We live in an era at a society of information where knowledge and information are constantly being generated, exchanged, and shared among users through the medium of electronic technology. In particular, the fast and broad communication through the Internet and World Wide Web has been expanded with the development of multimedia technology. The common use of the Internet has brought many potential benefits in our contemporary society including the field of art education. Art and art education-related Web sites have dramatically increased since the mid 19908. It has greatly affected art educators and art teachers' interest in the Internet and its role in art education. Art teachers around the world have actively incorporated the Internet into art curricula. Korea is no exception. Under a new vision of "information-oriented education" for the 21st century, Korean art teachers have been showing their interest in adapting the Internet to their art lessons. Using the Internet, art teachers attempt to retrieve art information, publish Web pages for displaying their student art works and exchange lesson plans and ideas. Under such environment, it is timely to do research and discuss important issues related to the use of the Internet as a tool for art education. This study will examine the Internet-based art education in the United States because the country has actively attempted to build a positive environment for educational technology and it can give us a new perspective on the Internet-based art education. The purposes of this paper are as follows: 1) to examine the rationale for the use of the Internet in art education; 2) to discuss the role of the Internet in art education and 3) to present the current situation of Internet use in art education. The rationale for the Internet in art education can be found in social and cultural changes brought by our society that has been changing from industrial society to information society. In this changing society, it is important to incorporate the electronic technology such as the Internet into art curriculum because the Internet can create a positive environment for developing students' critical and holistic thinking skills in using visual images to communicate. The technology also helps students to understand multiple meanings of postmodern visual experiences. The use of Internet-based technology is also encouraged in art education due to the current shift of the focal point of art education toward Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE). The Internet has tremendous potential for enhancing art education. First, the Web-based technology can be used as art resources. Using thousands of art museum Web sites, art teachers can have access to art images previously unavailable in the classroom. Second, the Internet can be used for interdisciplinary learning. Art teachers can integrate other subjects such as language, social studies, and even science with art lessons by retrieving useful information from the Internet. Third, the Internet can bring true multicultural studies in art education. Students can explore art from another culture with the power of the Internet. Fourth, the Internet also plays a role of building a virtual professional community among art educators where they participate in conversations about art education with colleagues around the world. The art teachers can exchange curriculum and lesson ideas. In a sense that there is no distinction between teachers and students in the network, the Internet also creates a global art learning community for both teachers and students. Finally, the Internet can be used as an assessment tool. Students can drop their assignment in an online drop box or exchange critiques on their peers' artworks through online discussion board. On the other hand, art teachers easily collect and safely keep artworks of their students. Since the 1990s, the use of the Internet among art teachers has dramatically increased in the United States. According to the most recent survey, about half of art teachers use the Internet regularly for their teaching. The art teachers believe that the Internet can be a effective tool for art education reform with the development of Constructivism and VCAE. The study presents various real life examples of incorporation of Internet into art curriculum, The technology can enhance teaching art criticism, art history, and even art production. The Internet also can be combined with constructivist teaching methods. The study also introduces a case of the Internet use as an online art tutorial, which I have designed for a graduate class in educational technology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. We expect that the Internet use in art education will expand in the near future with the development of multimedia technology and Internet-based technology. Successful integration of the Internet with art education depends not only on a rapid advance of technology but also on art teachers' acceptance of the Internet and their commitment to Internet use for their teaching. Therefore, we need to develop teaching strategies that fit to teacher-defined problems related to Internet use in art education.