Using a 3-D Multi-User Virtual Environment in the Development of Art-Based Skills

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In this study, we conducted a real-time, art-based lesson in Second-Life, a 3-Dimensional Multi-User Virtual Environment (3D MUVE) for a class of second year BA Art Education trainee teachers through Problem-Based Learning (PBL) framework. We documented trainees’ experiences, their works and concerns on the use of MUVE in art learning. We believe that trainee teachers need to have positive learning experiences in alternative, virtual environments and be familiar and confident in it before they can conduct similar art lessons for their students in the future. This study aims to augment face-to-face classroom interactions with technology. It aims to situate technology firmly in pedagogy and not merely treat technology as an ‘add-on’. We believe that a 3D MUVE, like Second-Life, has vast potentials that allow for PBL and collaborative learning which might often be limited in an art classroom because of its physical space, cost of materials and maneuverability of objects. Moreover, learning through MUVE caters to the current learning styles of our students, who have grown up surrounded by computers and gaming. In this study, the trainee teachers were able to autonomously maneuver in Second-Life quite quickly and in the process, collaborated with one another successfully in solving problems and learned spatial art-based skills through the development of an expressive and artistic 3D art installation.

Stream: Creative Arts and Learning

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

A graduate with MA (Art and Art Education) from Teachers College, Columbia University, Kehk Bee Lian has been actively serving in the art education scene for the last ten years in Singapore. Trained as an Art and English teacher in secondary school, she was invited to be a curriculum planner with the Ministry of Education in 2002. Currently a lecturer in the Visual and Performing Arts Academic Group in National Institue of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Bee Lian is interested in teachers' training, and teaching and learning in the classroom. She has done research on teachers' philosophies on art teaching and continues to investigate on the close relationships between how teachers teach, what they teach and how these influence students' learning. She has published and presented in conferences in Singapore and USA. Bee Lian also contributes actively in the art education scene here by offering her expertise in committees and through workshops. She is currently co-writing an art appreciation book on Southeast Asian Art for children.

Singapore born, educator and art maker, Paul Lincoln received an MFA (Painting) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia in 2004 and is currently lecturing New Media at the Visual and Performing Arts, National Institute of Education. Singapore. His research interests include the study of Art and Design related education utilising 3D Virtual Environments (Second Life) and is also an established New Media Art maker with notable exhibitions such as SYNTHETIC TIMES - Media Art China,
Beijing (2008), Nokia Singapore Art - Cyberarts exhibition, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2001). 'GRAVITY', Multimedia Art Asia Pacific. Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2004) and 'Future Cinema', ZKM, Germany (2002).