'Art and Culture for whom? Online Learning Approaches'
Anabela Moura & Raquel Moreira
Abstract
This chapter discusses how the concepts of art and culture are developed through online approaches in a Higher Education Institution in Portugal and examine how cultural learning of art students can improve their sense of identity and experiential knowledge of different cultural contexts, by using the internet for educational purposes. By using online approaches students, researchers and teachers from different countries can learn a lot about their own situation by sharing their experiences and reflecting at how others have dealt with the same problems, despite of the cultural differences, there is a real shared culture which revolves around common interests. The projects presented in this chapter show the numerous potentialities of online approaches, as they can help to increase access to information, allow for closer contacts with other people close and/or far away. In addition to these positive aspects, in the projects exposed, the internet was at the service of a community of students in a situation of collective learning. Participants also concluded that the use of the internet allows the creation of virtual communities and social networks, building new and wider opportunities for contact with cultural diversity and for the civic participation of individuals in contemporary society and cultural communication.