WOW E SKETCHBOOKS! what a great idea.

From the NSEAD.........

Electronic Sketchbook and Electronic Portfolios
IntroductionTeachers of Art & Design are already very familiar with the concepts of sketchbooks and portfolios. While sketchbooks are used to record observations, ideas, reference material, sources of information and inspiration, etc., portfolios serve to collect together examples of exploratory and finished work that can be presented to others for discussion, evaluation and assessment.
Developing electronic sketchbooksAn e-sketchbook is an electronic version of a traditional sketchbook. It might include:
a compendium of images and related texts;
references to the work of other artists and designers;
original visual material created by the pupil;
sources of reference material gathered from the internet and elsewhere;
comments made about the work by others; The images may be scanned in from original drawings or paintings or could be digital photographs, or generated directly on a computer. The content could also include animations, video and sound and interactive web pages. Electronic sketchbooks should not be seen as replacing or detracting from the importance of conventional sketchbooks, but as an extension to them. Paper and electronic sketchbooks can be used together to record responses. The process of assembling content is similar in both, but as well as traditional media the paper sketchbook can include:
print outs of scanned or digital pictures of ideas and responses;
word processed text and scanned articles / images;
collage samples of digitally produced images, for example, pastel, or pencil overlay and scanned and printed again before adding to the sketchbook; Teachers can encourage the regular use of e-sketchbooks by:
creating a separate electronic folder in advance for each pupil, topic and class;
reminding pupils that they should save all source materials to this, as well as regularly saving work at different stages of development as a record of process and progress;
encouraging pupils to add any word-processed homework or on-line research to the appropriate folder; As well as getting pupils to name files and folders appropriately It is also important to develop their skills in describing their work using keywords, or 'tags'. With the high volume of digital files being produced and saved, intelligent keywording is essential to enable pupils, teachers and managers to locate pieces of work at a later date without difficulty. An electonic sketchbook needs to be a resource that pupils can use all the time they study art and design. This means they must each have file storage space on the school or department network to save their experimental and final work. There may be considerations of space, depending on the capacity of the school network, so it is worthwhile talking to the school ICT network manager before encouraging pupils to save large amounts of 'memory hungry' images!
LinksThe Virtualartroomhttp://www.virtualartroom.com/e_sketchbooks.htmNational Curriculum in Actionhttp://www.ncaction.org.uk/subjects/art/ict-ops.htm

This changes some of my current opinion on what the use of technology is in art education. It is not just about new visual media but also about traditional visual forms such as the sketchbook using different tools. This is a proper breakthrough for me in my understanding of how ICT can be used in my subject. It's not all about, film web and animation but I can take existing art forms and explore through new media.

Again this reminds me of how printing affected art and then later how photography changed how art was made.

In a way, given the time to explore I have today almost used my blog as a sketch book/note book.

I am certainly going to research into E sketch books. VERY EXCITING!

I also am going to consider the imapct that photography and printing had on art as well as global travel because obviously with the wwweb we have at the touch of a button what culturally we only saw when travel became more common place such as the Grand Tour.