Bitmojis and Beyond: Incorporating the Studio Habits of Mind Into Online Art Instruction

Abstract

Although our art classrooms are rich with demonstrations, discussions, and artmaking, the COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to art educators wanting to engage students in studio-rich practices. As one solution, Bitmoji classrooms emerged in response to emergency remote teaching (ERT), “a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances” (Hodges et al., 2020, para. 13). Bitmoji classrooms— containing an instructor’s avatar (Bitmoji) and typically presented using Google Slides—are virtual spaces populated with images and objects that hyperlink to videos, web tools, games, learning management systems (LMS), texts, and other resources. Bitmoji classrooms often visually mimic a classroom, although sometimes they represent an imagined space.