that already--my brother sent me a link to a site called freepee.com or something like that. I'd Google it now, but I'm in a public computer lab and I don't want to get any weird glares.

*E-mail me to benefit from my years of dedicated research.

Comic Life

Last Friday I observed art classes in a PreK-8 private school. The fourth graders did a research assignment in the Mac lab in the library to prepare for a clay sculpture project. Some kids finished a few minutes early and started using a program called Comic Life, which I've never seen before. It looks really fun, and the kids seemed to love it. You can arrange pictures in pre-made templates that look like comic book panels, add quote bubbles and titles, etc. One boy got really into making funny faces and taking pictures of himself right within the program to make his comic strip--that cracked me up.

The school has a technology teacher, and students go to technology class twice a week. I could tell they were very comfortable with their research assignment (using Google Images to find and print photos of animals that possess or represent each student's three best qualities) and I noticed a few other ways the students used technology as I toured the school. They made pamphlets and posters for the Sierra Club that were displayed on the walls and I guessed they used some sort of layout program--probably something a little less complicated than InDesign. It made me think that setting aside time (and hiring a teacher) for technology class is one good way to make sure computers don't just sit in the corner of a school gathering dust, although I'm sure this might be challenging for a public school with stretched resources and a million standardized tests to worry about.

Web Critique: Stockyard Institute

The Stockyard Institute seems to do some really cool projects having to do with art and education. I love the radio projects--I could see kids getting really into that--and the Howard Arts Lab, a "center for research and teaching that could accommodate the visual arts education candidates and the students of the high school as partners in the development of projects and curricular strategies as a permanent station for Visual Arts Education in Chicago." That would be pretty exciting for us visual arts education candidates, huh? The site says the project has been in effect from 2005 to the present but a Google search of "howard arts lab" turned up nothing, so I'm not sure if it's still in existence.

The urban design of the site reflects their mission of collaborating with Chicago communities, and it's organized in a simple and easy-to-navigate way. I assume they like (and need) funding, just like many similar organizations, so I wonder if they could set up some sort of PayPal-type thing on their site for donations. Right now they just have the main guy's contact information under "Support," which means someone interested in giving them money would probably need to go through multiple steps to donate instead of being able to just click a button.

MS Word: It's Just Trying to Help, But Is It Helping?

Today I tutored a student in the Writing Center who was very dependent on Word's autocorrection and spelling suggestion features (we worked on her essay on her laptop). It made me think about our class discussions about students' computer access in general and whether students who have no access to computers have to write their essays by hand. If students write by hand, their spelling won't be automatically corrected, they won't see a wiggly red line under words with typos, and they can't right-click to get a handy list of thesaurus suggestions. That way teachers can see exactly what spelling and grammar problems their students are making repeatedly. But if teachers receive papers that have been automatically cleaned up by Word, they'll never know which spelling and grammatical issues their students need help with.

So writing papers by hand actually might not be a bad thing; of course, this would only be the case if teachers are carefully combing their students' handwritten essays for errors and taking the time to work on recurring problems.

Web Critique

Community Arts Network (www.communityarts.net)
The layout of this site is very newspapery, which immediately gives it a serious feel. And the homepage is just about as dense as the New York Times's; at first glance it appears that there's an overwhelming amount of content to read here, and I probably would never be able to catch all of it. That's why I like that articles are broken down by several different types of categories (population, social context, etc.). This allows people to find what interests them specifically instead of wading through anything related to the vast umbrella of "community arts."

At first I felt like there was a blog overload--the CANblog, guest blog, and blognet!?--but upon closer inspection I think the concept of the blognet is great. Lots of people have blogs out there and it can be hard to figure out the good ones; this list of relevant blogs (with links to them) is a useful resource. But why not streamline and put a list of them along the side of the CANblog?

The long, well-researched essays keeps this site from being just an up-to-the-minute news source or a giant collection of PR releases. (Thinly veiled PR releases are all I seem to see in the "Recent News" column. Which is OK. But after a while they make me feel paranoid.) I would probably use this site a lot if I worked for a community arts organization, both for serious research and to see what's new.

ArtsEdge (http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/)
I am a huge fan of arts integration and therefore a huge fan of this site. I'm really excited about using a lot of the visual arts lesson plans (especially the adjective monster, how cute is that?!). The How-To section (under "Teach") has so many helpful articles, and not just for art teachers--teachers of other subjects who want to integrate the arts in their classes would probably find this stuff really helpful. That makes everything on this site really doable--it's not just a bunch of hazy ideas for expert art teachers.

The no-nonsense design complements the super-organized content. Being able to search by a combination of arts subject and other subject is key.

I wonder how often this site adds new lesson plans and ideas...I hope all the time.

Art Education 2.0 (http://arted20.ning.com/)
Nice banner! I wouldn't trust a site having to do with art and technology unless it looked good. Its trustworthiness is further demonstrated by the requirement to register to access just about every part of the site. This makes it feel like it's for serious users only. But why do I have to upload my picture and list my favorite TV shows when I register? There are enough social networking sites out there; a username and password are all I really wanted to give this site.

But in the interest of this web critique, I accepted that I would have to share with the Art Education 2.0 community that my favorite movie is Amadeus and attempted to register. But alas, "this social network is under maintenance." So I am limited to critiquing the site based on the homepage alone, which is the only thing I can access without an account.

It looks there's a lot of activity on the forums, which makes something like this work. When I'm a teacher, I would love to have a group of other teachers to turn to for advice--especially for a topic like technology in art education, in case there's some aspect of technology that I'm not an expert in but want to teach. I also love that teachers use the "Current Projects" section to do the same projects as each other at the same time and then swap images of student work. I wonder if teachers show their classes the student work from other schools. That would be a pretty cool way to bring together students who go to schools with really homogenous populations, or really isolated schools. The students could even start an e-mail relationship with each other or post to message boards to discuss their processes or have interschool critiques.

I look forward to being a part of this community when the technical problems are resolved.

NAEA Blog

I'd like to remind everyone in our class to become a follower of the blog for SAIC's student chapter of NAEA. I usually send out e-mails to members about meeting dates and other important news, but I'd love for the blog to be used as a place for discussion between meetings. That way we can take care of administrative business online and have more time for skill-sharing workshops and other fun stuff when we meet in person. Thanks!

21st Century Skills

Our discussion about 21st Century Skills got me thinking about how I defend the importance of art education to people who are skeptical of my career choice. That somewhat creepy manifesto we read kept citing economic success and international competition as reasons to teach 21st Century Skills, which bothered a lot of people in the class (including me). But when I talk to people who challenge the importance and seriousness of art education (usually not in an overtly rude way...but rude nonetheless), I find myself trying to convince them that art education is important for all of these pragmatic, career-preparation-related reasons, and I neglect to mention that the experience of making art is important enough in itself. So I guess I can understand why the Partnernship for 21st Century Skills focused on advantages to the initiative that would appeal to people who only care about things that have quantifiable outcomes--after all, those are probably the sort of people who make decisions about funding.

I guess I'm in a forgiving mood because I also don't think Apple, Microsoft, etc. are evil for sponsoring this initiative. Of course they will benefit by creating brand loyalty and dependence, but hey, if they're going to put computers in schools that otherwise couldn't afford them, I say they should go ahead. Enabling students to be as technologically literate as possible will is a good thing for them--not just professionally, but creatively and socially as well.

Web Critique: SAIC Portal

I am pleased to accept this opportunity to critique the SAIC portal (go.artic.edu). My most significant grievances are as follows:

• When you compose an e-mail, you should be able to conveniently access a school-wide address book. Since e-mail addresses don't follow a simple formula (e.g., firstinitiallastname@saic.edu), I often start composing an e-mail to someone through the portal and then realize that I don't have that person's address, and I have to hunt for it somewhere else. Faculty addresses can be found on saic.edu, but where do you get student addresses if you'd like to e-mail someone who isn't in one of your classes? What if you meet someone at a school-sponsored social event or computer lab or something, exchange names, and later want to e-mail that person to hang out again--how do you get in touch? Does the school not want us to be friends with anyone outside our classes?
  
• Also regarding e-mail addresses: Why don't they let you see the address of the person you're e-mailing when you choose names from a class list? I don't understand why it's some big secret. It makes it even harder to memorize people's addresses that they won't let us access through an address book.
  
• One more e-mail thing: You shouldn't have to manually check a box to save an individual message to your Sent Items folder. All messages should be saved automatically. Who wouldn't want a record of what they sent?
  
• The personal announcements are not noticeable on the Home tab. These announcements should be routed through e-mail so people will actually receive them. The first time a professor posted a personal announcement for everyone in the class last semester, not one student saw it.
• When posting to message boards for our classes, we should be able to save drafts. I've lost a few posts after pressing the "Post" button only to discover I had been logged out.
• As the leader of a student group, I find the "Groups" section ineffective as a communication tool. If I post announcements or make updates to the group page, no one in the group is notified, and I know no one ever goes to the group page after joining it the first time. I use a blog through Blogger and e-mail instead.
  
• The fonts look very outdated. Come on, this is an art school.
  

I grudgingly admit that the portal is not totally awful. A few high points include:

• It is easy to access and use library resources from the portal.
• The job board is nice.
• I've never really investigated the "Customize Me" tab--maybe it would help improve my portal experience to move things around a little bit.
• The events calendar is comprehensive and makes it easy to quickly find out what's going on at school.
• I enjoy the slideshow of featured SAIC art on the Home tab.
  

Dealing with Peanut Allergies in Schools

The school district near where I live is considering becoming peanut-free. I've heard parents of kids with peanut allergies take both sides of this debate--some want schools to be peanut-free (this allergy can cause death), but some prefer schools to not make any special rules about peanuts/peanut butter so their kids learn to watch out for themselves, just as they have to do when they're anywhere other than their school or home. I'm not sure which side I'd take if I were a parent of a child with a peanut allergy, but if I felt confident that my kid understood what he could and couldn't eat once he reached school age, I think I might agree with those who don't want peanut-free schools.

Something in the Tribune article about the issue was alarming to me--one school in the district isn't peanut-free, but has a table in the lunchroom especially for students with food allergies. What?! I'm picturing a table full of completely mortified kids who want to disappear because they're at the weirdo allergy table. I remember how important it was to sit with your own friends in elementary school (and middle school...and high school) and I can't imagine those kids being very happy with the way their school deals with their allergies.

Web Critique: Hyde Park Art Center

The Hyde Park Art Center's homepage (www.hydeparkart.org) has a lot of information but is not too busy or dense. It's sort of long, but I don't mind scrolling down--I prefer scrolling to clicking on tons of links and waiting for pages to load. Another visual strength of the site is the banner at the top that changes when you click on each category (Home, Exhibitions, etc.). This is a good way to incorporate artwork created at the center or photos of events that took place there into a part of the site's design.

When you click on links to current and upcoming exhibitions, there is a lot of information about each featured artist. This is a great feature that I'm sure helps pique people's interest and attract them to the center. Do any of the artists whose work is being exhibited have their own websites? How about providing links to their sites on the exhibition info pages so people can find out even more?

The School & Studio part of the site is comprehensive as well. The schedule of classes by day (in addition to the list of class names) is helpful--I would love for this to be more noticeable on the page about classes offered, and it would also be nice to have it in HTML (always preferable to PDFs). When I was working full-time and taking art classes during nights and weekends, I had to consider the schedule before choosing which class to take, so it's an important way to organize things. I was also happy to see a link to short bios of the teaching artists--when I sign up for an art class, I'm always curious about the teacher. It probably wouldn't affect whether I decide to enroll, but it's just nice to see that the HPAC is proud of their teaching artists and knows that their students care who they're learning from.

The 4833 blog is a great way to post pictures and news, but is there a way for the HPAC staff to approve blog comments before they're posted? There seem to be a lot of comments full of nonsense letters posted by users with sexually suggestive names. These comments are especially alarming on posts about kids' activities. I know Blogger lets you approve comments (sent to your e-mail) before they appear publicly on your blog, so I hope this wouldn't be too hard to remedy with the blog host for this site.

Web Critique: NAEA, AIC, CPS

National Art Education Association (www.naea-reston.org)
Wow! I haven’t looked at this site in a few months, so this was the first time I saw the redesign. It presents the organization’s resources for art educators in a much more accessible and attractive way than before. In addition to providing a ton of information on research, news, grants, and professional development opportunities, the site also strongly promotes interactivity. This makes it a site people will visit more frequently than one that just has the same old information that never changes. Educators can upload images of student projects to Artsonia, comment on the NAEA blog, and upload teaching portfolios. Members can also make personal profiles and customize a MyNAEA portion of the site, which contains a profile, classroom galleries, lesson plans, and portfolios.

I did find the Lesson Planning section of the site a bit lacking—there are links to external sites and Artsonia to use as a starting point to find ideas, but there doesn’t appear to be a collection of lesson plans contained within the site. I’m sure members have a lot to contribute—it would be great if they could upload them to a centralized place on this site. The plans could be searchable by age group, materials used, etc.

The job listings were frighteningly sparse; if the NAEA offers this feature on their site, they should publicize the existence of their job board to schools and museums so more employers post listings there.

The Art Institute of Chicago (www.artic.edu/aic/)
The primary reason I use this site is to search the collection for specific images. I love that there are several different ways to search (browsing by theme, browsing A–Z, or using a regular keyword search). It’s really helpful that there’s a “My Collection” feature—users can add works to a personalized list. E-mailing and printing are also clickable options on the page for every image, making it easy to share images with others. Copying images is enabled when you right-click on them, so they can be placed in a teacher’s slideshow for students or placed within any document.

This site does an excellent job of promoting events and special exhibitions in an easy-to-find way for potential visitors. I also appreciate that the hours and address are right there on the homepage—I hate having to hunt for that information on websites of places I want to visit.

Chicago Public Schools (www.cps.edu/Pages/home.aspx)
If I were a parent considering options for where to send my child to school, I would find this site comprehensive and easy to navigate. Especially cool are the pop-up info bubbles that appear when you roll over all the search options. Once my child started school, though, I would probably go to his or her specific school’s site from then on. For that reason, I would encourage CPS to make sure every school has its own site with at least basic information about important dates, contact information, etc.; not all schools appear to have their own sites. (I know there are some CPS schools that have much, much more important issues to address right now than creating a website, but this could be a long-term goal. Also, CPS could hire a web designer who could make sites for all the schools that don’t have them with some sort of template.)

But since I’m not a parent, I’m a future teacher, the first thing I clicked on was the Careers page. I clicked on the Elementary Directory and got a “The page cannot be found” message. Disappointing.

There are not many opportunities for users to contribute to this site. I was amused by the "Share a Story" instructions under the "Contact CPS" menu. It says, "Do you have a great story about a CPS student, teacher or school? Did you attend a CPS event that you can’t stop taking about?" It’s nice that they are especially eager to hear positive feedback…but…well, as far as I know, there are quite a few people out there who have not-so-positive stories. Those are important for CPS to hear too. Some sort of forum that promotes honest, productive discussion about various issues within CPS would be a good addition to the site.

Introduction

When I asked my 2-year-old nephew how he made a finger painting hanging on the refrigerator at his house, he grinned and proudly exclaimed:

"I made it...with...my hands!"

That made me happy to be learning how to be an art teacher here at SAIC.

This blog is for my Cyberpedagogy class.