I remember when I was young, after dinner my parents and my siblings (I have 9 of them) would go into the living room and study. We would all spread out on the floor with our homework, pouring over encyclopedias and asking questions of my mother and father. (it sounds like a TV moment; actually it was loud and often broke out into fights!) To me it was wonderful and fun. It was an embodiment of an interactive experience, peer-to-peer teaching and truly collaborative. Yet because of so many siblings in the house, I also found refuge in the closet - the only quiet place to read on my own. So what does that say? (please reserve any judgements about life-long therapy!) I think my early experiences as a learner mirrors the authors point that both kinds of experiences are important for real learning. Today, the sprawling out on the floor is the equivalent of being part of a socal networking site or blogging with classmates on a certain topic. It is interactive and collaborative. The author talks about IT as a way to enrich traditional forms of learning and to act as a link between the individual and the group, active and passive(reading in the closet) in the transmission and generation of knowledge.

Students need to be engaged in their learning - not just through a question and answer environment, but actually finding the information that they will ultimately question and then analyze. I am convinced that the group is as valid as the individual. For so many years, a practicing artist has been the stereotype of a lone individual in a studio "making something from nothing". Then the work, having a life of its own would go into the world via an exhibiiton and the artist would move on to other projects. Yes, I believe that that studio experience is still an important experience for the artist but as the world has changed and actually become smaller, the audience has become more intimate. I never really thought of it that way before. The feedback, the questions, the learning about the making of the work can be as useful to the public as it is for the artist.

I am intersted in teaching kids how art is important and present in there lives. One way of doing that is to make them into artists, which by the way they already are, and to break down the process of making, almost to micromanage creativity. Another way is to just make, make , make, and to witness the evolution of the process. Both of these strategies can be facilitaed through technology. Even the making can be interrupted using technology, saved and remembered for further discussion later (not unlike the film of Jackson Pollack painting). Once again, not to replace the traditional experience but to enrich it. I beleive that kids need to touch things, but there are some aspects of technology that can only be gained on that front. One of them is the amount of multiples that can happen when using technology. There are countless ideas that stem from making variations on a theme, easily gained from digital media. Also, the mixing up of different media has been a favorite tool for asrtists for decades - now digital media is added to the list of materials for the artist/student to manipulate.

I think students who are already comfortable with digital media can move around it as potential for art with great ease and fluency. It's getting the teachers onboard - that's another matter! The author states at the beginning of the chaper that Motivation is the key factor in learning. From K all the way to 12, the teacher will always be the one to inspire and to show what is possible.