What it is: Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter and a big name in the abstract expressionist movement. Recently, I was reminded about the Jackson Pollock Whiteboard interactive from the wonderful Techie Classroom blog. This website allows students to create Jackson Pollock-esque virtual paintings. Students click anywhere on the screen for splatters of paint, drops, and dribbles. As they are “painting”, students can press any key on the keyboard for a different background color, erase using the space bar, press alt+ any key to change the color of the drip, or use numbers 1-0 or left, right, up, or down arrow to change the color of the drip or background. Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas is also an iPhone and iPod Touch application.
How to integrate Jackson Pollock Whiteboard into the classroom: This site is just plain fun! Students will enjoy creating abstract works of art by clicking and moving around the virtual page. Obviously this would be a great way to introduce students to abstract art and to Jackson Pollock, students could start by creating here, and then study Jackson Pollock and his famous paintings. Put the Jackson Pollock website up on your interactive whiteboard and let your class create a Pollock masterpiece throughout the day. Take a screen shot of the finished painting at the end of the day/class period. This could be done every day over a week or month. At the end of the week/month collect all of your classroom virtual paintings into a slide show. Do the finished paintings convey the emotions of the days? The slide show of paintings could also be used as a backdrop for information that students learned on their Jackson Pollock study.
Students Pollock masterpieces can be used for adding some color to the classroom walls, as a desktop picture or screen saver, or as thank you notes for classroom helpers.
Tips: In the iPod/iPhone version of the Jackson Pollock Whiteboard, multi-touch capabilities are built in for even more fun!
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Jackson Pollock Whiteboard in your classroom.
What a fun and cool tool! Jackson Pollock is quite famous in Australia as his painting Blue Poles resides in our National Gallery (mind you, it causes quite a furore when it was purchased about 30 years ago. The issues were the price and the style!)
I absolutely adore this site. Have you used a paintbrush on your white board with it Kelly? the kids then think that they are really creating a masterpiece! Love the idea of creating screenshots and then making a slide show.
This site looks like fun but I can’t change the colors or erase on the mac. Tried a lot of different keys etc. Any ideas?
This is great! I had not heard of this site before and I’m excited to try it out with my kids today.
I didn’t know about this. My friend is an art teacher so I am sending this to her. Thanks!
She will love it!
Great, let us know how they liked it. My kids had a great time with it on the IWB.
Susan, I couldn’t get the key commands to work on a Mac either. I actually was able to change colors by clicking the mouse. I was working in Opera browser.
Yes! Kids worked with it on IWB while listening to music and loving it. It was amazing how different each piece came out based on the music that was playing.
I didn’t know that Blue Poles was in your National Gallery, that is a fun fact for students to know!
Control of space and matter is an excellent confidence builder for students and this tool is a fun way of providing students with an outlet for creativity within the sometime stifled atmosphere of the classroom.
@Colin- I agree, a great way to let out some creative bursts!