Alexandra Cutcher

Digital technology in the visual arts classroom: an [un]easy partnership

This article scrutinizes the dichotomy of the uneasy and easy partnerships that exist between digital technology and visual arts education. The claim that by putting computers into schools “we have bought ‘one half of a product’… we’ve bought the infrastructure and the equipment but we haven’t bought the educational piece” (McKenzie, 1999 as cited in Joyce, 2005, p. 52) is considered. Despite the ease with which many art educators have embraced technologies and tools for artistic practice in their classrooms in the past, maximizing the Internet and information communications technology usage in the visual arts classroom has been somewhat problematic. This issue and the largely absent “educational piece” of the product, that is, art made for the Internet and purpose built for Internet-as-gallery, are addressed.

Children as artists: The preschool as a community of creative practice

ABSTRACT Picasso once famously said “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” This visual inquiry is engaged through a community of creative practice in two rural childrens centers where the researchers along with 4- and 5-year-old children collaborated to create a large-scale canvas and several smaller artworks developed from the childrens shared interests. By investigating the site where uninhibited and intuitive creative practice is expressed—that of early childhood education—the authors explored such questions as “What can we learn from the art making of young children?” and “Why is this important?” In this visual essay, it is recognized that children are indeed artists, rather than merely children who enjoy painting; issues of practice are explored and honored. It is further acknowledged that children are also theorists, experimenting again and again as learning occurs; they are also often our teachers. Collaborating with children as a community of embodied artists honors their creative authority.