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| Companies and some schools have begun offering online programs in the fine arts, in some cases even for credit. Photo: U.S. News & World Report |
Some fields lend themselves to online learning more than others. It’s one thing to learn how to draft a business plan online, but learning the right brush stroke or mastering different drawing techniques can be a little more challenging.
"It's a little more difficult to move fine arts to the online education arena, but it's not impossible," says Andy Fulp, vice president for educational technology at the Savannah College of Art and Design, which offers online degrees in various fine arts fields.
Distance learning is now starting to gain some momentum in the fine arts, experts say. In addition to SCAD, schools like the for-profit Academy of Art University and Sessions College for Professional Design have in the past few years begun offering online certificates and degrees. However, the accreditation of these programs varies, so students should do their research beforehand when making a decision about a certain program.
Many schools administer fine arts courses using learning management systems that enable students to post their work and critique that of others, communicate with the professor and engage in discussions. The fine arts online program offered through SCAD also uses a combination of video demonstrations and other forms of teaching, including screen sharing with an instructor.
At the same time, there are free massive open online courses, or MOOCs, that focus on very basic drawing and painting skills, among other subjects. And companies like Kadenze offer free and for-credit fine arts classes online.
"Fine arts and creative education have been left out of online education," says Ajay Kapur, president and CEO of Kadenze, an online platform that launched just last month and offers courses either for free or for college credit. "That was our motivation for building our technology."
Here are some different types of fine arts classes and programs to choose from, depending on a student's goals.
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Source: U.S. News & World Report
