Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

A ED 322 Visual Culture and Educational Technologies

The course provides a foundation for innovative integration of digital technologies in art making, viewing, and teaching.

Long Desc -

The purpose of the course is to develop skills, questioning attitudes, and uses for technology in art and art education; and to engage in electronic mediated communication and new media artmaking. This course is for both undergraduate Art Education degree options: (1) Schools, and (2) Museums & Cultural Institutions. The focus is on students' constructing a critical understanding of technology as a cultural interface in contemporary art, visual culture, and art education. This course addresses issues, practices, and potentials of instructional technology for art education. Course participants explore the pedagogical implications of intertextual Webs, hypertext & hypermedia, blogs, simulations, virtual reality, threaded dialogue, WebQuests, online games, media communities, collaborations, adaptive and assistive technologies, and media-rich "student papers." This course emphasizes the importance of sharing perspectives in an educational context, and on how e-learning course tools, along with specific teaching strategies, can facilitate shared perspectives.

A grad student teaching the course approached me several weeks ago to request space on Penn State Isles in SL for this class. I was happy to grant the request - SL is perfect for it. Here's a shot of the build so far:

I've asked the grad student to provide more info as the class rolls - so hopefully I'll have more to report here soon. It's great to see this PSU resource being utilized - you really should stop be and check out the many projects underway in this space.