Using Google Street View as an Inspiration for Art

I'm always fascinated by the creative ways in which people apply technology.  Recently, I came upon a CBC article on The Virtual Paintout, a blog which challenges artists from around the world to visit a particular geographic location in Google Street View and then re-create a scene from that location and submit it to the blog.  The rules of the challenge are very specific; the scene must be found on Google Street View.

The current challenge is to paint a scene from Prince Edward Island.  Some of the results are quite remarkable.

This got me thinking that it would be quite possible, with very little effort, to implement a similar challenge in an Art classroom.  The teacher could set up a blog, issue the challenge, and post students' work as it is submitted.  In that way, family and friends could view the student work with very little concern about personal safety or privacy issues.  The teacher could allow visitors to comment, but monitor the comments but moderating them.

To expand the idea even further, the project/challenge could involve multiple classrooms from various schools, allowing students to share their work with other students and comment on one another's work.

I think too often when we consider incorporating technology into the Art classroom, we get stuck on the idea of technology as the medium of creation.  We can expand the possibilities considerably by instead seeing it as the medium of distribution.