New website highlights St. Mary's College students artwork, accomplishments

NEWS RELEASE
HURON-SUPERIOR CATHOLIC DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
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The St. Mary’s College Arts Department has launched a website highlighting its work with students.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the school’s annual Student Arts Festival typically held in June was cancelled. Looking for a manner in which to showcase arts student accomplishments the department decided to create a website.

“We felt it was even more important than ever to get the students’ artwork out there, given how committed they were to the artwork throughout the entire period of online learning,” said Lead Teacher of the Arts, Adriano DiCerbo.

Students were delighted to have art supplies, DSLR cameras and musical instruments delivered to their homes so that they could continue learning in an authentic way. Shifting the arts programming to an online platform did pose challenges, however many students have been using the LMS (Learning Management System) platform for several years and this made the transition much smoother.

“My online experience was great. The teachers were readily accessible at all times and gave clear instructions for what we needed to do,” said Grade 9 student, Lauren Pezzutto.

“Overall my online learning experience went well. I enjoyed the activities and assignments because many of them required that I learn new ways to create art digitally,” said Grade 10 student, Nicholas Legacy.

“There was certainly an adjustment to online learning and it was difficult to get used to but once I did it was really cool seeing different, creative ideas the teachers came up with to keep us engaged,” said Grade 11 student, Katelyn Brienesse.

Art work students produced during the past few months can be seen at: https://sites.google.com/hscdsb.on.ca/arts-department-site/home

The annual Student Arts Festival provides an opportunity to raise funds for charities but with the cancellation the SMC Arts Department made a contribution towards ARCH and Tumani Africa. If you are interested in donating to these causes contact Adriano DiCerbo via email at Adriano.DiCerbo@hscdsb.on.ca

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