REFLECTIONS
      on the
      PRACTICE
      of TEACHING
      in the
      DIGITAL AGE

      THEORETICAL
      
UNDERPINNINGSfor

      ACTION RESEARCH

      into STUDENT ART

      on the WORLD WIDE WEB

      


             by  
David Fletcher
          5 January '98

      for Joel Weiss (3308F)


      Abstract

        Great claims are being made about the potential of computer mediated art education and the role of the internet in many classrooms. But in reality there has been virtually no research --or no research into this "virtual" medium of reality, which takes into account the substructural role of the changing conditions of production. Grounded in personal experience with several grade 10 visual arts classes, this study addresses what can be gleaned about curricular and cultural directions by examining how students are affected by the conditions of production associated with creating digitized graphics for the World Wide Web. Specifically what is it about student digitized images on the WWW which is are not like older conventional media?

        In doing computer graphics with my own students, I've noticed that they seem to respond to the digitized images on the screen as if they had an "aura". This observation reminded me of what Benjamin had written about art in the age of mechanical reproduction, and so I began reconsidering these arguments applied to art in the age of digital reproduction.

        A contemporary McLuhanism (the medium is the message)1 would be that the The World Wide Web is not just a neutral medium but it is a new cultural apparatus with implications for both learning and teaching.

        For these, and many other reasons, a fascinating field of inquiry now is the impact of technology on the visual arts and on the teaching of the arts. The ramifications of computers and other new information technologies include consequences for both the creation of art and the circumstances of looking at art.



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