New Media in the Art Classroom

At the beginning of the semester I will admit, I did not have a good idea of what new media meant. My vision was clouded by photoshop and from my ineptness of the program. This is not to say that I was against teaching photoshop or any new media. Just that it is difficult especially if you are not taught well and only have background knowledge of an intuitive program like kid pix's or Mario paint (this statement is a jab at photoshop and how un intuitive it is). I would say any form that has the potential for art making deserves a chance in an art room due to how creative a child can be with that material or medium. However, this depends mostly on how one is taught about the art form itself. Most schools would focus primarily on telling a student in a lecture how to do something, but that takes the fun away from exploring. Granted there are things that need explaining, but without that first explorative step I believe a child could be lost forever in ever learning an art form. If i were to implement new media i would ask the students to explore the medium first and then tell everyone in a discussion what was learned. Then if further explanation of certain tools is needed i would proceed to do so. This method can be applied to photoshop.

Honestly my opinion of how something should be taught in the classroom did not change from the beginning of the class. This is related to the main question of whether new media should be taught in the classroom because an art teacher cannot have one without the other and depending on how something is taught can make all the difference.

I would also say the wikispace argument that was posed and asking people to reflect on the debate is biased mainly because the class was divided to have certain opinions during the debate and not their own.

A quick side note: kid's pix or at least the 1990's version had interesting sound effects and clips for a simple action. This made the experience all the more fun for students and children at home. Mario paint provided a similar experience, but expanded to music and mini games.

However, in hindsight in my mind the word paint should be reworded or redefined. When one painted in mario paint, in kid's pix, or even photoshop the area enclosed was slowly filled in with "paint". I put paint in quotation marks because i personally believe the creators of the game were trying to market it as a similar experience to the real thing and could not find a better word for using pixels to color in an image with their program. Perhaps I am just being overly critical of the process. It is a less messy experience and probably in the long run more cost effective too.

I am curious would a person who has no painting experience and learns to "paint" in photoshop still retain and be able to use that knowledge in painting on a physical canvas? would the same be true in reverse?