Free and Cheap Web Resources for Art Educators

Using New Media in the Art Classroom;
Free and inexpensive ideas for getting the most from what you have

While many art educators are beginning to use computers and the Internet in their classrooms and lesson planning, many are also burdened by old equipment or limited access and experience. How can art teachers explore the power of virtual collaboration or new media tools without money for equipment or software? This page (and its companion page "So you Wanna Make a Webpage?") discusses open-source solutions, web-based creative tools, educational pricing, and the power of collaborative sites, such as the AEContent network. In this workshop, we'll share advice and ideas for getting the most out of what you have, exploring the rich resources offered by museums and developers, and assessing resources found on the Internet.

Free Hosting Sites for Educators
These sites provide easy templates for your pages

TeacherWeb
Free intro accounts, then $25 per year.
Template-based web accounts for teachers.

YellowPencil (from hallmarkhost)
Free 5 page websites for educators, or educator "Deluxe" hosting for $15 per year (also has commercial hosting plans).

InetTeacher
Free 30day trial and then $25 per year.Template-based

Art Sonia
This site can host galleries of your students work. Registration is free, you upload work to the site and can also have custom products, such as Tshirts, printed.

AEContent
Community site for Art Educators, features lesson plans, links to content resources, free educator galleries, teacher forums and more.

Other free (or cheap hosting)
(see more resources on "So You Wanna Make a Webpage?")

Angelfire
Free websites (with banner ads)

Yahoo GeoCities
(banner ads)

ZoomShare
Free, no ads

Freewebs.com
free site hosting with easy to use web editor. Ads appear after 45 days, or upgrade to a premium service.

Websites for Kids

21st Century Web Club
This is a site I maintain for a middle school web design class. There are links to many online interactive art and music tools, homework help and other sites to use in a class. -Eleanor Ramsay

Dreamworks Kids
kid safe games featuring Dreamworks characters

Almost Worry-free Websites
(links to clip art and images)

Yahooligans
webguide and search designed for kids.

The Spoke
"Digital lifestyle club" for students from around the world, sponsored by Microsoft

Interactive Museum Sites

Many museums feature rich interactive sites with web-based projects, art tools, visual timelines, virtual tours, curating projects, games and other ways of interacting with their collections.
Here are just a few:

Louvre Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Peabody Essex Musuem

The Getty Musuem | Education at the Getty

National Gallery of Art

Carnegie Museum of Art
Link to an online timeline presentation featuring the collection

Metropolitian Museum of Art
Timeline of Art History
Visually rich timelines of art history from various regions. Features art from the Met collection.

Art Online Museum Exhibits List

Image Editing, Organizing and Paint Programs

Free Software List
OpenSource Alternatives to commercial software. Many excellent freely distributed software is out there, developed and maintained by dedicated programmers.

Picasa (Windows)
from Google. Free image organizer and basic editor.

Gimp (Windows, OSX, LINUX)
Photoshop-like powerful open source image editing program

Paint.net (Windows XP, 2000)
An enhanced version of Paint developed by students at Washington State University with mentoring from Microsoft. Many sophisticated features. Free.

SerifSoftware
Older versions of their image editing, web development, publishing, 3D amimation and vector drawing programs are free and can be downloaded from their website. (Windows)

Blumenthals Shareware
Easy GIF Animator $15.00 and other editors and programs (free trial downloads, Windows)

Web Picture Creator
Free web gallery maker (Windows)

GifBuilder
Free Gif animation program (Mac)

Online Tools

GifWorks
Online image editor and GIF animation (browser-based, nothing to download).
3D Animated Text maker
(Free web based tools from the Animation Factory)

Cool Text Logo Generator

Scripts and WebTools

Perl CGI Programs for Educators and Others!

Educational Weblogs
A weblog that features links and information about many different free and inexpensive tools for educators.

Free Country
Free stuff and HTML editors, for making websites

Educational Pricing and Tryout Downloads of Commercial Software

Adobe Education
Adobe Elements -- A great alternative for Photoshop
(only $50 for educators, students, Mac, Windows)
Adobe Premiere Elements -- Digital Video
(Windows only)
Tryout versions of many Adobe programs can be downloaded from their site (some of these are BIG, you'll need a broadband connection).

Macromedia Education
Education pricing and Free trials of software.

Microsoft in Education
Microsoft features lesson plans featuring their software at their website. They also have a plan called Fresh Start for Educators, which will provide a Microsoft license and software disks for older, donated computers.
Windows Movie Maker | Photo Story 3
Free downloads for users of XP

Apple Education
Educator pricing, "1 to 1 Learning" laptop iniative, lessons, student galleries, tutorials, downloads and more.
Apple's iLife Package come preloaded on all OSX computers. iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, Garageband, iDVD

Lesson Plan Resources:

The Incredible Art Department
Lesson plans, art room stories, links to many resources

AEContent
lesson plans, links to content resources, educator galleries, forums and more.

Sanford A Lifetime of Color
The Sharpie people have a rich website of online lessons and projects

Boston Public Schools Arts Portal

Prepared by Eleanor Ramsay for AEContent.net: Last updated 05/05/05