Learning, Technology, and Art: A Conversation
Alan Levine, MCLI
Gail Jamieson
Phoenix College

Gail Jamieson started teaching drawing and design and history and appreciation of art at PC in 1968. What follows is a casual conversation between Alan and Gail about learning, technology, and art.

How did you get started with computers?
The fun began in the early 80s when I went to one of the first workshops the District held to introduce the Apple IIe and what it could do for our educational process. Dr. de los Santos invited faculty to partake in a summer project where you went to lessons and demonstrations of what could be done using the Apple IIe. They checked the computers out to us for the summer and we were able to take them home and work on them and experience what was being demonstrated during our classes. When they found out I was the only art person there, they let me play with the graphics and drawing packages. And, I was hooked. I wound up demonstrating and actually presenting what it could do for art.

What kind of things could you do with those first Apple IIes?
On the one I took home I really just started putting lessons on the computers, course syllabi, and things like that. After that process finished, I became involved with our campus computer literacy project, helping train other faculty.

Then we managed to get one Apple IIe in our department. And, we got a Koala pad--a little 4x6 pad with two buttons on it, connected to the computer just as a regular tablet would be today. You could draw with it, but it was limited to six colors, black, and white. So students could actually draw some things, but very limited, very pixelated. Most of the things we did then was using BASIC language and doing some actual writing of programs to create graphics.

So you were writing computer programs to generate graphics?
Yes. In '82 and '83 when we got the computer, I developed two courses for the District, ART169 and ART170, which were two-dimensional computer design and three-dimensional computer design. And we got a JCEP grant to test it out to see how the students would learn, what the learning curve was, what could be accomplished in these two courses. We invited six students who committed to the whole year to take these two courses on a trial basis. And, we wound up having them pretty much write programs in BASIC. I think they may have used the Koala pad a little bit at the end, but most of it was writing in BASIC.

On one computer?
Yes, on one computer. We had the computer in one area and the students signed up for times to use it. They devised a system where they kept a piece of paper next to the computer and if they discovered something, they would write it down so the next person would know. It helped their learning process by sharing that way.

So they were generating graphics in programming and you were able to print them out in some format?
What we had at that time was a "tunnel" with a Polaroid camera. We took pictures of the screen and then we had sepiachrome prints, 16x20 inches in some instances, some of them smaller. As part of the grant we framed and exhibited some of the students' work. We still have most of it and we periodically display it, especially if we're showing computer graphics "then and now." It's nice to have the record of "where we started from" with such meager beginnings.

So with your program, you had this evolution from students programming on one Apple IIe. What was the next evolution?
In 1988, I had a sabbatical to research 12 colleges across the country that had certificate programs in computer graphics to see what they were doing, what courses were being used, what software and hardware, how they were presenting it, and such. When I came back from the sabbatical, our dean of instruction asked me what I had discovered and what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to develop a degree, or at least a certificate, in computer graphic design. From my research I knew we had to develop new courses. With some reassigned time I developed eight courses in the Spring semester of '89. Once those courses were in place in the Fall of '89, we were able to add a certificate as an outgrowth of our traditional graphic design degree. Following that, we got the degree approved.

How has the lab hardware changed from the first Apple IIe?
We managed over two years to get fifteen Macintosh IIcx's in the lab. We went along with those until the Power Macs came out. We again requested a two-year change over to the Power Macs, and so the first go-around we got ten 8100s because of the graphics requirements and then the following year we were able to finish it out with the 7100s. This is the second year we've had the lab fully Power Mac equipped and we're going to have to start looking at upgrading to faster machines because of the demands for multimedia and animation.

So the process of upgrading is...
. . .is always continual. Sad to say, because I know other areas need computers, but graphics need the faster speed and a lot of memory.

What do you hope students learn from coming through the program here?
One of the things that we emphasize in the program is that the computer is just a tool. It's not going to make someone an artist. Although we have some students come in thinking that the computer's going to make them into artists now, it's not realistic.

In taking an art class I think they also learn that it's important that you compare yourself with other students--your peers--because that's what artists have to do all the time. I think by showing their work, students get a more realistic view of how good they are. It opens their eyes to what other people do, it inspires them; they learn a lot from one another. They really learn by working together, which, of course is the new direction with multimedia. Multimedia development is based on teamwork; we have to get our students to develop those skills.

A few minutes ago you touched on the role of the instructor being quite different...
I think the idea of the instructor being a facilitator is much more viable today. I don't think any instructor teaching computers, especially computer graphics, truthfully can say that they "know everything about a program." I am usually dealing with eight different software packages. I can almost feel my way through a program now because I've worked with many of them since they first came out.

And that skill about being able to feel "your way" is something the students can develop...
Yes. I think that is a strength of our Graphics Art program. I have tried to keep each course that we offer using different software. Sometimes the students don't like it, because for example, students in ART169 still use MacDraw, and if they have had another course where they used Photoshop or Freehand, they just yell, and scream, and kick--they don't want to use MacDraw. And I say "It's not the software that is going to make you the artist."

I had a student intern who went to work for APS. She had worked on the various Macintosh software we had at that time, but in her job she was working on an IBM. She came back and told me she didn't have any problem with the changes because she had the experience of working with so many different programs that going to different software, even a different operating system, didn't frighten her.

She was challenged to learn...
Yes. And there is a similarity in most graphics software, the tools are pretty recognizable. So I think for them to learn these various programs and be able to jump from one to the other is important.

What are some of your dreams for the future in terms of our technology, and teaching and learning?
I guess it's pretty much looking at multimedia in 1997. We're about where desktop publishing was in 1987--just at the beginning. The closest project is getting the multimedia flex degree approved by the District. I think it's exciting because many of the departments will work together. I can only really speak from the art standpoint, but the four colleges that are working together on this have been very good on "give and take" and stating the strengths or weaknesses of certain courses to be included in the various certificates. As a result, I think we've developed some certificates that will be very, very viable; they'll be very good for the students and for us to offer. I think that the valley is more technologically aware, as far as businesses, and that will open more avenues for students to be hired.

Does the word "Internet" do anything for you?
Oh yes! The Internet relates to multimedia. I'll be developing and teaching a class in web page design this semester. It'll be a weekend class in April. I think we'll probably be doing more of that because there really seems to be a strong interest, and it's exciting! Multimedia is the designing background of where you're going to put it which would be on the web.

I think what the Internet is going to do, as far as education, is awesome.