Texas Trends in Art Education, 2010 Page: 25

                                
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By     Matthew Sutherlin &    Amy Counts
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The following paper describes a technologically enhanced pedagogy that has implications for all levels
Introduction          of educational discourse. The first narrative is by a high school English teacher, Amy, working with socio
-economically disadvantaged' students in a mid-sized town in Texas. The second narrative is by a col-
lege art education instructor, Matthew, working with pre-service elementary educators at a state university, also in the same town.
These two educators are partners in practice and in marriage; the conversation of educational practice as it relates to both sites of
inquiry, the high school and the university, bleeds into their home life. The focus of both of these educators is on literacy practice"
as it relates to culture"'. According to Manovich (1999), "As distribution of all forms of culture becomes computer-based, we are
increasingly 'interfacing' to predominantly cultural data- texts, photographs, films, music, virtual environments" (p. 69). As educa-
tors, we believe that it is essential to incorporate this media in a format designed to allow literacy construction to be a process of
critical engagement with every text. To this end, we have utilized spatial hypertext as a method of active knowledge construction
both with and by our students through the application of the Tufts University open-source software, Visual Understanding Environ-
ment (VUE), which can be downloaded at www.vue.tufts.edu.
Spatial hypertext has a long history in the academic arena and even more specifically, in art education. Kiefer-Boyd (1996),
Carpenter and Taylor (2003), Taylor and Carpenter (2002), and Taylor (2000) have all utilized hypertext in the construction of cur-
riculum and meaning-making with and in art. A spatial hypertext link differs from the common hyperlink because more than one
connection is made by the hyperlink itself. Instead of clicking on a link and being directed to one explanation, the performer of the
hypertext is given multiple explanations, paths, or associations from which to choose. An example would be a link made between
an image of Cinderella and a maid or housekeeper that could raise questions about Cinderella's place in society and our percep-
tions of the occupation of a maid. Further connections could include a wedding ring, the concept of marriage, and the promise
made by a prince. These relationships speak to possibilities that can arise from the performance of hypertext/hypermedia. The
connections made by both students and teachers become the personal made political through dialogue about society and its influ-
ence on perception. Knowledge becomes situational rather than specific to the artist or creator's intent. These situational interpre-
tations can then be applied to a larger scope of image interpretation within dominant culture (Sutherlin, 2010).

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