Designing digital environments for art education/exploration

Although art appreciation/exploration is essentially a private experience, it cannot exist outside of a social context. Digital environments offer great potential for the enhancement of collaborative aspects of both art creation and art exploration. However, the current notion of a digital environment is vague, and most often associated with the traditional concepts of computer use. Thus, the goal of this article is twofold: (a) to present an analysis of the characteristics of digital environments, and (b) to suggest their potential uses in the building of collaborative pedagogical procedures for the digital medium.