Generative Topic - art ed and online communities

Technology is becoming more pervasive with time and if we incorporate new media learning tools to educate adolescence in an art ed context within an open network it will make for a dynamic learning environment.

Art Education And Online Learning

Presentation: Art Education and Online Communities

A valuable idea I posted from my ning site:
http://artedandonlinecommunities.ning.com/

1. Technology is so pervasive that it will become more of a teaching tool in the future. (2.5 yr old: http://artedandonlinecommunities.ning.com/video/25-yr-first-encounter-wipad)
2. What about the folk who are left out? Lucky on not?
a. Facebook facts (by Linda Scott) link here (blog post):
http://artedandonlinecommunities.ning.com/profiles/blogs/naea-link-facebook-facts?xg_source=activity
b. Ethical responsibility: Where do the classroom walls begin and end?
a. Parents, teachers, schools, and larger society all have responsibility in teaching kids basic safety skills
b. Parents spend more time thus have more influence on kids.
c. Art education fosters problem solving and critical thinking which fosters these safety skills.

An idea posted on my ning site from someone else:
3. History of education systems
a. In the Seth Godin Interview (http://jackiegerstein.wikispaces.com/User-Generated+Education) he states “public education was a conspiracy between government and corporations”. “Consumer culture did not exist for the typical person prior to 1900”. Public schools were built to “train compliant factory workers” and “to teach kids that the best way to fit in and feel good was to buy stuff”.
b. Replace or reform education system?


A valuable library source idea:
Unsettled post-revolutionaries in the online public sphere.(Lao People's Democratic Republic )(Report).
SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 24.1 (April 2009): p89(33). (11245 words) Warren Paul Mayes.

1. Online networks provide new communication spaces for those in exiled communities.
a. Huge potential for learning: Imagine students communicating in an online network with people who are in Hati or with those in direct contact with someone in Hati.
2. The ability to have such debates “is informed by an ethics of reconciliation and responsibility”

Art Education and Online Communities

Social networks are becoming more and more mainstream with the advent of facebook, twitter, and second life. This social connectedness has many rich possibilities. For example, sometimes they banish loneliness and help foster new friendships. Personally it has been a great way for me to keep up with my sister in Florida who is expecting her first baby. I have gotten to see pictures of her ultra sounds and also pictures of her and her husband getting ready for the big day. These networks also leads us to a cognitive surplus of information that can be informative but sometimes a little overwhelming.

However, when one thinks about what happened in South Hadley in regards to bullying, we are reminded on the dark side of these networks (blog to come on this soon).


For the first time in history we have bits of information floating out on the web in these social networks. How they evolve will reflect a lot about us. Also how they evolve will change us. It is exiting to be a participant rather than observer in 21st century new media. As an art educator I would like to ponder how we can introduce our students to the creative explosions it can produce in our changing world.


Historically a “down town” was the place for distribution of information. Then came the industrial revolution and with it more urban areas. The advent of t.v. gave was to lots of passive sit-com watching during our free time. These social networks are great places to engage in active thinking within the communities.

New Generative Topic

After thinking about surveillance and privacy i have fine tuned my generative topic.

Now my topic is this:

How does new media technologies influence the psychology of self within a group dynamic? What is in our human nature that motivates us to put up status reports? Also what are some negative and positive effects can these sites have on adolescence that have not yet fully matured developmentally. How can self and groups be taken advantage of by government or consumer society? How can they use it to their advantage (promote self)?

Questions to Ponder about New Media and Privacy

Social Networking is a great way to keep up with others. However it contributes to huge collections of personal info and images. Here are some questions to ponder.


Is this aggregation of personal information a bad thing, or a good thing?
Is it dangerous or freeing?
What responsibility do users of social networking sites have in posting about themselves and others?
What responsibility do social networking sites themselves have to make privacy controls easy to find and use?
Is society's notion of public and private changing as a result of social networking?

Surveillance/privacy

Surveillance/privacy


I talked to my group members about what generative topics we could choose. We all seemed to be most interested in privacy and or surveillance. So we did some research on artists who use these concepts. Once artist I came upon is Lee Walton. I spent a lot of time on his web site. He seems like a real lovable guy. His art is really funny. I regards to our topic he does art on facebook. Basically he takes his friends status reports and then films himself acting them out. He posts the films to vimeo and of course onto his facebook status page. This artwork can be viewed here: http://www.leewalton.com/projects/fbook/index.html

In regards to our generative topics we thought about reality t.v., cameras in public installed by the government, what it feels like to be filmed, filming people when they don’t know it, and how we all enjoy watching people on film react to particular situations (when they are unaware of being filmed). It would be fun to do social experiments in public to see how people act in certain situations. For example I know of a guy who secretly filmed himself screaming in downtown crossing and on the film no one came to his aid. People just walked past him.

Also I came across another artist that performed mini plays in front of surveillance cameras. This is very creative. This type of art shows that new media can create a venue for art to to seen that is out of the regular gallery space. Lee Walton’s art can be seen anywhere video is played. Or even anywhere folks can perform status reports themselves. Another artist named Kate pocrass had portable exhibition venues inside her hat and jacket.- contents of wallet She also has an art exhibition where you call a hotline and listen to her instructions on the message. She will often instruct those to go to a special shop, talk to the owner, or view something form a particular vantage point. Check it out here: http://www.mundanejourneys.com/