New Media in Art Education

I believe New Media should have a presence within Art Education. If educators want to address adolescents in their stages of development and meet them where they are, they need to be delving into New Media and the possibilities it holds in learning. We live in a society where visual culture is rapidly defining and shaping what people think and feel. The type of visual culture and language that we experience today is channeled through much new media. Technology at it's peak of advancement and the rise of the digital era affects the way students live their lives and begin to make sense of their worlds.  I think that in this 21st century era, New Media in the art classroom is a part of child-centered learning.

Taking this class, gave me a taste into the foreign realm of technology as a means to create art. It's like visiting a new place and only having taken a tour of the main attractions and sites. It was exciting to see it all, but I wish we had more time to linger into each area for longer periods of time. It would have been nice to explore as individuals and collectively during class times possibly having work sessions together. It was also great to see how everyone took the same prompt and applied it so differently according to their interests, personal experiences, and thoughts. The diversity within the class cohort made the experience more interesting in terms of learning.

In terms of taking steps further from this point of departure, I'd like to explore what it is that young people find interesting and engaging now. I find myself exploring with social media applications such as twitter and tumblr in hopes to experience and understand better what kinds of connections adolescences are feeling. I'd like to explore more into what kinds of issues they deal with being exposed to their surrounding visual and sonic cultures. Also, I'd like to gain more experience in using different kinds of software so that if students are looking for outlets to project their thoughts and ideas into, I'd have more options to offer insight to best address their concepts.