Online Conference on
Learning and Teaching with Technology
in Art Design and Communication
DeL Online 2009: Presenters
Dr Shei-chau Wang & Christine L Liao
An inter-institutional design for art critiquing in Second Life
Abstract
This paper is a study of students using a virtual gallery space in Second Life® for art critiquing. Two instructors from two universities in the United States collaborated on this project to investigate the possible pros and cons of using a virtual environment for inter-institutional conversation/exchange in critiquing art. A group of eleven undergraduate art education students in Pennsylvania created virtual art pieces and displayed them in a gallery in Second Life. While the Pennsylvania students peer critiqued each other’s works, a group of five graduate art education students from Illinois joined them and became guest critics. The interaction between the two groups of students was first held in Second Life (Comment Box); due to the limitations of communication in Second Life, the two groups of students continued their discussions on a Web 2.0 discussion board to familiarize the Illinois students with the context of the Pennsylvania students’ artwork. The data collected in this study include the instructors’ email correspondence, visual documentations of the students’ artwork and actions in the Second Life gallery, written documents of peer critiques, and the guest reviewers’ analyses. This paper will discuss the process of this collaborative project and the activities of the two groups of students in Second Life—what is reflected by their virtual physical behaviour and by the comprehension of their critiques of the virtual art exhibition—and will analyze the strengths and weaknesses of using Second Life for art critiquing from four perspectives, those of the art teacher, the reviewer, the visitor, and the artist. The major findings include the following. By transcending distance limitations, the virtual art exhibition format gives people a new way to create and share art for educational purposes. The inter-institutional collaboration broadens art education students’ vision in teaching and learning art. However, the poor image quality is the major concern for the reviewers in making fair visual judgements. Too many functions and steps to be learned discourage new users’ motivation to participate in Second Life activities. The participants understood that although Second Life is not yet available for K-12 students, there are possibilities to adapt the concepts of virtual realities to their art classrooms. They also learned that with the continuous development of the innovated technologies, they will have the advantage to enrich the quality of their teaching in the future.Suggestions and plan for future studies will also be discussed in the presentation.
Keywords
Second Life, Art Critique, Inter-institutional Collaboration
Theme
The Virtual Atelier
Presentation
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Dr Shei-chau Wang
Shei-chau Wang is Associate Professor of Art Education at Northern Illinois University, USA. His research interests include teaching visual culture at the college level, e-learning in art and design, and electronic portfolio development and assessment. He currently serves in the editorial board for the International Journal of Education through Art.
Dr Shei-chau Wang
Associate Professor
Northern Illinois University
USA
Email: scwang@niu.edu
Christine L Liao
Christine Liao is a doctoral candidate in art education in the School of VisualArts at Penn State University. Her research focuses on new media, technologyand society, contemporary art, pedagogy, and identity. She is currentlyteaching an undergraduate course “Visual Culture and Educational Technologies” at Penn State.
Christine L Liao
Ph.D. candidate in art education
Pennsylvania State University
USA
Email: cll212@psu.edu
