We have activities suitable for students of all ages and backgrounds including students with special educational needs or disabilities. Feedback on the more social aspects of the course was also mixed. In order to start up the online community and gain some initial feedback on the course, we put a message on the Tate website asking for volunteers. We were careful to strike a balance between DACS artists and works in the collection that were out of copyright.As we were using three different writers it was important to keep the structure of the units the same and provide Tate editorial guidelines to ensure an overall coherent experience for the students.
But what happens when some of today's leading creatives come face to face with works of art in the Tate collection? In the first month 33 new students registered for the course. Tate staff moderate the online discussion forum and image gallery and sometimes post information about events or exhibitions that may be relevant to the course. Whether as creators and innovators of new forms of artistic expression, patrons, collectors, leaders, sources of inspiration, or significant contributors as art historians and critics, women have been and continue to be integral to the institution of art. The course is far cheaper than tutored, accredited courses but it designed to appeal to large numbers of people and the learning management system can support large volumes of students using the course at the same time.Having decided on the format and subject matter for the online courses, we started to investigate possible learning management systems and authoring tools to develop the course. On one occasion, the course administrator posted some information about the Tate print room on the discussion forum with suggestions for how students could draw from some of the art works featured in the course âin the flesh.â There was little interest in this and some students also expressed disappointment, saying that they lived too far away to visit. Some people really appreciated being able to interact with other students on the course and share images of their work but many people were not interested in doing this at all.
How do we store and preserve the things that artists leave behind, be that actual works of art or ephemera like sketches and drawings? Students can also pose questions to other course students and the course administrator on the online discussion forum. Tate holds the United Kingdom's national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day alongside international modern and contemporary art. Three different writers created two units each using slightly different styles and concentrating on different aspects of artistsâ techniques and methods. For example, the videos on Turnerâs watercolour techniques were developed for an in-gallery display but Tate approached the license holder for permission to re-use them in the course.