Drawing on digital age, Moore to issue iPads to art students

Incoming freshmen will be required to go digital as Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia incorporates the iPad into its core curriculum.

This fall: iPad 101.

Incoming freshmen will be required to go digital as Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia incorporates the iPad into its core curriculum.

This likely will not be a great leap for the generation that grew up with Apple products, but officials at Moore say their relationship with Apple Inc. is the first of its kind anywhere. At slightly reduced cost, Apple will supply customized iPads loaded with apps specifically tailored to art students — applications for drawing, color, video, and animation.

The college’s core curriculum classes – known as its foundation classes — also will be designed around the iPad. They will still be using traditional materials (you know: pencils, paper, drafting boards, VGA expansion cards), but the iPad will allows students to easily move between the digital realm and physical materials.

“On Monday you’re in the drawing studio, and on Wednesday you’re in the computer lab. That is one way to incorporate digital media tools,” said Dona Lantz, Moore’s dean of academic affairs. “But we saw the iPad as the mobile device that bridges the physical facility, both in ideas and being able to work with fluidity without having to go to a certain classroom in a certain building.”

This spring, instructors at Moore will be given iPads loaded with art-making apps. They will experiment with them to determine which of those programs will be bundled into the mandatory student tablets.