PURPOSE Katie Shifflet, Leydon High School and Jessica Delaney, Fountain-Fort Carson High School proposes to develop and implement a network-mediated instructional project between Katie's Graphic Arts class and Jessica's Digital Photography class in the fall 2006. The purpose of this project is to engage students from different regions in dialogue, analysis, and collaboration by exchanging digital photographs and altering the photographs into new, artistic creations. BACKGROUND LITERATURE TomHarold website- Jessica came across this website while looking at Art Education resources. The premise of the website is an exchange of digital photos between an artist and an art teacher. Upon the exchange, the photo is manipulated according to the artist's interpretation. Jessica thought a similar exchange would be exciting for high school students from different parts of the country. METHODOLOGY Katie and Jessica composed a wiki site to share and edit their project proposal. Upon completion of the proposal, they created a Moodle site for the project. The Moodle site is organized into a week long test run for volunteer participants. Each day required one activity. The final website was created by Katie, and the content was a collaboration between Katie and Jessica. The website includes a photo gallery of participants final projects, summary, links, and biographies of Katie and Jessica. The Test Run Schedule: Day 1: Participants were asked to upload a digital image into Photobucket, an on-line photo album. In the accompanying forum, participants were asked to a) place a link to their photo in Photobucket and b) explain how the photograph relates to their environment. We defined environment as being anything surrounding a person (i.e. social, cultural, natural, and religious, etc). Day 2: Participants were asked to view the posted photos and choose one they wanted to work with. We asked participants to choose photos that were not already taken by another participant. We asked participants to briefly explain why they were drawn to the photo. Day 3: This was probably the most challenging step for our non-art volunteers. It required analyzing the new photo using a critiquing process called critical analysis . Jessica uses critical analysis with her high school art students to help them understand how to look at and interpret art. The steps are: Describe, Analyze, Interpret, and Judgment. In the description step, the viewer describes the elements of art (we posted a link as a reference). Next, in the analyze step, students discuss how the elements are organized using the principles of design (also a link reference). From the description and analysis, the viewer can make a better interpretation of the meaning, mood, and idea. Finally, a judgment is made on what the viewer liked/didn't like and input is suggested. The participants attached their critical analysis in the forum and commented on the process of analyzing a photograph. To aide the participant we added two helpful resources for this project: 1) Link to descriptions of the elements and principles of art and 2) A word document with the critical analysis steps, explanations, and examples. These resources seemed to help, and the participants did a great job with this step. Some of the comments were: -“The photo and critical analysis definitely made me think about the aspects of the picture I had not really thought about and put into words.” -“ the analysis worksheet helped me separate the formal visual elements from content, therefore allowing me to understand why I feel a certain way about the image.” -“ Doing a critical analysis helped me to understand some of the more formal aspects of art.” -“The analysis helped me see the elements in the photo and how mood is created by photography.” Day 4: Before participants begin to alter their photo, we wanted to make them aware of how altering a photo can change the meaning, mood, and idea. We directed participants to our inspiration site, TomHarold. The assignment is to view the TomHarold website, which contains the original photo next to the altered photo, pick one of the manipulations and discuss a) how the photo was manipulated, and b) how the meaning and idea changed from the original to the altered. One of our participants commented, “ The Tomharold site and exercise was the perfect lead-in example.” Day 5: After the Critical Analysis (day 3) and TomHarold assignment (day 4), participants will have a deeper understanding on the meaning of their photo and methods for altering it. Participants will use any photo editing software they have access to and post the final, altered images into the forum. Students are to respond to at least two other peers. Conclusion: After the final images are posted, we asked our test run participants for some helpful suggestions and to share their experience. FINDINGS Everyone who participated in the test run said it was a lot of fun. Some of the outcomes were: learning how to take better photos, analyze the elements and principles, and express ideas by creating new, altered photos. Throughout the week, participants engaged in dialogue with the group by responding to forum posts and analyzing each other's photographs. Moodle helped Katie and Jessica organize the project by creating a successful flow to the daily activities. The directions were clear, and each step was a gradual progression toward the final. Participants posted their final project with enthusiasm and satisfaction. Katie and Jessica left the project open-ended, but guided the students through steps that would help lead them to their final creative solution.   CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATIONS What did you and your participants learn from the project, pros and cons? Here are some of the feedback/suggestions we asked our test participants in the feedback forum: 1. Getting pictures to post in the discussion reply was very frustrating for me. Perhaps it's because I'm not familiar with Moodle. Instructions would have been very helpful. Katie and Jessica did not give directions on uploading pictures into Moodle due to the small server space. However, some people figured it out and did it, so others wanted to. We'll have to make it clear to the students our expectations on uploading pictures. It depends on the storage space available. 2. You might have some examples for students to determine what steps were taken to create the alteration. This is a good suggestion, but the student forum will provide examples from other students. We don't want to create an example that serves as a model because we want to keep the project open to interpretation. 3. For students who need a challenge, you could give a number of required steps; require it to resemble the original, or not; have students do multiple renditions of the same image. We agree that there are ways to differentiate the project to create a more in-depth learning experience. After the first run with our students, it will be interesting to see what steps they take on their own to provide more challenge. We hope to see students asking if they can do something extra, thus thinking of this on their own. 4. You could even create a photo album of all the finished works and keep those from year to year Katie and Jessica are creating a web album. It is a necessary conclusion to the project to post a gallery of the alterations for students to feel a sense of accomplishment by having their artwork on the web. W hat you would do differently the next time you managed such an activity? Several parts of the project were taken out for the test run. Below are a few components that will be added for the real project: •  Jessica's Digital Photography class creates a forum of photography tips for Katie's Graphic Design class. •  Katie's Graphic Design class creates a forum of Photoshop tips and tricks for Jessica's Digital Photography class. •  Both classes will have lessons on the principles and elements of art and how to critically analyze art work. •  A final critical analysis of the altered image. More evaluations: self, peer, and teacher