Identifying a Lack of Access to Technology.
The Fine Art Computational Arts pathway was conceived of 4 years ago at Camberwell College of Art to allow for experimentation within the Fine Art department in contemporary technological studio practices. My role as the Lead Specialist Technician on the course is to support the development and learning of a broad range of cutting edge technologies.
Many students on the Computational Arts Course do not have access to suitable computers or laptops of their own, which greatly impacts their access to computational learning. This occurs for a variety of reasons including insecure home environments such as squats or care homes, low income households and impractical or ill-informed purchases.
In the following case study I’ll cover some examples of these access issues and then go on to highlight how I have attempted to support students with similarly diverse learning needs. The following examples are taken from first hand experiences in my role as Lead Specialist Technician on the course and also serve to illustrate my proximity to pastoral care via these interactions. The first two examples could also be seen as examples of students exhibiting low socioeconomic status (Kemker & Barron 2007).
Example 1.
A student explained that their lack of progress on coursework, was because they were working through Blender tutorials on their older sibling’s gaming PC whilst their sibling was out at work. They exhibited limited computer literacy and were unable to type well, which greatly affected their confidence during workshops.
Example 2.
A student wanted to purchase a new laptop but deemed their living situation to be too precarious. They were living in a squat and considered the security of their belongings to be constantly at risk.
Example 3.
A student who wanted to work with videogames engines was deeply disappointed that their new Mac laptop would not run a game engine. Their parents had insisted on buying them a Mac instead of a gaming laptop and exhibited a level of scepticism towards the efficiency of PC laptops. It is possible that this scepticism is market driven and not research based (Firmin, Muhlenkamp Wood, Firmin & Wood, 2010).
Providing High Powered Computers as a Resource.
When I started my post as Lead Specialist Technician, there were no technical resources in place to support such students. In short we were a Computational Arts course without computers! We also had limited space in the Peckham Road building. My first priority as Lead Specialist Technician on the course, was to oversee the purchase of 5 high spec PC workstations and their installation in the departmental space, expanding into the rooms next to my office which has served as a tech hub for the surrounding resources.
Once our PC and Mac workstation provisions were in place, I introduced a new booking system, technical inductions and online guides to manage them, making them available to book in slots outside of workshop hours. Students are now encouraged to book workstations in their own time.
In addition to these measures our workstations are now used for workshops, with their booking seat numbers capped to ensure that all attendees can sit two to a workstation. This removes the need for students to install complex or computationally heavy software on their own laptops and levels the playing field with regards to student laptop provision.
And finally to address an element of resistance to using our predominantly PC based resources I have created digital resources to educate students int he capabilities and financial differences of various computational working environments.
Future Capacity and Expansion.
Despite these measures we have suffered from a lack of workshop capacity owing to the fact that we are heavily under-resourced with only 5 PC’s available to service over 75 students and rising. I am please to report however that an equipment bid and resource expansion strategy designed by myself and the course leaders Matthew Plumber Fernandez and Max Dovey, has secured us additional funding to begin expanding our Computational resources over the Summer of 2025. This will ensure a further 16 possible seats in workshops with 8 new PCs for general student use. This will greatly improve access to technology required for learning modern computational subjects, for the entire cohort, leaning less on the students personal resources to meet their learning goals.
References.
- Firmin, M. W., Muhlenkamp Wood, W. L., Firmin, R. L., & Wood, J. C. (2010). Self‐admitted pretensions of Mac users on a predominantly PC university campus. Educational Media International, 47(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523981003654944
- Kemker, K., Barron, A. E., & Harmes, J. C. (2007). Laptop Computers in the Elementary Classroom: Authentic instruction with at‐risk students. Educational Media International, 44(4), 305–321. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523980701680888
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