An Adventure of Using Blogs as a Research Tool in Visual Art Education

Abstract

Education is one of the fields affected mostly by the impact of technological developments. Art educators should also adapt themselves to the changes and developments shaped by the requirements of the day. As a member of the group which Prensky called digital immigrants, I had to make it an adventure on learning blogs, in my early 30s. I am not a blogger but an art educator so I had to discover the potentials of blogs as well as discovering the technical process such as creating, managing, and updating them. After I learned and experienced the blogosphere, it comes to test my skills as an art educator on this Web 2.0 environment as an educational research tool. In this study, I critique how the blog technology challenged me to learn and teach in a circular integration process. This is a narrative inquiry in which I honestly told my own story, a story that an adventurer searching for new learning environments for pre-service art educators, in all aspects of success, happiness, failure and disappointment. The choice of the blog platform, the process of creating a class blog and student blogs, the process of planning and practicing activities using blogs, gathering and handling huge amount of data from blogs, presenting the results of a research, are the milestones on the road in this adventure. Using blogs to share opinions on a specific subject, to increase the technical and creative skills, to increase written and visual expression skills, to share and criticize artworks, even to lead creating artwork derived from the idea of being a blogger, are some of the prizes I get at the end of the adventure.