Third Pedagogical Site: deviantART

deviantART is a social networking site designed for the artist. As a virtual domain, it is part of Brent Wilson’s notion of the third pedagogical site: the place “between school classrooms and kids’ self-initiated visual cultural spaces—a site where adults and kids collaborate in making connections and interpreting webs of relationships” (18). Due to the fact that the site is legally only allowed to have users 18 year of age and older, we might replace adults with the notion of the formally trained or the professional and kids with the hobbyist or student. deviantART is thus limited in its impact on K-12 art education, but a viable option for the post-secondary student (which is where I was first exposed to the site, as a roommate who was majoring in Fine Arts had/has an account).


This online literacy site is a host for the collective, a breeding ground wherein the personal is valued as it is revealed in relation to the collective. The site was founded in August 2000 to “entertain, inspire, and empower the artist in all of us.” One can upload into galleries, add captions, link to other artists, and comment—fulfilling needs of agency and identity in a space where participation is valued. It is meant to be a deviation from the norm, from formal learning, and to encourage the peer-to-peer, nodes-of-information discovery and growth characteristic of informal learning. Share ideas and inspiration in the depth of creativity and diversity flourishing within deviantART (promotional video). It is “a place where the personal can begin to meet the collective in a meaningful way” (Thomas and Brown, Ch. 5). Artwork might be self-initiated or a response to a second site assignment, but it is now a part of the collective and forming a new life beyond either of the first two sites.


Assignment: Identify a site on the web that is directly interested in one of the ideas put forth in Wilson's article (visual culture, childhood, comics, and the third pedagogical site). Review the site, making connections to Wilson's article and the concept of informal learning.

References:
Brown, J. S. and D. Thomas. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace.
Wilson, B. (2005). More lessons from the superheroes of J. C. Holz: the visual culture of childhood and the third pedagogical site. Art Education, 58 (6), 18-24, 33-34.