technology in education? I ship that.

In the age dominated by social media, accessibility to information is at an all-time high—constantly oscillating the roles of teacher and student through web-based media. Children and adolescents alike are able to edit, contribute, report, and read volumes of sources birthed by the internet. A large portion of this demographic inevitably feels more comfortable in front of a computer screen than in a place of learning, but what’s to say these locations are mutually exclusive?

The debate of whether or not educational technology should be used in the classroom often argues the merits of traditional versus progressive education. It forgets to shed light on the responsibility of educators to provide technological resources outside the classroom. As Castro comments in Learning and Teaching Art: Through Social Media, “Learning, especially in art, is no longer limited to a classroom,” rather, it is a continuous process given the resources the twenty-first century has provided us with.

The existence of art-based websites and applications create artist-based communities that provide a wide array of inspiration for those who network with them. Forums make it simple to communicate with other artists, who are nearly always open to discussions or other collaborative interactions. Using technology to improve your skills and knowledge continue to fall under the umbrella of “educational technology.” Although the word technology in itself sparks ideas of machines, the definition categorizes it as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes”—which follows closely with the goals of art education as well. How can you motivate students to apply their methodical knowledge of art to their daily life? How can we make the abstract metamorphose into the practical? 

As students’ daily life is engulfed by visual culture both in the imagery that their eyes devour and the design elements that dictate the objects they frequently use, the applications that are emerging open up an entirely new dialogue between the analog and digital worlds. Tumblr, as profiled by Yenni with commentary from the majority of the class, has created a realm with its own jargon to describe popular culture. The subcultures beneath the reigning website name re-imagine imagery, re-contextualizing it into what readers, fans, or artists believed it should have been to begin with. The ability to appropriate work into different plotlines to tell brand new stories is powerful. This open-ended philosophy in an art-based community spoke volumes about what I hope to harness in my future teaching pedagogy. There is never a limit on what you can create. If the materials you originally wanted are not available, your idea is malleable. It can be done in an infinite combination of other materials. If you are emotionally invested in your work, you do not have to be afraid to express the amount of love you planted in it. You can ship yourself and your work. That’s totally fine. You can appropriate other work to make a point. You can re-imagine your world however you would like. You can even make up your own language if that is what your project needs. I think the amount of personality expressed by the depths of the Tumblr universe perfectly parallels the art world—even the levels of satire and hatred that penetrate each realm, respectively. There is a lot to learn from the tight-knit communities of each.

As far as technology in education? I totally ship that.