It seems that more and more art professors, when teaching art, use internet as a way of a successful learning process. In Art Education, Colllaboration and the Internet (2003) Craig Roland claims, that »some of the most powerful applications involve students taking part in online projects and classroom activities that foster interaction and collaboration within and across contexts. The only technology you need to get started is an e-mail program, a Web-browser and a computer connected to the Internet« (Roland 2003: 1). We have already talked about the benefits of world web for making collective art, but what is probably more interesting is the question whether internet changes the concept of participating in art collaboration. Judi Haris, an author that Roland mentions in his article, raises two important questions concerning online art education: Will this use of the Internet enable students to do something that they could not do before, or enable to do something that they could do before, but better? (Roland 2003: 2). Similar questions may appear about people collaborating in art projects. How important is the role of the Internet in this case? Are due to Internet more (random) people willing to collaborate? Does Internet enables people to make more creative, better art? We have already looked at some examples of art not internet-based collaboration. For instance, in 1000 Journals project one thousand journals are travelling from hand to hand throughout the world. Those people who find them add their stories, drawings, photographs, anything they want, and pass them along to another person. Unfortunately, as it is written on 1000 Journals’ web-page, you have got a better chance of winning the lottery, then of getting a hold of a journal. Could that also be a reason why recently, online collaboration seems to increase?
Resources:
Craig Roland (2003): Art Education, Collaboration and the Internet. National Convention of the National Art Education Association 2003, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Downloaded 1.11.2009 from: http://www.artjunction.org/articles/arted_collab_internet.pdf
1000 Journals. Downloaded 1.11.2009 from: http://www.1000journals.com/
