BX - Those evil-natured robots

They're programmed to destroy us
She's gotta be strong to fight them
So she's taking lots of vitamins
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1 - The Flaming Lips

Technology doesn't have to bad, we don't have to cower away from it in the classroom - it can be an extremely wonderful tool. Thus take vitamins of knowledge to understand how it's not all gun-shooting-bloody-head-shot video games that make children couch potato zombies, it can be enlightening and empowering when it comes to art.

Discuss the relationship between popular culture and art. Why is it important to provide children with a range of media from traditional/historic media to contemporary/popular art media?

I think it's awesome that I'm actually taking a popular culture class this semester and can answer this question with a little more umph that I could have last semester without the class. I have been studying how popular culture, though it may seem very common and repetitive, underhandedly embodies the reestablishment of any dominant ideologies that our culture has. It can be seen how, especially in popular music, popular culture can be seen as extremely commercial, commodified, and simple repetition of whatever is making the most money at the time, it however is just voicing what values our society has. Though it's hard to see most of the time, if you really keep a critical eye for everything - in time you'll see, for example, how some hit tv sitcoms just demonstrate our importance of having the societal structure that is currently in place.

On that note, it is important to provide children with a range of media from traditional/historic media to contemporary/popular art media because it is what is important to understand our developing society. Without exposing the children to new technologies that allow for new ways of making art and understanding art, they are missing out a part of societies development let alone their own. So the suggestion of introducing film making, digital photography, and computer programs for graphics and such, will allow a student to add another dimension to grow as a student and person. It's another area for a child to grow and instead of having the student discover on it's own later in life, introducing it within an elementary classroom could introduce the technology slowly to understand how technology interacts with traditional practices - and therefore perhaps establishing a balance of technological and traditional practices making the students more well-rounded as opposed to couch potatoes like the reading had mentioned. (The activity in the reading, of interviewing a practitioner of technology would be a good exercise for the students)