Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

Many art museum websites offer users the ability to choose favorites from their online exhibitions and create an online exhibition. The best also let you write captions and describe these individualized collections, and then allow you to post the link on a website or blog.

This kind of activity provides lots of language-development opportunities for all levels of English Language Learners. so I thought it would be a good topic for a “The Best…” list.

You can find links to all the sites on this list, and other “art collection” sites that didn’t quite make the grade, on my website under Student Art Collections.

Of course, students can also create collections of art work they’ve have created online. You can find those sites at The Best Art Websites For Learning English.

Here are my picks of The Best Ways For Students To Create Their own Online Art Collections (by the way, all links will take you directly to the “make your own collection” page of the museum). These are not listed in any order of preference, though I do like the last three sites I list a lot:

The Tyne and Wear Museum doesn’t offer that many options of artwork to choose from, but the big advantage is that you don’t have to register to use the activity, either. It highlights paintings from its Love exhibition.

The Seattle Art Museum has a unique kind of activity — students are given sort of a simple (and accessible) art appreciation class as they develop their own collection. The process is a little “clunky,” but it’s a good step-by-step process. You do have to register, but, as with all the other sites on this list that require registration, it can be done in seconds.

The Tate Museum lets you choose from a limited number of paintings, describe your collection, and then email the link. No registration is required.

The Art Institute of Chicago provides over 250 pieces of art to choose from for what they call a “scrapbook.” You have to register, and, like all of these sites that require registration, is slightly more complicated to use than the ones that don’t require you to sign-in. But it’s still quite accessible to English Language Learners.

The Whitney Museum of American Art provides about 60 pieces of art to choose from, and requires a quick registration. It also offers some unique features, including some guided ways to compare and contrast your picks, and to add sound to your personal collection.

My Collection from the Smithsonian American Art Museum is a favorite. You can choose from among 20,000 art objects, and you can display your collection as a slideshow.  Understanding how to use the site isn’t quite as obvious here as it is in the other ones I’ve listed, but it should only take a minute or two to explain to students how it works.

Zoomorama is a virtual museum that has high definition views of many masterpieces. Instead of creating your own collection on their site, it allows you to get the embed code for each painting. You can then create your own collection on your blog or website.

Another favorite that is a bit different is called The Art of Storytelling from the Delaware Art Museum. At this site, you can actually use art from the museum’s collection to create your own storytelling experience. It’s pretty neat, and very accessible.

Creative Spaces is a project of the National Museums Online Learning Project in Great Britain. You can search through nine of the largest British museums can create “notebooks” of different items and describe them. You can also create groups.

If you found this list helpful, you might want to see the other two-hundred-plus ones, too.

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