Saturday

Tech for Tots: Google's Art Project

Thank You Google, You Rock!
If you haven't seen it yet, you must check out this site: Google's Art Project.

Starry Night

I am enthralled.


What’s so cool about this is that in addition to the EXTREME closeups of the artwork (that’s a portion of The Starry Night in the screenshot below) is that they rode this steady-cam style bike thing around and gave us Street View…in a museum! For me at least, part of the excitement of a museum visit was experiencing the atmosphere of all these great works in one place. And while this can’t compare to actually being there, I can see so many opportunities for this in education and even in my own family.





The Artful Parent had a great interview with Mike Norris, a museum educator over at The Met. He advised that parents with young children visit the Museum’s website and
“gather a list of works of art to see, making sure that at least part of the list is what the parents like.  In this mini pre-tour, as well as expressing their own interests, the children can learn something about their parents and, if the family then comes to the Museum, the trip can turn into a treasure hunt to find what's on their list, heightened by an exciting sense of  déjà vu. "
Were you holding out on us Mike?!  Because the Metropolitian Museum of Art is on this site and it is SPECTATCULAR!

Museum View

When I was teaching technology I always worked hard to find ways to integrate art studies. Lots of museums offered “virtual field trips” on their websites. The effort of the museums was great, but sometimes the sites were clunky, didn't feature enough of the collection, or were just s-l-o-w.

Google hit this one out of the park, it's quick, intuitive to use, and get this -- you can create and save collections of art.

Think of it – studying impressionist art? Well browse the masters in that genre across all featured museums. Studying a particular artist? Round up their works in one place and compare away! Zoom in and check out the brush strokes, I know I've never been able to see the amazing swirls in vanGogh's art like that in person!

What do you think? As if you couldn't tell by the copious amounts of exclamation points, I’m ridiculously excited myself. Thank you Google. This is AWESOME. Check out Art Project powered by Google…NOW!


9 comments:

  1. What a lovely blog ... simply love the DIY heart stamps !!!

    - Smita
    www.littlefoodjunction.blogspot.com
    (fun foods for picky lil eaters )

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  2. I share your excitement!!!!! and here's some more!!!!

    It's a wonderful achievement and a boon to parents and teachers who can't physically get their kids to the art galleries and museums. I particularly love the idea of getting to curate our own collections!

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  3. This is amazing...I can't wait to check it out even further. We are going to have so much fun with this :0) Thank you so much for sharing it!!

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  4. I came here via the Artful Parent. What an amazing opportunity this Google Art project is for kids and parents and teachers around the world. I, for one, would love to visit the Metropolitian Museum of Art some day. But, being here in India, it may not happen soon enough. So, what a wonderful tour it provides and such unbelievably closer looks at the works of the masters!
    Thank you, thank you for sharing this.

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  5. You're welcome Rashmie! I would shout about this site from every rooftop if I could. Can I just add as someone who wears glasses I'm doubly impressed with the detail of the paintings? NEVER have I been able to observe the textures to this extent.

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  6. What a fantastic project, thank you for making me aware of it.

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  7. Thank you for sharing. Being in Australia it sometimes feels like I miss out on having all this amazing ancient art to share f2f with my little ones. Seriously it amazes me how people can take living right near places like the met for granted. Smiles!

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  8. I just checked this out today----this is so awesome! Kinda like Google Earth, but in a Museum! I shared it to my personal FB page!

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  9. thanks for the info! can't wait to use this tool with the kiddos. (and myself)

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