Michelle Tillander

Background

About Michelle Tillander

Biography: Prior to joining the University of Florida Art Education Department, Michelle Tillander attended Pennsylvania State University where she coordinated the Zoller Gallery. From 1985 to 1991, Michelle assisted with the implementation of Virginia's first Governor\'s School for the Arts, a regional program for artistically talented high school students. where she served as Chair of the Visual Arts Department from 1998 to 2002. Michelle also taught and chaired the Old Donation Center for Gifted and Talented, a 3-8th grade art program, from 1991 to 1998. She currently serves on the NAEA's Art Education Journal Editorial Board and the Publications Materials Committee.Research Interests: Michelle Tillander's research explores digital media technologies and contemporary learning. Teaching and learning have changed as sensory-rich media transforms the infrastructure of connectivity, networking, and dynamic information and alters our consumption and production of knowledge. Her research in the area of digital media-including the exploration of digital medias' potential impacts and limitations to pedagogy-acknowledges the emerging vernacular of today's youth who are ubiquitously engaged with digital media through the writing, thinking, and visual processes of the digital age. Tillander's initial scholarship in digital media began in 2002, with a research project entitled A Cultural Interface Approach to New Media Art Education that examined digital media artworks (art and technology), culture (values, beliefs, and assumptions), and everyday experiences (lives of students and teachers). Her current trajectory of inquiry, New Media Art Conversations, focuses on selected digital artists and practitioners. This ongoing research, funded by the University of Florida College of Fine Arts Scholarship Enhancement Grant, investigates digital media artists' conversations and artworks as a way to engage a dialogue about digital media within K-12 art education.