Keys to Imagination: ICT in Art Education
Creating Spaces, October 2003
Funded by Arts Council England
Acknowledgements
This report has been a collaborative endeavour with support, guidance and contributions from a great many people. We are particularly grateful to the teachers who took time to prepare and explain their work with young people to us and who’s passion and commitment to this area was inspirational. The participating schools were: All Saints (CE) Aided Middle School (Northampton), Beacon Community College (East Sussex), Frank Wise Special School (Oxfordshire), Gateway Primary School (London), Hampstead School and Technology College (London), Lowton High School (Wigan), Luckwell Primary School (Avon), Preston Manor High School (London), Sidcot School (North Somerset), Saint John’s RC Comprehensive School (Kent).
We also extend our thanks to the members of the project scoping group, drawn from a range of organisations and agencies with responsibility to support art and design education in schools. This group helped identify an appropriate subset of schools and helped to inform the background to the research and the breadth of issues it should encompass. The scoping group included: Lesley Burgess (Institute of Education), Ruth Jacobs (Watershed Media Centre), Kevin Mathieson (Association of Advisors and Inspectors in Art & Design/National Society for Education in Art & Design), Janice McLaren (The Photographers’ Gallery), Rebecca Sinker (Middlesex University/Institute of International Visual Arts), Judy Thomas (Baltic).
The report was commissioned by Vivienne Reiss and Trevor Horsewood of the visual arts department at Arts Council England, who have supported and nurtured the project throughout.
Thanks also to the members of the Creating Spaces group who have reviewed and commented on the material as it has emerged, in particular to Jim Patterson who helped to identify a narrative theme for the report, and to Rebecca Sinker for bringing everything together in such a compelling document.
Contents
Foreword p4
Research process and team P5
Terminology P6
Introduction P7
Findings P11
- Value
- Motivation
- Creativity
- Environment/access
- Resources
- Connections
- Funding
Conclusions P25
Recommendations P27
Bibliography P29
Foreword
Initiatives established over the last ten years by the visual arts department at Arts Council England have begun to really explore the possibilities that new technologies present for creative practice, and also more broadly in relation to teaching and learning. The Open initiative in 2000 promoted young peoples' creative uses of digital technologies. From this the Open/ed on-line learning resource has been developed as a distribution, communication and creative media bringing together visual arts, education and technology communities. This research was commissioned to present a context for the Open/ed resource, providing a snapshot of some of the main issues for art and design teachers in relation to ICT. In collaboration with the new audiences department, our aim is to understand how such an online resource could engage art teachers both as consumers and producers of cultural production.
National statistics show that there has been little progress overall in this field, in spite of Government intentions; in fact they point to a decline in the use of ICT in the art and design curriculum. There is evidence though, of 'pockets of exemplary practice' and it is this practice that the researchers have focussed on in this report. It highlights the approaches of a number of teachers who recognise and are exploring the potential of creative uses of digital technologies. In particular it draws attention to the unique contribution that artists and cultural institutions can provide in developing this field of practice.
I would like to thank Creative Spaces for carrying out this research and Rebecca Sinker for her insights into this field of enquiry. A special thanks must go to Tony Wheeler for his energy and commitment in advocating the creative uses of new technology across the curriculum.
Given all the hype and claims around the 'promise' of new technologies, it is significant that there has been little analysis of why, when and how digital media and resources can have a positive effective in terms of creative practice and teaching a learning. We look forward to working with other individuals and agencies in the future to address these fundamental questions.
Vivienne Reiss
Senior Visual Arts Officer: Education and Development
The research process and the research team
This report is drawn from a series of case study school visits made in February and March 2003, along with a review of current and recent literature and survey data. Sources of data included: Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) annual surveys of ICT in schools; Ofsted reports; research carried out by the Clore Duffield Foundation and other small-scale research projects. The selection process for schools was designed to identify a range from different phases, including specialist schools, from various regions across the country. A scoping group drawn from organisations, agencies and groups with responsibility to support art education in schools, helped select these schools. Having established an idea of the national picture we were deliberately looking for schools where digital approaches to visual arts were already established. To present a focus for the study each of the schools was asked to identify a visual arts project that had involved the use of digital technology. Teachers also completed a questionnaire outlining the ICT resources they had access to in their classroom, school and outside the school.
A specialist team from the Creating Spaces group undertook to plan, manage and conduct the research and write up the report. Creating Spaces is a network of professionals working in education, dedicated to promoting an inclusive, relevant and accessible approach to teaching and learning with technology. The research team was:
Hannah Davies – Hannah Davies has worked on a range of projects involving media, research, education and ICT. She now works for the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva.
Anton Franks – Anton Franks is a teacher educator and researcher working on English and drama in education at the Institute of Education, University of London.
Avril Loveless – Avril Loveless is a reader at the University of Brighton. Her work includes teaching, writing and research in the use of ICT in education, with a focus on creativity.
Nick Mosdell – Nick Mosdell is a cognitive psychologist working as an associate lecturer at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University.
Tony Wheeler – Tony Wheeler is an independent designer, publisher, lecturer and researcher working with a range of agencies, organisations and universities.
The final report was edited by Rebecca Sinker, a freelance artist and educator with 10 years experience researching, teaching, managing and writing about media arts projects across all sectors of education, from primary to post-graduate.
Terminology
Various terms have been used in this report which may need some clarification. Here is a brief glossary of terms indicating how we have applied them in this report. (this does not apply to their use in direct quotations from other sources).
Art and design = National Curriculum subject
CPD = continued professional development
ICT = Information and Communications Technology, National Curriculum subject or ‘capability’
ICT in Art = the use of new technologies to support teaching and learning in art and design
Digital technologies = digital hardware, peripherals and systems (computers, scanners etc)
Digital resources = software and content (CDs, Photoshop, www.artsednet.org)
Digital media = the medium (video, photography, net art)
New technologies = collective noun for all digital technologies, resources and media
Introduction
‘Progress in the use of ICT in art and design is uneven, with the occasional pocket of exemplary practice, which is sometimes little known outside the school or the department.’
ICT in Schools: Effect of government initiatives, secondary art and design (Ofsted, June 2002)
Creative potential of new technologies?
New technologies afford unprecedented possibilities for creative participation in an enormous range of activities, not only within what currently constitutes the school curriculum, but well beyond that in countless other aspects of our lives. They offer practical and technical solutions to all sorts of problems, from the everyday (paying the gas bill) to the esoteric (learning Klingon). It is arguable that no previous field of technological development has promised such creative opportunities to so many people. In the context of formal education, the creative potential of new technologies can encompass:
· all subjects, disciplines and specialisms
· all types of audio-visual, text-based, sensory and kinetic media
· all phases, stages and ages
· all abilities, capabilities and special needs
It is disappointing therefore, that so much of this potential is not only unrealised but apparently unrecognised, particularly in what has traditionally been viewed as the creative area of the curriculum, art and design. Initial evidence for this report, gathered from a wide range of different sources, paints a national picture showing little consolidated progress in effective integration of ICT into art and design education in schools. More alarmingly, while many art teachers report a growing feeling of responsibility for protecting a creative corner in the curriculum, national statistics from the DfES, Ofsted and BESA indicate the situation for ICT in art and design is getting worse not better. They show a pattern of poor and declining use with little evidence that teachers of the subject are engaged with the creative process in their uses of ICT.
The most recent DfES survey of ICT (2002) asked schools to record the level of ‘positive benefit’ ICT had in each area of the curriculum. On first examination it appears that almost a quarter of all schools reported ‘little or no benefit’ from using ICT in art (primary 23 percent, secondary 26 percent and special 27 percent). When compared with the 2000 survey, there has been a marked decline over a two year period across all schools in the incidence of ‘substantial use’ of ICT in art, particularly in primary schools where the data shows a 31 percent drop, but also at secondary level with a 14 percent drop. In the incidence of ‘no use’ of ICT in art and design, there appears to be an increase of 12 percent in primary and a massive 24 percent in secondary schools. A closer analysis of these results reveals some anomalies with the way in which the data tables have been constructed, however, even if the rates may be debatable, the pattern of declining use is clear.
The most recent BESA annual report on ICT purchasing trends (2002–3) asked schools to indicate patterns of ICT use in individual subjects. In maths 23 percent of primary schools and 15 percent of secondary schools reported that more than 10 percent of pupil time was spent using ICT. This contrasts with the pattern in art and design where only six percent of primary schools and seven percent of secondary schools reported that more than 10 percent of pupil time in art was spent using ICT.
National ICT initiatives
While this evidence of a disconnection between ICT and art and design may relate to the generally low status that the subject has within the curriculum, it may also be explained by successive government initiatives which have actually alienated art teachers from new technologies rather than empowering them to realise their potential.
By reinforcing curriculum subjects as discrete areas of study and by defining content, successive statutory frameworks ensure that the National Curriculum is implemented through a delivery model, gradually squeezing creativity and experimentation out of most subjects. The National Grid For Learning (NGfL) initiative (1998–2003) provided funding for computer equipment, networking and connectivity, focussing almost exclusively on hardware and pupil-computer ratios, resulting in the creation of ICT suites that are frequently inaccessible and often inappropriate for art and design.
The National Society for Education in Art & Design (NSEAD) tells us a number of members have commented that the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) schemes they experienced had an inappropriate focus on generic ICT skills rather than art and design specific skills. They also expressed the view that, while those schemes, which were backed up with face to face training, were more successful, there was an over-emphasis on paper-based resources and little or no contact with art specialists in the training they undertook. Subsequently, the decision to develop a centralised KS3 ICT strategy[1] which reinforces the division between art and ICT is in danger of re-confirming for art teachers that ICT has little to offer the subject. This is because the strategy tightly defines the scope and content of ICT lessons, rather than encouraging a more integrated interdisciplinary approach. And what of future initiatives? We are promised another batch of continued professional development programmes which indicate little has been learnt from previous implementations. They still employ centralised, top-down, prescribed models, where the main focus remains the provision of technology systems. The Curriculum Online project (www.curriculumonline.gov.uk) has provided a comprehensive catalogue of resources, but some early reports suggest the system is completely impractical for teachers (not just art teachers). The system developers seem to have little or no feel for the circumstances of the users and teachers have little or no idea what the systems might be able to do for them.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) has recently launched two web-based initiatives to promote art and design, Arts alive! (http://www.qca.org.uk/artsalive/) and the Creativity section of the National Curriculum Action website (http://www.ncaction.org.uk/creativity/index.htm). Both of these projects derive from consultation with teachers and experts in the field and both have a welcome contributory element, which represents a promising development. However, there are no opportunities to interact with, or to evaluate and comment on the case studies and no facility to connect with and gather other teachers’ opinions and experiences. Another potentially positive move is the recent DfES move to develop ICT in specific curriculum areas by sponsoring individual subject associations to develop their own online resources. It is too early to judge the effectiveness of these initiatives and we can only hope they will provide a more appropriate focus for nurturing teachers’ interests and developing practice, while avoiding a ‘top-down’ model where resources are published for and broadcast to teachers.