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The art of everyday life

The art of everyday life:


Multimedia changing the face of education.

Laura Hall
ETEC 532/65A
University of British Columbia
Instructor: Dr. Alex de Cosson
23 February 2016

The art of everyday life

Art is a form of expression that helps us to understand and make sense of the
world around us. From billboards to curriculum-based resources, the arts help us to foster
a sense of understanding to learners around the world, speaking in a universal language to
which we are all able to generate meaning. A multimodal approach to teaching and story
telling are emerging as the new dominant form of information delivery. Making
information more accessible to the learner through various platforms, multimedia is
infiltrating the field of education through multimodal pedagogies making information and
resources accessible to the everyday learner. With these leaps in information delivery,
museums and galleries are shifting information to a multimedia online platform
supporting a global acquisition of knowledge. The changing modes of communication
and information transmission demand a new and more interactive approach to engage and
motivate the twenty-first century learner.
Multimedia is understood to be the combination of text, sound, images and video
to present information (n.d.). The ability to integrate more than one method to present
information helps to support different types of learners and to support authentic
opportunities to make connections to material (Siegel, 2012). It does so through
providing unique opportunities to interact with material from presentation of
information to ways of demonstrating understanding, multimedia allows the learner to
construct their own understanding, generating a reflective and critical practice as they
approach content (Moon, 2001). Discipline-based art education (DBAE) is an education
approach designed to integrate multimedia into the learning environment to generate
knowledge, skill and understanding of art (Getty Education Institute for the Arts). DBAE
was created in response to art educators who had been calling for a more holistic,
comprehensive, and multifaceted approach to art education (Getty Education Institute
for the Arts). Working to develop four main areas in art education, DBAE aims to
promote art production, art criticism, art history and the understanding and value of art
through aesthetics (Getty Education Institute for the Arts). In effect, DBAE is designed
to provide exposure to, experience with, and acquisition of content from several
disciplines of knowledge (Dobbs, 1998, p.3).
DBAE attempts to build knowledge through connections with other disciplines.
The Getty Museum, through their website, applies a interdisciplinary approach to

The art of everyday life

developing skills necessary to effectively interpret and connect to material in a


meaningful way. Their approach is supported by theorist Von Glasersfeld, who
emphasizes, learning is a constructive activity that the students themselves have to carry
out (Fosnot, 2013, 4%). The Getty museum website is an interactive, collaborative
platform a concept developed after Gettys death in 1976 by Museum Director, Stephen
Garrett. The website embraces the constructivist ideal of better preparing individuals to
fully engage in the world by focusing on learning communities and collaborative
approaches to learning (von Glasersfeld, 2008, p.48). This encourages the creation of
information through inquiry, collaboration, knowledge building and reflection in order to
develop understanding. Demanding students be active participants in their creation of
knowledge, the Getty Museum online component supports constructivist ideals through
DBAE and opportunities to facilitate learning.
There are certain hesitations when approaching commercially sponsored
curricular resources. These extend to learning opportunities, as we are able to
amalgamate the use of free available resources along with the important identification of
bias and socio-political climate presented. All resources, regardless of their origins,
present bias. It is through understanding and reflection that we are able to acknowledge
how ideas and objects are presented by society to help students form a realistic
understanding of the world around them. By teaching perspective and critical thinking,
and acknowledging biases in relation to different contexts and information, we can come
to help support student learning. To demonstrate full engagement, the learner must learn
to apply as well as to transform the knowledge in new and different situations, thus
creating connections.
Multimedia approach to learning fosters an environment of authentic
opportunities for students. Individuals are able to take ownership of their learning,
making personal connections to the information. If the medium is the message, as
Marshall McLuhan describes, multimedia and the Getty Museum online provides a
much-needed lesson for twenty-first century learners (1967, pg.1).

The art of everyday life

References
Discipline Based Art Education defined. (n.d.). Retrieved February 21, 2016, from
http://www.getty.edu/education/teacherartexchange/archive/Sep01/1221.html
Dobbs, Stephen M. (1998). Learning in and Through Art: A Guide to Discipline-based
Art Education. Retrieved from:
http://books.google.ca/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=3uRObj8b4NEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq=discipline+based+art+e
ducation&ots=u_jsqA3279&sig=ksRZz2BJocrAYuEUL11jBzeaf8#v=onepage&q=discipline%20based%20art%20education&f=false
Fosnot, C. T. (2013). Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice, *2nd Ed.
Teachers College Press. 15-66.
Getty Education Institute for the Arts. (n.d.). What Is Discipline-Based Art Education.
Retrieved from http://www.artsednet.getty.edu/
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media | The MIT Press. Retrieved May 19, 2015,
from http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf
Moon, J. (2001). PDP Working paper 4: Reflection in higher education learning.
(n.d.). Retrieved February 21, 2016, from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/dida/multimedia/productsrev1.shtml
Siegel, M. (2012). New times for multimodality? Confronting the accountability culture.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(8), 671-681.
Von Glasersfeld, E. (2008). Learning as a Constructive Activity. AntiMatters, 2(3), 3349. Retrieved October 19, 2014, from http://antimatters.org/articles/73/public/7366-1-PB.pdf

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