The Experience of Teaching Visual Arts in a Purely Online Learning Environment

Abstract

One of the major new developments in higher education is the growth of virtual universities and eLearning. While this development has definite practical benefits, such as, freedom from constraints of time and geography, there are also disparities that arise between real world and virtual technology-led teaching. Tertiary Visual Arts educators face significant challenges in this new learning environment because removing face-to-face interaction has implications for creating spaces where pre-service teachers can develop their Visual Arts practice and knowledge of pedagogies. This paper describes the experiences of a tertiary Visual Arts education academic and presents findings from a small scale study that investigated the attitudes of a group of tertiary students, enrolled in a primary undergraduate unit, towards e-learning.