Will Technology Redefine Art?

I’m not a great artist. Or am I?
If you walked into Damian Powers’ Commercial Art classroom at Southern Westchester BOCES (where I work as PR coordinator in my day job), you would smell creativity in the air. This remarkable classroom is home to dozens of iMac desktop computers, their huge, 24-inch screens an irresistible invitation to any student wishing to create.
And create they have in this busy place. Last year, Mr. Powers’ students brought home numerous awards and honors, including two Audience Choice Awards in the 2008 Lower Hudson Region’s Youth Media Arts Show, third-place honors in a competition held by the Association for Career and Technical Education, and nine winning students posters chosen by the Westchester County Coalition for Drug and Alcohol Free Youth for its yearlong “Collateral Damage” public service initiative.
In nearly every case, the student artwork was created with the help of technology. In Powers’ classes, students primarily work with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on those beautiful iMac desktops.
Which brings me to my point: Could I be an artist like one of Mr. Powers’ students? Although I can’t sketch or draw worth a damn, there might be hope even for me.
This week’s eSchool News article, “Technology makes art education a bigger draw,” points out that new and emerging software being used by art students is making “artistic production accessible to a far greater number of interested students and aspiring artists than ever before.”
At the same time, writes Senior Editor Laura Devaney, traditional media, such as charcoal drawing and oil painting, are being enhanced rather than thrown aside by this technology, which “encourages and facilitates the acquisition of more advanced, traditional techniques and skills by far more talented beginners.”
One teacher in Devaney’s story says:

I don’t think technology is replacing traditional art instruction, but I think it’s a really good piece to use alongside it. …It’s really a skill they need to go on and be competitive with the rest of the world.”

It’s possible, say educators, to strike a balance between traditional artistic techniques and learning new technology-based techniques, such as digital imaging.
At Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, which introduced digital image making into its curriculum about 10 years ago, students practice traditional techniques as freshmen and sophomores, then move on to learning digital art techniques as juniors and seniors.
The eSchool article also takes a look at Fablevision’s “Animation-ish” software program, which lets students create their own animation. In Roanoke, Va., where fifth-grade students use the software, one teacher said it “permits kids to create original and meaningful drawings, doodles, and even complex animations. It encourages exactly the kind of adventurous, blank-page thinking I try to generate in my classroom.”
Other schools are using DrawPlus, desktop publishing, design, and graphics software that also provides teachers with free resources including lesson plans, guides, handout sheets, and project ideas.
The IPAX education program, from Sony Pictures Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation, recently announced a new online mentoring program set to begin this winter.
The program, Animation Mentor, pairs top students from 18 IPAX member schools from around the world with Sony Pictures artists, who provide online mentoring, training, and guidance. The program is designed to help students develop and sharpen skills they will need in digital-arts careers.
There could be hope for me yet.

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Educate for a Creative Society: The Voice of Tom Peters

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Teens Improve Their Writing When They Blog

This is fascinating to someone who is a writing “semi-purist,” like myself.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently explored the link between formal writing and the writing that teens do when they email one another, text each other and write for the Internet. What they found was that blogging is helping teens become more prolific writers. Hurray!
I know this is true of my own son, who maintains his own blog, maintains a Facebook account and yes – writes for the college newspaper. All of that spells one thing – plenty of practice.
The April 24 survey showed that 47 percent of teen bloggers write outside of school several times a week or more, compared to 33 percent of teens who don’t maintain blogs. More than half of both groups, although the number is higher for bloggers, believe that writing is important to their success in life.

Duke University writing professor Bradley Hammer told eSchool News that blog writing can be better than the writing style students learn in school, or SAT-style writing.

“In real ways, blogging and other forms of virtual debate actually foster the very types of intellectual exchange, analysis, and argumentative writing that universities value,” he wrote in an op-ed piece last August.

The full report is available on the Pew Internet site.

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