PEA RIDGE — FROM STAFF REPORTS
With the school year ending yesterday, Pea Ridge Elementary students have retained their ranking as the No. 1 online art gallery in the state of Arkansas while holding 16th place nationally.
The Blackhawk artists were far and away tops in Arkansas, leading in every category such as art produced, numbers of people who have signed on as fans, numbers of positive comments that have been logged in online, and the number of statements that have been posted by the artists concerning their own work. Working within a “lowest score wins” competition, Pea Ridge scored a “4” with their nearest competitor Green County Tech holding second with a score of 16.
In third place was Bald Knob, 17; followed by Little Rock Parkview, 28; Conway Smith, 32; Van Buren Rena, 34; Conway Mattison, 35; Jonesboro Performing Arts School, 38; Gentry, 40;
and Van Buren Tate, 49; to round out the states top 10 schools.
Competing with the more than 6,000 schools that are registered with the Artsonia national art gallery, Pea Ridge is in 16th place, in a near tie with 15th place Jarrett, Penn. Pea Ridge’s national score of 48 is not far from the No. 10 school in the country Jackson, N.J., which has a rating of 42. Lee’s Summitt, Mo., has the No. 1 school in the land with a score of 13 nationally.
“After finishing third in our first year of competing,” Arkansas teacher John McGee said, “we have taken first the two years following with over 210,00 visitors logging on to the site in the short time we have had a presence. This has been great for the students as this has served to increase the students’ pride in their work along with involvingthe students’ friends and family.”
The Pea Ridge Gallery is one of the most heavily logged on sites in America.Compared with other Arkansas schools, Pea Ridge has posted 8,000 more art works than anyone else, engaged 500 more fans than anyone else, attracted over 1,000 more comments than anyone else, with the students themselves posting 500 more artists observations than anyone else.
“Having taught school for 33 years, I would have to say that developing a web presence with my art students on Artsonia has had the greatest postive effect of anything I have ever done or even heard about,” McGee said. “Concerned parents and guardians are able to see their child’s work, a feat not easily attained as most students’ art work tended to get mangled or lost before making it home.”
“With their childs’ work online, registered parents can now see what theyare doing in school and now the amount of art that makes it home has gotten dramatically greater.
The fact that it will be therein the future is another plus,” McGee said.
While leading the state and being among the top 20 in the nation, less than half of Pea Ridges’ parentsare currently registered with the site. Anyone wishing to register online or wishing to view Pea Ridge art can do so by logging onto to www.artsonia.
com/pearidge2. With national scoring not closing out until June 30, Pea Ridge still has a chance to climb higher in the national rankings before the deadline.
School, Pages 9 on 06/08/2011