art ed + web 2.0 + [e]merging media blog

In reading Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen, I came across the idea of a "culture of simulation" and after my first experience with a Wii, I cannot help but think of that. At the same time, I am reminded that the digital natives who I teach have spent most of their life in front of one type of screen or another. From TV screens to computer monitors, to cell phone screens, to digital camera screens, to iPod screens, to movie screens, to video game screens, to instant replay screens at stadiums, to moving billboard screens, to LED display screens, they (and we) are bombarded by simulations.

But, what effects will these simulations have on those who have not also had years of 'real' experiences (and yes, i realize how problematic using the word real is here). But, how does all this time with simulations affect learning and brain development? I believe students have opportunities through these screens to 'experience' events that I never could have. But, then if all their experiences are simulated, what does that mean for their learning? Are these experiences building a lifetime of simulacrum? How might this relate to this article from NPR that a student shared with our class on children and brain development?

Posted by at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the first time today, I saw a video on YouTube that involves interactivity. Made by a woman who calls herself Val, this was a part of Val's Art Diary. Her video involves a riddle that the user has three choices to answer. To claim your prize, you need to visit her full web site, Val's Art Diary. Here you can print out images to color, view videos of her working, see where and how she has been in the media. She talks about how her paintings sold for $500 and now sell for $5000.

How is this medium changing the art world? Is she a pioneer in changing how art is marketed? What might this do to the system of galleries and museums? Who is the arbiter of how and why certain artists are successful?

Posted by at 1:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My new favorite toy is Wordle! I think the first time I saw tag clouds was a few years ago when I started using delicious. But, with Wordle,you can put any bit of text through to see what comes out as the most common. As an academic, I see this as a form of content analysis. But, I'm not sure about how it can be utilized as a meaningful form of data analysis. If I took an interview transcript and ran it through Wordle, I could make a beautiful picture of the content. But, other than frequency (which would be find for a quantitative content analysis) of word use, what else would I learn?

Wired magazine 'Wordled' the speeches from the Democratic and Republican conventions and made some interesting graphics. Would it be a useful exercise to have students 'Wordle' their assignments, thesis, literature reviews, etc.? What might they learn from doing that?

Posted by at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At a recent conference, I was intrigued by all the different ways art educators discussed how they use the work of contemporary artists in their teaching and research. Over the past 2 years, I have become a devoted user of delicious and often use it to tag artists and other ideas for teaching.

Now, I am recruiting about 15-20 people who are interested in participating in a delicious project together. The goal is to collect a group of art educators who are interested in contemporary art and artists whose work has potential for art education. Then, if all of the participants are tagging these artists with the same tags during a 2-week time frame, we will all have access to a larger group of artists. I'm still working out the bugs in this idea, so it probably won't start until early October. But, if anyone is interested in participating, please send me an email, or leave a comment here (with your email address).

Posted by at 10:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

At first when I started researching and writing about Web 2.0, I was excited all the time and could not wait to try new things. Now, I'm feeling a bit stumped for new ideas about how I can use it in my teaching and research. Not that I think the potential is not there, but just that I am seeing so little change in actual teaching practices. I just read a conference paper written by Cleborne Maddux. La Mont Johnson, & Rhoda Cummings entitled Interactive Web Sites that Teach. It's not available online and I had to request it through my university and the ILL system. One of their points is that education has changed little even though computers and the Web are almost everywhere. In a local district, students get laptops and rarely use them for meaningful activities and the presence of laptops in the classroom has not revolutionized education.

I think my optimism about technology and life will return at some point, but it's hard to be excited now when it feels like nothing is changing.

On a side note, I'm trying something decidedly low tech in the coming weeks. I'm going to attempt to dye yarn and then knit it into a sweater for my nephew. The knitting will be no problem, but the act of mixing dye and getting this all to work out will be a challenge.

Posted by at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Greetings from the InSEA conference in Japan. The other day I went to Kyoto and walked around some of the major sites and saw the Golden Temple. It's just stunning and seems timeless. The interesting thing is that it is not really original and many of the other important monuments are not either. What this is (according to Frommer's) is a 1955 reconstruction of the temple built in the 1390s and the gold leaf was re-done in 1987.

So, what does this do to the concepts of originality, authenticity, and creativity. I find that many of my students are entranced with the ideas (I would call them cultural myths) of childhood complete creative and originality. According to a lecture yesterday by Brent Wilson, he is questioning if child art ever did exist. What does that do to our field? Why does it matter if children make art that is 'untouched' by adult concepts? Why do we even care? Children grow up in our world and are influenced by what they see, hear, taste, touch, smell, etc. (I believe this is in both their 'real life' and in their 'virtual life' too.)

So, can we say that the current version of the Golden Temple is authentic? If so, how is it related to the one that stood at the site that was destroyed in 1950? How does the existence of a replica (the current strucutre) change the original structure? Would it matter if the original structure were not destroyed?

Ok, enough of that for now. I've still got jetlag and cannot sleep past 4am, so this is getting a bit too philosophical for me in my current state.

Posted by at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)