Learning Materials
Scran Learning Materials
Case Study
1. Author details
| Name: | Anne Taylor |
| Job title: | Project Officer (LEMUR) |
| Institution: | University of Aberdeen, Marischal Museum |
About the authors:
I am a practising artist with 14 years experience of teaching art (specialising in print-making and fabric decoration) to both adults and children in Community Education, primarily in England. Recently completed an undergraduate degree in 'Archaeology and Anthropology' during which I developed my skills as an archaeological illustrator. Over the last 5 years I have been teaching archaeological illustration at informal workshops within Scotland and produced an 'illustration workbook' for archaeology students at University of Aberdeen. The workbook is in paper format and has now been in use for 2 years. I have fairly basic computer skills - using Microsoft Word and Cardbox database every day, but not familiar with any of the desktop publishing systems. I am attending courses in Web-CT here at Aberdeen to help me with web-mounting my material.
2. The materials
Teaching package on archaeological illustration using images from the Scran database. The workbook covers basic drawing skills, the conventions used when illustrating artefacts and guides students right through the drawing processes, with examples of several different drawing styles.
Created to support general portfolio work and an illustration summer school for undergraduate level HE courses in Archaeology. Designed as a complete virtual learning course, in advance of classroom-based teaching.
Why did you want to create these materials?
It is difficult for students to gain access to actual objects to draw. This course gives them the opportunity of practising the techniques and learning some of the conventions of archaeological illustration in advance, using images that are very easily accessible, so that when confronted with real objects they know what to look for and how to proceed.
How will your materials benefit learners?
See above - very practical course. Although the techniques recommended in the course are not directly applicable to illustration from objects (having to trace from images rather than draw from objects), there is plenty of practice in developing skills in pencil and pen handling and learning how to look at artefacts.
How will they improve on previous methods of teaching this topic?
Immediate access to a wide range of objects through images selected for the course, and even wider range through Scran itself.
3. Creating the materials
Searched the Scran database for suitable images, practised the drawing techniques myself - see below for the problems I experienced here. Then printed off some instructions and asked one or two people to try them out. Produced a draft workbook, selected images for image galleries - from Scran and my own private collection, sent workbook out to people to test-run.
What tools did you use?
So far, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Photo Editor, Adobe Photoshop. I shall be using Web-CT later.
What additional support did you need in creating the materials?
Needed help from our photographer on LEMUR project with scanning of my example drawings and use of Adobe Photoshop. Am attending courses in Web-CT.
What are the main skills required in creating materials like this?
- Organisational, you need a clear idea of the end result and target audience.
- Design skills, to produce a resource that looks good on a computer screen.
Describe any difficulties you experienced and how you went about addressing them.
First of all I had to devise a way of drawing from images rather than from real objects, and with an end result that would be acceptable to archaeologists and to illustrators. I tried producing a grid of squares to place over a printed image, hoping that a drawing could be produced by transferring the detail within each square of the grid onto squared paper. This is very difficult, so I had to work on tracing from a printed image.
Many of the photographs in Scran are unsuitable for my purpose:
- lit from above or from top right (the archaeological convention is to light from the top left, with shadows appearing bottom right)
- archaeologists require an accurate, scaled drawing but many images are enlarged or reduced in size, and not all the contributors to the Scran database give dimensions
However there are plenty of images that do fit the purpose.
What would you do differently next time?
I wish I had commissioned a few photographs that are ideal - pots viewed from the side, with a scale included for example.
What hints and tips would you offer to a colleague planning to create a similar resource?
Make sure you can get feedback throughout the creation process. And inevitably the whole process takes much longer than you think it will.
Recommendations – please note any reading, software, websites, online courses etc that were useful to you.
I had read "Web Teaching Guide" by Sarah Horton, for the LEMUR project, and this gave me a few ideas about lay-out. Also for LEMUR - prepared two large posters for a poster display at a JISC conference - looked at several web-sites about preparation of 'academic' posters.
