Today many of the art teachers in my county got together for a beginning of the year inservice. Along with the free art material sample packs and lesson workshops, we also had time to hobnob and network.

While having lunch with a high school photography teacher, I shared with him my desire to expand my lessons that involve digital photography. He let me know that when his students use digital cameras he tries to get them to do as little post editing as possible, so that he doesn’t cross the line from photography teacher to computer graphics teacher. (His school has one of each, and he doesn’t want to step on his coworker’s toes at all.)

This made perfect sense to me, but as I’m less an art specialist than a jack-of-all-trades, I don’t feel that I need to stick to the same limits. To be honest, my requirement of aligning the art curriculum with other subjects means that the more circles I have in the venn diagram, the more likely I’m doing my job.

This also got me thinking about technology. (but then, what doesn’t?)

Sometimes I’m referred to as an art teacher who’s into technology, or a technologist who’s into art. Do they really have to be separate things? It’s my opinion that anything that allows for creative expression is art, and therefore fair game for one of my lesson plans. It’s true that there’s some art that normally falls outside of the realm of the digital, but scanning it or taking a picture can quickly change that issue.

On the other side of the spectrum, I can’t remember the last program or website I’ve seen that didn’t have an artistic touch to it. (The BIOS doesn’t count.)

I’ll wrap this up with a question from one of my colleagues. Today I was asked if I’d ever considered teaching technology all the time.

I answered without hesitation:

“I already do.”