Etwinning

The great eTwinning art collection

The language of the arts constitutes one of the many ways in which human beings communicate and represent ideas. Within this sphere, the educational sense of the language of the plastic arts encourages the students' artistic sense and foments their initiative and creative expression. This language of the plastic arts - together with the language of music, which is not dealt with in this article - is integrated into Art Education in Infants and Primary Schools. It is an area which contributes to the acquisition, to a greater or lesser degree, of different basic competencies, but above all, contributes to cultural and artistic competence. 

And artistic expression is not just about knowing the techniques, resources and materials of different artistic languages, but also about creating different plastic art creations which permit the students to observe and reflect about the environment which surrounds them, express themselves and communicate, understand different realities, respect the artistic contributions of others, work in a team, etc. Furthermore, the development of the activities of observation, expression and plastic arts creation foments the following skills and strategies in the students:  intelligence, memory, perception, creativity, imagination, participation and cooperation, communication and autonomy and initiative. All these abilities and especially participation, cooperation and communications are present in the many eTwinning projects which are carried out in the area of Artistic Education at the Infants and Primary levels. Some real life examples are presented below. 

In the Mouse @rt project students from 13 European countries and other parts of the world (Japan, Burundi, Canada and the USA) have developed their creativity and produced an authentic collection of works of art. It is, however, a very unusual collection, as it is made up of broken and unusable computer mice which they have transformed in an original manner and using different techniques and materials have given forms like cars, animals, etc. They have also taken the form of postcards using Tux paint -a free drawing tool for students from 3 to 12 - and in animations with the Pivot Stickfigure Animator programme. The creations have been shared with all the European partners through the Twinspace and then sent by normal mail. It is without doubt a wonderful display of materials, textures, shapes and colours in an activity which combines respect for the environment using recycled objects, the use of ICTs to create the plastic art productions and creative and artistic expression. 

Work of Art Marathon is another project based on plastic art creation and expression. In this project the students have created drawings, sculptures and other artistic elements which they have shared with their European partners, which has served as an inspiration for all. They have made sculptures of very different shapes with plasticine, and used varied painting and drawing techniques to give form to the elements present in the environment; they have designed CD covers, transformed old shoes into birds, decorated walls, etc. All the creations are accompanied by short stories related to them and collected in fixed images which they can later share with dynamic presentations published in the project blog. With all these activities related with the discovery of the artistic possibilities offered by the environment, the students have shared and learned about art in the different countries. Access the  TwinSpace of the project or the blog created to disseminate the creations.

In Origami Wonders, which has the participation of the Colegio Rural Agrupado La Sabina school (Villafranca de Ebro, Zaragoza), the Spanish, Polish, Rumanian and Turkish students have learned and perfected the art of origami or paper folding, a Japanese technique for making objects using sheets of paper. The work process has consisted in looking for and selecting diagrams and patterns and making their own video tutorials to later create figures and share them with their eTwinning partners using the project TwinSpace and wiki. A complete artistic creation which has involved cooperative wok and the use of ICTs to disseminate the work done. This project also contributes to the development of some basic competencies, as the students' linguistic abilities are improved thanks to the exchange of communications involved in the activities, to processing the information and using the technology as a search tool and tackling mathematical concepts in the creation of their own figures. The following video shows the story "Pablo against climate change" produced by the Spanish school using paper folding to represent a kamishibai, a traditional Japanese way of telling stories.