------------------------------------------------------------------------
BREAKDOWN OF THESIS

• How are artists and art educators using virtual communities?

• How do virtual communities assist and inhibit the process of art making and art teaching?

• How does the virtual community impact and alter relationships, space, rituals, identity, artistic practice, ideas about public and private, fiction and fact?

• history of virtual communities and the Net

• projects that relate to my case study

------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES

1. Email Discussion Lists - (assychronous communication) Discussion Lists are the most basic and easiest form of online gathering places to participate in assuming that each group member has access to email. Users do not have to "check in" somewhere to take part in the conversation, they simply read and reply to group emails.

"Email lists are typically owned by a single individual or small group" (Smith and Kollock 5).

• Another Girl at Play - Over twenty successful, talented and inspirational women share their stories of how they took their creative dreams and made them real. By sharing their journeys, experiences and wisdom they show that making a living at being creative is possible if only you try.
www.anothergirlatplay.com

• ArtsEdNet Talk - An online community of teachers and learners participating in a variety of conversations about art education with colleagues from across the United States or even around the world through e-mail. Participants in the discussion are welcome to ask questions and comment on any topics of their choice involving arts education.
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet/Talk/index.html

2. Message Board - (assychronous communication) Message Boards offer additional features over a mailing list that give you more community building power including a sense of place, the context of each message, images, and the community's evolving history.

• Get Crafty Discussion Boards - swap ideas with crafty people from all over the world.
discuss.gromco.com/mwforum/forum_show.pl

• Craftster.org - craftster.org is a repository for hip, crafty, diy (do it yourself) projects. Whenever possible, members are encouraged to post pictures of the steps involved in making a project as well as the final results. We attempt to be carefully organized to allow members to easily find the projects they are looking for. Special emphasis is placed on projects that involve recycling, reusing and repurposing existing objects. We at craftster.org feel strongly that whenever an object can be reused rather than buried in a landfill, it's a worthy venture. Not to mention a interesting challenge! There are a bunch of great forums on the web that focus on the subject of crafting and diy projects, but until now there hasn't been a user-driven forum that focuses on archiving actual projects with pictures and step-by-step instructions. The other forums (that we know and love and read) are very free-form. You may do a search for a project like "bowl made from a record album" and come up with several different threads -- each one lacking in the full details of this project -- with perhaps no pictures of the final project and how to do it. craftster.org attempts to be more organized by breaking down projects into several categories and encouraging all information pertaining to a project be a part of the same thread. We encourage members to post completed projects with pictures whenever possible. We also try to separate the "discussion" area from the "projects" area so you can rely on easily finding the project you want and the info you need on making that project and not get bogged down with discussion.
http://www.craftster.org

3. Text chat - (sychronous communication) Text Chat or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) allows the user to communicate in real time - anyone who is connected to the system has the ability to correspond instantly with any other participant. "IRC is a dynamic form of communication: new comments appear at the bottom of your screen as you watch, and older comments scroll off the top of your screen" (Rheingold 181).

"You can't see people when you are computer-chatting with them; you can't even ascertain their true identities, and you are unlikely ever to run into them on the material plane or recognize them if you do. Chat systems lack the community memory of a BBS or conferencing system or MUD, where there is some record of what was said or done in your absence" (Rheingold 183).

4. Multi-User Domains or Dungeons (MUDS) - (sychronous communication) "MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeons - imaginary worlds in comuter databases where people use words and programming languages to improvise melodramas, build worlds and all the objects in them, solve puzzles, invent amusements and tools, compete for prestige and power, gain wisdom, seek revenge, indulge greed and lust and violent impulses" (Rheingold 149).

5. World Wide Web - (assychronous and sychronous communication) The World Wide Web can host asynchronous message boards, guestbooks, discussion lists as well as real time chat.

• 20 things. 20 people. 20 days. - Web presence building an offline community
The 20 things project is an online gallery showcasing the work of artists who create limited edition multiples. The only way to acquire the work is to make work of your own to trade.
www.20things.org

• 1000journals - Web presence building an offline community
One thousand blank journals are traveling from hand to hand throughout the world. Those who find them will add stories and drawings, and then pass them along. You can be a part of it.
www.1000journals.com

6. Web Blog - A website with frequent, dated entries listed in reverse chronological order. The entries have links and commentary and often an opportunity for others to comment.

• Kerri Smith - Kerri Smith is an award winning illustrator and author who has dedicated her work to courage building, creative living, and the promotion of "PLAY." She maintains a monthly newsletter, "The Wish Jar Tales," which outlines what she's been up to including eating, playing, watching, reading, etc.
www.kerismith.com

• Kurt Halsey - An online art journal.
http://www.kurthalsey.com/

• Reconstructed Mind - An online art journal.
http://cobaltika-studio.com/reconstructed-mind

• Claire Robertson - Loobylu is the personal website of Claire Robertson who is an illustrator living and working in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. She maintains a daily weblog and a personal portfolio site.
www.loobylu.com
www.clairetown.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
ARTISTS

Digital Divas - Guestbook / World Wide Web
Digital Divas is a growing network of the finest females that make magic on the Internet. Our members are talented, artistic, intelligent, and ethical females who aren't intimidated by the latest technology... in fact, we welcome it and even help to create it. We love computers and we spend endless hours on them... using our talents to produce some of the finest work found on the World Wide Web. Each member is blessed with her own unique gifts and we are joining together to grow and learn... to share ideas, offer encouragement, promote ethical standards, and to give of ourselves through our work.
http://www.digitaldivas.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
ART EDUCATORS

Virtual Curriculum
Designed to aid teachers in the art education of elementary aged children
www.dhc.net/%7eartgeek/index.html

ArtsEdge-Visual Arts
ARTSEDGE supports the place of arts education at the center of the curriculum through the creative and appropriate uses of technology. ARTSEDGE helps educators to teach in, through and about the arts.
artsedge.kennedy-center.org

Art Room
The @rt room is designed around the idea of "activity" centers that encourage kids to create, to learn and to explore new ideas, places and things on their own."
www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/index.html

STArt
Tool for Educators
www.open.k12.or.us/start/visual/perform/v-task1.html

------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WELL

The WELL is an online gathering place like no other -- remarkably uninhibited, intelligent, and iconoclastic. For more than seventeen years, it's been a literate watering hole for thinkers from all walks of life, be they artists, journalists, programmers, educators or activists. These WELL members return to The WELL, often daily, to engage in discussion, swap information, express their convictions and greet their friends in online forums known as WELL Conferences. (The Well, http://www.well.com/aboutwell.html)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES

The Virtual Community - Howard Rheingold

"...(Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) - a computer conferencing system that enables people around the world to carry on public conversations and exchange private electronic mail (email)" (Introduction).

"Computers and the switched telecommunication networks that also carry our telephone calls constitute the technical foundation of computer-mediated communications (CMC)" (Introduction).

"The Net is an informal term for the loosely interconnected computer networks that use CMC technology to link people around the world into public discussions.

Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.

Cyberspace, originally a term from William Gisbon's science-fiction novel Neuromancer, is the name some people use for the conceptual space where words, human relationships, data, wealth, and power are manifested by people using CMC technology" (Introduction).

"1950, Douglas Engelbart...Could computers automate symbol-handling tasks, and thus help people think faster, better, about more complex problems?" (57)

"When I first heard about computers, I understood, from my radar experience, that if these machines can show you information on punchcards and printouts on paper, they could write or draw that information on a screen. When I saw the connection between a cathoderay screen, an information processor, and a medium for representing symbols to a person, it all tumbled together in about a half an hour" (57).

"In 1963, Engelbart was funded to create the thinking machines he had dreamed about. Engelbart was just the first of a lineage of stubborn visionaries who insisted that computers could be used by people other than specialists" (58).

"The essential elements of what became the Net were created by people who believed in, wanted, and therefore invented ways of using computers to amplify human thinking and communication. And many of them wanted to provide it to as many people as possible, at the lowest possible cost" (59).

"...it wasn't the mainstream of the existing computer industry that created affordable personal computing, but teenagers in garages" (60).

"Through the 1980s, significant somputeing power became available on college campuses, and everbody, not jus the programming, science, and engineering students, began using networked personal computers as part of their intellectual work, along with textbooks and lectures" (61).

Communities in Cyberspace - Edited by Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock

"The "information superhighway" competes with a collection of metaphors that attempt to label and define these technologies. Others, like "cyberspace," "the Net," "online," and "the Web," highlight the different aspects of network technology and its meaning, role, and impact...computer networks allow people to create a range of new social spaces in which to meet and interact with one another" (3).

"It is easy to imagine why people may seek information on the Net: they have a problem and would like a solution. What prompts someone to answer? Why take the effort to help an unknown and distant person? Altruism is often cited; people feel the desire or obligation to help individuals and to contribute to the group. Yet selfless goodwill alone does not sustain the thousands of discussions; building reputationand establishing one's online identity provides a great deal of motivation" (31).

"Although groups share a common technology and interface, the social mores - writing style, personal interactions, and clues about identity - vary greatly from forum to forum" (34).

"...mid-1970s, Allucquere Rosanne Stone writes, "the age of surveillance and social control arrived for the electronic community" (Stone 1991, 91). As Stone describes, the CommuniTree computerized bulletin board was intended to be a forum for intellectual and spiritual discussion among adults. It was an environment where censorship was censured and each user's privacy was both respected and guaranteed by the system's administrator's." (108)

"MUDs are networked, multi-user virtual reality systems which are widely available on the Internet. Users of these systems adopt alter egos and explore a virtual world which may depict any imagined environment. The MUD interface is entirely textual; all commands are typed in by the user and all feedback is displayed as text on a monitor. The first MUD appeared in 1978 when Roy Trubshaw, then a student at the University of Essex, England, wrote a computer game which he called Multi-User Dungeon...In 1979, Richard Bartle joined Trubshaw in working on MUD and soon took over the project" (108).

"Can people find community online in the Internet? Can relationships between people who never see, smell, touch, or hear each other be supportive and intimate?" (167)

"...critics worry that life on the Net can never be meaningful or complete because it will lead people away from the full range of in-person contact. Or, conceding half of the debate, they worry that people will get so engulfed in a simulacrum vitrual reality, that they will lose contact with "real life" (168).

"...most memebers of a person's community network do not really know each other" (171).

"Our reading of travelers' tales and anecdotes suggests that while people can find almost any kind of support on the Net, most of the support available through one relationship is rather specialized" (171).

"people can shop around for resources within the safety and comfort of their own home" (171).

"As social beings, those who use the Net seek not only information but also companionship, social support, and a sense of belonging" (173).

"Net users tend to trust strangers, much like people gave rides to hitchhikers in the flowerchild days of the 1960s" (175).

"The willingness to communicate with strangers online contrasts with in-person situations where by-standers are often reluctant to intervene and help strangers" (176).

"It is a general norm o f community that whatever is given ought to be repaid, if only to ensure that more is available when needed" (177).

"The Net is especially suited to maintaining intermediate-strength ties between people who cannot see each other frequently" (185).

"The Usenet is a quintessential Internet social phenomenon: it is huge, global, anarchis, and rapidly growing. It is also mostly invisible. Although it is the larges example of a conferencing or discussion group system, the tools generally available to accdess it display only leaves and branches-chains of messages and responses. None present the tree and the forest. With hundreds of thousands of new messages every day, it is impossible to try to read them all to get a sense of the entire place" (195).

Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace - Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt

"Connections are made through the sharing of ideas and thoughts. How people look or what their cultural, ethnic, or social background is become irrelevant factors in this medium, which has been referred to as the great equalizer" (15).

"One's identity is continuously emergent, re-formed, and redirected as one moves through the sea of ever-changing relationships" (15).

"In the online classroom, it is the relationships and interactions among people through which knowledge is primarily generated" (15).

"...the electronic personality - the person we become when we are online" (22).

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CUT + PASTE (THESIS CASE STUDY)

INTRODUCTION -

I graduated from high school in 1995 and had no idea what I wanted to do for "the rest of my life." The only classes that I had ever paid attention in were art, crafts and photography. Yet, as I knew it, you could not make a living as an "artist." So, I went ahead and applied to 8 different colleges, none of which had a strong art department. I spent a year at Northeastern getting lost in the crowds, a year at Bridgewater State wasting MY time and MY money, and finally entered into the Massart community, where I truly wanted to be in the first place.

I started the undergraduate program at Massart in art education. Half way through my sophomore year I realized – I’m not going to be an artist anymore, I’m going to be a teacher. Teachers aren’t artists? I WANT TO BE AN ARTIST. Thereafter, I weaseled my way into the Graphic Design department. NOW, I would be officially trained and considered a member of the arts society. I even made sure on my degree that it said communication design department and not art education department.

I hope I’m not offending anyone at this point because, I don’t know where that came from? Who planted the idea in my head that I would no longer be an artist if I became a teacher? Why didn’t I think I could do both?
Needless to say, I entered society as a member of the "arts community." I was a Graphic Designer. I created websites, printed posters and brochures, went on photo shoots, and saw my work in advertisements and storefronts. Sounds glamorous …but not really. All I really wanted was a way out. I WANTED TO BE A TEACHER.

As you might have noticed, I found my way back into Massart as a graduate student in the New Media Art Education program. This time, I’M GOING TO BE BOTH A TEACHER AND AN ARTIST. And here is how I plan to keep my goals and dreams alive as well as other artist/teachers out there.

CUTXPASTE.NET –
Cut + Paste is a site built just for art educators. It's all about them - you - and your creative needs, concerns, and inspirations. By having artist/teachers share their stories, wisdom and advice, I hope to inspire and encourage others, as well as myself, to pick up that paint brush again or sign up for that glassblowing class that they have always wanted to take. Through interviews, an email discussion list, and excellent creative resources, I'm hoping to admonish the statement – Those who can't...teach.

GOALS –
1. Attract and keep enough members to make it worthwhile.
2. To deliver a satisfactory return of my time and investment.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE –
The Main Index page of the Cut + Paste site has navigation to several sections including: home, about, the artists, community, resources and contact.

Home – A brief introduction of who this site is for and what the user will get out of it.

About – A letter from the author as to why this site came to be in the first place.

The Artists – The meat of the site. This section is where the artist/teacher interviews will live. Here, the user can read the interviews of others that are balancing teaching, art and personal lives and hopefully help them to begin - or continue on - their own creative path.
Interview questions –
1. What medium "s" do you use? Tell us a little about the art work that you create.
2. When and how did you first become interested in art?
3. Where did you train?
4. How did your training influence you?
5. Do you think teaching has influenced your artwork? If so, how?
6. What kind of studio/work environment do you have?
7. What is the most rewarding aspect of what you do? The most frustrating?
8. What motivates your creative ideas and activities?
9. When engaged in a creative activity, do you usually have specific goals?
10. How do you deal with creative blocks?
11. Who or what are your inspirations?
12. How has it been balancing teaching, art, and your personal life? How are you able to fit art in?
13. Words of advice for those trying to juggle a career as an artist/teacher.

Community – The community section has a number of options to keep the user involved in the growth of the site.
• Discussion List – The user can sign up for to be a part of a email discussion list.
• Newsletter – The user can sign up to receive a regular newsletter which can help them stay connected with other members and keep the community on their radar screen.
• Guestbook – The user can publish comments on the site, share links and resources, and view others feedback.

Resources – A number of suggested resources to help the visitor find a new creative path.

Contact – A space for the user to send the site author unpublished feedback,

INTERFACE DESIGN DECISIONS –
Email discussion list – I chose an email discussion list because it is the easiest kind of online gathering place to create, maintain, and participate in. The users don’t have to learn a new interface (assuming that everyone reads email) and don’t have to "check in" somewhere to take part in the conversation. Starting small will allow me to find my core audience, develop a coherent identity, and learn as I go. Running a community takes time, energy and expertise, and the larger and more complex the community is, the more that I’ll have to learn in order to manage it effectively. If it takes off, I may re-think my plan and add more features and gathering places later.

CONCLUSION –
Cut + Paste has exciting potential for a group of highly educated and creative individuals to come together and share their ideas. As the group evolves, the sense of purpose will evolve as well forcing me to come up with innovative ways to use the platform in order to address their changing requirements. The true power of this community lies within the hands of the group members.

CALL FOR HELP –
I am putting together a site just for art educators that will live at http://www.cutxpaste.net. It's all about them - you - and your creative needs and inspirations. I want to know what inspires you, where you find the time, what your mediums are, if you have any creative resources to share, etc. etc. I'm hoping that reading about artist/teachers will inspire others to pick up that paint brush again, or sign up for that glassblowing class that they have always wanted to take. Through interviews, an email discussion list, and excellent creative resources, I'm hoping to admonish the statement – Those who can't...teach.

As a graduate student, I know I don't understand what it's like yet to be a teacher and try to balance an artist/teacher schedule. But, I hope that creating this community will allow me as well as others to learn from one another.
If your interested and would like to help out I'm looking for interviews, artwork, and creative resources. Or, if you just want to know when the site goes live, drop me an email at kserra77@earthlink.net.