Communities
Introduction

​This notion of ‘communities’ takes many forms but in this particular context the definition is largely focused on the ‘art education community, facilitated by digital tools. Over the period of this archive collection we have traversed both local and regional communities in Europe and South America. It is indeed within this virtual community that our contribution has been most effective as the values and concerns of complex sub-groups (BA students, trainee teachers, school teachers, special educational needs departments etc.) were widely disseminated. This enhanced engagement in a shared discourse formed relationships that were quite different to the more conventional encounters associated with established institutional practices. So, in essence, the various learning communities were challenged and enriched by values, perspectives and knowledge contributions that were unfamiliar.
This act of sharing ideas/resources/planning materials and interests in these virtual communities served to generate appropriate learning platforms and extensive portfolios of data. The related student and staff commentary drew on ‘social media’ and the frequent immediacy of the responses developed a real sense of a shared vision. Demonstrably, the collaborative use of an expanding collection of diverse resources informed and enriched these various, intercultural, communities.

Communities Index

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