MY VIRTUAL ARTSPACE...

...is a homeschool / homebound option in PK-12th grade visual arts education. It is owned and operated by a Christian art educator, with minimal assistance from her husband, which is the extent of the staff at our location in Virginia Beach, Virginia USA. The website and courses are built using free web 2.0 tools as much as possible. This avoids the necessity of student side plug-ins and / or specialized software. This is also to keep student costs down. Sometimes these free options may not work out the best and costs may be affected from time to time.

This online art program was initiated due to the scarcity of employment positions for art educators in our area. Therefore, this is not just our ministry to you but also our source of employment. As Proverbs says, "the worker deserves his (or her) wages".

Thank you very much for your interest in these courses.

PERSONAL NOTES:

By keeping us employed, you are also contributing to the lives of a Disabled Veteran and his wife, the PK-12th grade certified art educator who holds the following degrees: A.A. in Graphic Design, B.A. in Art Education, M.S. in Education (Instructional Design), and who is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Education (PK-12 Studies in Virtual Instruction).

Please pray for us. We are still waiting for my husband's VA disability claim to be processed. He has very part-time employment in order to accommodate his physical state and his school schedule. I have recently passed my comprehensive exam and am officially a PhD Candidate. In the midst of all of this, we need help with our mortgage as of June 2011.

Meanwhile, the first lesson in this series is still under development...

...moving on...

COURSES AND LESSONS

The Virginia Standards of Learning serve as a framework of concepts for each lesson. Because these are minimum standards, the lessons are arranged with multiple levels of mastery so that a student may learn at his or her own level and pace. This is also helpful if there are multiple students learning the same lesson at the same time - and it's budget-friendly for the whole family.

Core subject correlations and Christian Bible integration means that these are additional concepts that are included in each lesson, as appropriate. Mostly, these may show up as general principles that guide or supplement the main art concepts of the lesson. The idea is that these lessons show where other knowledge concepts link in the whole picture of learning. These are optional and do not alter the art lessons if left out.

FORMATS

The versions of the lessons available include online instruction, CD Rom or DVD , when available, and pdf e-book, when available. Our hope is to make all versions available for every lesson once the publishing gets going.

Which is better? Read below and you decide.

Online instruction means that the students will be interacting with the course material, the instructor and other students online through the computerr, either through this website or my Moodle classroom. Interactions include reading, watching / listening to multimedia, and socially interacting with others. The social interaction may or may not be synchronous (same time, different place). This form of social interaction is difficult to schedule and tends to exclude those students who must use adaptive devices. The requirement for this form is that all students and teachers must be on the selected form of communication tool at the same time regardless of time zone. This could be instant messaging, web chats, conference calls, virtual classroom meetings, etc. There is another form, asynchronous, which is more like threaded discussions or emails. The key is that it is at different times as well as at different places. However, it requires more reading and writing, with attention to netiquette. This form of instruction also includes tutoring and grading by the course instructor.

CD Rom or DVD means that your students are on their own. Instruction is limited to what is included in the CD/DVD. However, this version allows a student to access any multimedia offline for extended study. There is no need to be online for other activities. If it is a DVD, then any internet links are already a part of the lesson. This reduces the need for students to "surf the web" for class materials. Grading is done by the parent teacher.

pdf e-book means that your students receive a digital print of the course materials. In some instances, pdfs may be able to display multimedia options, but not usually. For the most part, there are no videos, slideshows, audio files, or internet links. There may be step-by-step photos and lots of reading. This option is extremely portable and can be accessed from an e-reader, such as the Amazon Kindle, after being downloaded to your computer. Grading is done by the parent teacher.

ACCESSIBILITY

Features in the lessons include choices and flexibility, both in the design of the instruction and in access to the instructional materials. Instructional design includes varied levels of instruction, student choice for all tasks and activities, captioned video demonstrations, plain text and audio files. See the course sample for more information. If there is a specific modification you require, please contact us to suggest it. We can't promise it will be done right away. Good design takes time. However, it is our goal to serve you to the best of our abilities in whatever way we can at the time. Since this has never been done before (accessible virtual art instruction for grades PK-12th) we are figuring it out as we go.