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.

Librarians are Cool

Image via Wikipedia

I know I’m dating myself here, but I don’t remember ever having a cool librarian as a kid. Instead, the librarians I knew had pursed lips, shushed people for a living, and slept with the Dewey Decimal System.

Not today. Librarians are Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, wiki-ing, and definitely not sleeping with the Dewey Decimal System.

If you want proof, take a look at the Library page of the Online Education Database, which currently contains reviews of 1,081 programs from 86 accredited online colleges. There, you’ll find tons of references written by and for librarians about using social media in libraries around the country.

Here’s what the Library page says about Twitter, for example:

Twitter is a free communication and social networking tool which allows you to convey short messages of up to 140 characters to your circle of friends via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client. Messages appear not only within your profile on Twitter, but are sent to your community of followers who have signed up to receive your updates. Often referred to as microblogging, this new phenomenon has caught on with over 300,000 users on Twitter alone including Barack Obama and John Edwards. Twitter recently made the cut as one of Time’s Best 50 Websites of 2007. Librarians are using it to communicate at conferences and events and to keep up with developments in the field, and libraries have begun using it to promote their services.

Among their listings are librarian-only applications and networks like:

Shakespeare High Cafeteria: This online tribute to Shakespeare features active discussions about Shakespeare news, book clubs, a creative writing center, “staff lounge,” study help and teaching ideas.

Readers Read: Browse forum topics like publishing industry, general fiction, mystery/thriller, children’s books and nonfiction.

TeacherLibrarianNing: Educators and librarians get together on this network, where you can join groups, post photos, upload videos and more.

The Shifted Librarian: Librarians connect through this blog about library news, trends and of course, books.

Librarian Facebook Application: This Facebook app connects you to other librarians who can answer your search questions.

They also list a number of social media sites for librarians and book-lovers, including:

Shelfari: This blog about books and book collecting has a MySpace page and a Facebook application.

GoodReads: Keep track of what you and your friends are reading through this online networking site.

BookJetty: BookJetty lets users organize, rate and review books and even look up books in the site’s database of over 300 libraries around the world. Users also get a blog that lets them show off a “bookshelf” to friends.

MySpace Books: This ultimate social networking site has a page just for books, connecting readers, authors and those in the book industry.

Books iRead: Another Facebook app that lets you rate, review, and share books you’ve read.

You can also catch a number of 21st century posts on the site, including these:

50 Ways to Use the Wii In Your Library

100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians

e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Need any more proof that librarians are cool? I don’t think so. Now shush!