Computers in Art and Communications
Instructional designer Sally Oklund is using this Macintosh computer to create an illustration of some of the bones in a human skull. After she uses Adobe Photoshop to add the proper shading to depict the contours of the bones, she will import the illustration into a computer based training program created with one of the popular authoring tools. When she is finished, she will have a training package designed to familiarize nurses with bone anatomy and physiology and teach the proper care and treatment of skull injuries. Using tools found on this computer in this university lab, she could easily create a 360 degree rotatable and flippable drawing of the entire skull and add it to her training package if this would better communicate the concept she is trying to present.
The image on the bottom left is the title screen from a computer based educational title for use in a course on ceramics. Tracie Johnson is a talented graphics artist who has a dream of sharing her drawing, painting, and artistic talents with a classroom full of high school students. This screen, which exhibits exquisite use of color and form when seen in full size, was created using Roger Wagner's HyperStudio, an inexpensive and popular multimedia authoring tool for students and teachers. It is powerful and flexible enough to create professional CBT and interactive learning. Another nice feature is that it runs on both PC's and Macs. Other authoring packages are continuously appearing, and the old standbys like Director, Toolbook, and Authorware are becoming easier to use, more powerful, and less expensive.
This author had the pleasure of visiting the 1997 Mac World Expo in San Francisco with MS Johnson. As we toured the exhibitors' displays of high powered rendering, automated animation, and high volume graphics arts production software, we were both amazed and disturbed by what we saw. Toward the end of our visit, we visited a digital art gallery sponsored by Fractal Design, one of the major vendors of high end illustration and graphic arts software. We noticed one image of white painted bricks in a wall. The image was so good that even Tracie would have had a hard time telling it from a real painting were it not for the texture. We both left the exhibition a little humbled by the experience. Tracie expressed a certain dismay at what this digital perfection was doing to the art.
"What have they done to the medium, the clay ... I mean, there's nothing left to the artist. This is meant to be done with human hands, not by a machine."
Classroom teachers also create visually rich lessons, electronic storybooks, on-line interactive tests, and educational games using authoring tools such as Hypercard. Hyperstudio, KidPix Studio, Storybook Weaver, and others. Students can use the same tools to create electronic reports, presentations, and portfolios. The newer tools let you add sound, animations, and video. Some tools allow you to create sound recordings and animation on the fly with easy to use tools and just paste them into their multimedia productions. The screen on the bottom right is from Pinky the Dragon, a story often told to Elaine Linscott as a child. Elaine is a classroom teacher who used HyperStudio to create this talking storybook. The story, which was her father's own creation, is now beautifully illustrated and preserved in electronic format. Though Elaine has had no formal training as a multimedia author with the exception of a little help from the computer lab personnel, the final product could be produced and marketed with just a small amount of refinement necessary to optimize it for CD-ROM.
Return to Communications Timeline, ENIAC
Return to Communications Timeline, Macintosh