Lights, smartphone... ACTION!

The media arts focus on representing the world and telling stories through various modes of communications technologies, such as film, video, television, newspapers, magazines, radio, podcasts, video games, the internet and mobile media (Dinham, 2013, p. 227).

Communication technologies have evolved enormously over the past 90 years, particularly in relation to broadcast media. Wireless to web by the National Film and Sound Archive not only provides a useful overview of this evolution, it also serves as a great media resource for teachers! Throughout this evolution, media education has focussed on ensuring children become intelligent consumers of mass media. However to be successful in contemporary society, it is now recognised that students also need to develop skills as media creators (Dinham, 2013, p. 227 - 228). 

My children on their way to developing their digital literacy!

Observing how children interact with various communications technologies in their everyday lives, it is understandable that some teachers may assume that all students are 'digital natives' (Dezuanni & Raphael, 2012, p. 157). However it is important for teachers to realise that the extent of their students’ digital literacy may vary due to gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status (Dinham, 2013, p. 230).

Understandably, resourcing media arts can be costly. Fortunately there are a number of open software products available. For example:

• Stop Motion Central - Below is an example of it in action:

• iKit Movie 
• Sandbox Game Maker 
• Free film software 
• Story board that 
• Free SFX 

Here are some other great media resources for teachers and students:

• DIY doco 
• Splash ABC 

Finally, a really important aspect of teaching media arts is ensuring internet safety and promoting digital citizenship. This encompasses the concept of students learning about the nature of gathering, interacting and behaving within a networked environment. The netalert teachers guide, whilst published in 2004, still provides relevant guidelines for teachers. For the most up to date information check out Digizen.

References:

Dezuanni, M. & Raphael, J. (2012). Media arts and learning in the digital world. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Dinham, J. (2013). Delivering authentic arts education. South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning.

Negotiating Nuances: Creating and Interpreting Media Art

"A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about."

- Douglas Adams 

"Mum, you really need to download 'ad blocker'", declares my media-savvy nine-year-old. From advertisements on trams to billboards; television programming to internet 'pop-ups'; daily newspapers to food packaging, today's children are saturated with media. Dezuanni and Raphael (2012) suggest that media art provides an appealing opportunity for children to project their learning: not only does it satisfyingly reach a wider audience but it also allows them to communicate in a preferred style. My younger son, for example, created this 'self-portrait' using 'Tagxedo' software:

As well as communicating, engagement with Media Art enhances critical awareness of a world that is, to varying degrees, mediated. Dunscombe (2013) highlights the importance of context, "the idea that a media text is the product of the society and the creative field that existed at the time that it was made, and contains the values and discourses of that time" (p. 86). Shenfield (2015) discusses the complex relationship between a learner's sociocultural and linguistic background and aesthetic response, pointing out that school may be "where the intersection of artistic expression and personal meaning is first created and explored" (p. 47). The short film 'Doggy Day Out', produced by Ngaanyatjarra Media, is an example of culturally-embedded expression through film: http://filmtv.ngmedia.org.au/player/#!/film/doggy-day-out. Continually negotiating and evaluating reliability, bias and relationships, it is essential that students receive guidance to become 'cybersmart': safe and responsible digital citizens (Dinham, 2013).

Resonant for me is the cross-curricular potential of media art forms, particularly the use of multi modal texts. Eisner (2002) points out that language is only one form of communication: "education can learn from the Arts that the limits of language are not the limits of cognition" (p. 5). McVeigh (2014) alerts us to the need to harness the inventive, intuitive and imaginative powers of students to explore the unfamiliar, "to tell a story, to share an experience, to ponder possibilities, to cast a net into the unknown" (p. 58). Importantly, though such stories should not rely on technology, media arts can potentially engage diverse and disinterested learners by providing powerful and dynamic communication alternatives (Dinham, 2013).

Devised by Walt Disney in the 1930s, 'storyboarding' is a way to conceptually and sequentially design visual narratives:

There are numerous software programs to facilitate digital storyboarding within the classroom. Students can feel 'professional': as we see in the short film Pushka, combining black and white illustrations with text and music, Stephen Mackey experiments as his work evolves.

To conclude with a sobering thought from Jean Baudrillard (1981), "We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning" (p. 91). Perhaps thoughtfully scaffolded immersion in Media Arts will ensure a more worthwhile legacy for our children.

Vikki

References:

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulcra and simulation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Dezuanni, M. & Raphael, J. (2012). Media arts and learning in the digital world. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Dinham, J. (2013). Delivering authentic arts education. South Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning.

Dunscombe, R. (2013). The past, the present and the future: The state of media education. Screen Education,  72, 84-88.

Eisner, E. (2002). What can education learn from the arts about the practice of education? Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 18(1), 4-16.

McVeigh, M. (2014). Lighting the fire: Can creativity be taught? Screen Education, 75, 58-63.

Shenfield, R. (2015). Literacy in the arts. Literacy Learning: the Middle Years, 23(1), 47-53.

Music to our ears...

"Virtually every person everday experiences music. Every person has the capacity to enjoy and make music. Every culture in the world includes music in some form: for ceremony, relaxation, communication, celebration and enjoyment. The world would be inconceivable without music. Imagine the absence of music in our lives..." - Music Council of Australia

Victorian school students with James Morrison

An effective music program can contribute to the life and the reputation of a school... however it is only well funded and recognised as core curriculum in a small number of Australian schools, with 63% of primary schools and 34% of secondary schools not offering classroom music (Music Council of Australia, p. 14).

As with all arts education, primary school teachers play an important role in providing children with music experiences that will impact on their perceptions and participation in music in the future (Jeanneret & Swainston, 2012, p. 92). I'm relieved to read that a lack of confidence is a common problem for generalist teachers when it comes to teaching music, however research has found that teacher traits such as willingness, determination and industry have more effect on student's ability to learn and improve than the teacher's musical background (Jeanneret & Swainston, 2012, p. 93). Phew!

Students learning in music falls in to two categories:

• Music practice (making, exploring and developing music ideas, processes, conventions, composing and performing music), and
• Aesthetic understanding (listening and responding to music and understanding music's social, cultural and economic significance).

There is a vast array of resources available to help teachers develop their students learning in these areas. Two common approaches to music education in primary schools include "Orff Schulwerk" and "Kodaly method".

Here is a really helpful video showing how Orff Schulwerk works in a class:

See here for more information about Orff Shulwerk in Australia, and here for information about the Kodaly method in Australia.

Finally here is another fantastic resource for the classroom. In partnership with ANZ, Music Matters each year produce an animation of a Program Song for teachers and students to enjoy.  Here is the 2014 Music Matters animation and song:

References:

Jeanneret, N., & Swainston, A. (2012). Making music and cultural connections. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Music Council of Australia (n.d.) Music to our ears. Retrieved 13 August, 2015, from http://www.moremusictoolkit.org.au/images/stories/PDFs/music_to_our_ears.pdf

Musical Messages: Children as Creators, Composers and Critics.

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

- Victor Hugo

"His voice lacks the range of tonal colour necessary to make it consistently interesting", a critic writes of Mr Tanner's first official public performance, destroying his musical confidence irrevocably.

Fortunately, as Roy, Baker and Hamilton (2012) emphasise, a musical environment within the classroom must foster exploration, creation, collaboration, performance and reflection without fear of failure. Students should be stimulated through play and curiosity in a "community of practice characterised by expression and communication through music" (p. 126). As we saw in an earlier reference to the song Mrs Bunny, children arrive at school with extensive previous exposure to music (for me it was all about ABBA!): from the resourceful use of kitchen equipment to nursery rhymes; from Play School episodes to professional performers such as Justine Clarke.

A dedicated music corner can be a valuable addition to a classroom.

As Shehan Campbell (2005) suggests, "to open the door for young people's entrance into ever deeper listening", a teacher guides students to  a "sharpened" musical awareness including its acoustic, social and cultural foundations (p. 33). A conscious and connecting act, listening is differentiated from simply hearing. As the intentional organisation of both sound and silence, from advertising jingle to national anthem music is a messenger: creating mood, shaping ritual, celebrating occasion and inspiring action.

The Australian Curriculum states that for students "active participation in music fosters understanding of other times, places, cultures and contexts" (ACARA, 2015). Indeed, music not only serves as a springboard to new learning experiences but also stretches the imagination to find deeper understandings of our social, cultural and historical selves - as well as the identities of others. This ongoing dialogue of making and responding reflects an important link between aural, visual and kinaesthetic art forms.

Tom explores the character Dickon in a study of The Secret Garden (Hodgson Burnett, 1911), hoping to attract some animals with the "strange low little call" (p. 87) of his wooden pipe!

Incorporating pitch, rhythm, dynamics, harmony, texture, tempo, timbre and form, the inclusion of music in classroom learning and practice relies more on teacher confidence and commitment than sophisticated expertise. Last summer, for example, at short notice my friend Gillian Howell organised  a 'Seventies Stovetop Orchestra' on the Arts Centre lawns in Melbourne. The multi-talented, intergenerational audience had become composers and performers in no time! A similar transformation is exemplified here as Howell improvises with migrant children in 2012:

Further Questions...

How to include highly able musicians?
How to redirect enthusiasm or exuberance when listening and silence are necessary?

Vikki

References:

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2015). The Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

Hodgson Burnett, F. (2013). The Secret Garden. London, England: Folio Society. (Original work published in 1911).
  
Roy, D., Baker, W. & Hamilton, A. (2012). Teaching the arts: Early childhood and primary education. Port Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press.

Shehan Campbell, P. (2005). Deep listening to the musical world. Music Educators Journal, 92(1), 30-38.

You are the dancing queen...?

Just to get us in to the groove for this weeks exploration of dance... here is comedian Judson Laipply's "Evolution of Dance":

Dance helps to develop coordination, strength and endurance, expression and awareness, interaction and cooperation, and problem solving skills (National dance education organization, 2015). Whether we are aware of it or not, everyday movements are connected with our feelings, ideas and thoughts. The aim of dance education is to expand on this connection and provide children with opportunities to explore the meaning of the movement of their bodies (Deans, Meiners, & Young, 2012, p. 130).

Margaret Barr's 'Afternoon on a sand dune'. Source: http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemdetailpaged.aspx?itemid=421396

I found Cone and Cone's (2012) box of crayons analogy really helped me visualise how the elements of dance work together. Different crayon combinations blend together to produce an infinite variety of pictures and drawings in the same way as the different elements of dance are used to produce an infinite number of dances (Cone & Cone, 2012, p. 23).

The "I want to dance, let's do it again" case study by Deans et al. (2012) demonstrated how a dance class can be divided in to four clearly defined sections: Warm-up, Generating a dance, Free dance (improvising by exploring and responding) and Dance drawings (Deans et al., 2012, p. 137-138). I really enjoyed reading about the dance drawings and how they are used to reflect on what the children recalled from their dancing experience. These drawings play an important role in enabling the children to record their involvement in and response to the dance content and also provided the teacher with insight in to the child's level of engagement and thinking about the activity (Deans et al., 2012, p. 136).

BBC School Radio provides a fantastic dance resource that I can certainly see myself utilising in my classroom!

References:

Cone, T. & Cone, S. (2012). Teaching children dance. Canberra, ACT: Human Kinetics.

Deans, J., Meiners, J. & Young, S. (2012). Dance: Art embodied. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

National dance education organization. (2015). Standards for dance in early childhood. Retrieved from http://www.ndeo.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=893257&module_id=55419

Dancing up a Storm!

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."

- Friedrich  Nietzsche

Coordinated or clumsy, graceful or gauche, according to the Australian Curriculum, "Through Dance, students represent, question and celebrate human experience, using the body as the instrument and movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, spiritual and physical communication" (ACARA, 2015).

Gabrielle Roth: Project Happiness

From the fairy stories so often explored through ballet, to the kindergarten favourite Mrs Bunny, Deans, Meiners and Young (2012) note the importance of early childhood curricula in establishing "foundations for dance as a lifelong activity" (p. 129).

As the "most totally embodied of art forms", dance promotes learning through "kinaesthetic exploration, cognitive processing, aesthetic experimentation and social engagement" (Deans et al., 2012, p. 128). As such, exploration and representation of the self, social, space and stories are all interconnected.

As affirmed by the video footage provided, Cone and Cone (2012) highlight the integration of body and mind; the interplay between cognitive and kinaesthetic learning. For younger children, this might involve increasing awareness of body parts: joints and muscles, for example, and what they can do, forming locomotor and non-locomotor; symmetrical and asymmetrical movements. Dances such as The Hokey Pokey, Johnny Works With One Hammer and Dr Knickerbocker (performed here by the ubiquitous Wiggles!) can help begin this exploration:

As in drama, 'play' is an important foundation for dance, a motivator and an attitude for teacher and student alike, facilitating exploration, imagination and uninhibited expression.

Tom interpreting a song from Matilda: The Musical.

Though validating students' own stories, Dunn and Wright (2015) note that the teacher should not be "afraid to introduce, design and support rich new learning contexts that might be outside of the children's existing cultural and environmental experience" (p. 231). Indigenous cultural dance, underpinned by intergenerational storytelling, can be an inspiring example and itself become a motivational teaching and learning tool as we see here in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, Western Australia:

This video also demonstrates an awareness of rhythm and tempo, which can be regulated through a drum or tambourine. "An instrument in the class is vital for not only establishing energy", write Deans et al. (2012, p. 131).

Indigenous traditional clapping sticks can provide a guide and focus for dancers.

Spatial relationships are as important as social connections , as the dancer occupies a personal space within a general space that is often shared.

If dancing is expression through movement (choreographed or not), surely anyone can do it. I won't describe my efforts at 'dancing my name', other than to say my friend Gillian Howell can collaboratively create a pretty 'mean' alphabet dance herself:

Further Questions...

How to engage boys in particular?
How to help self-conscious students feel comfortable?
Does interest in dance become overtaken by structured competitive sport? If so, what are the reasons and how can we overcome them?

Vikki

References:

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2015). The Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au

Cone, T. & Cone, S. (2012). Teaching children dance. Canberra, ACT: Human Kinetics.

Deans, J., Meiners, J. & Young, S. (2012). Dance: Art embodied. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.

Dunn, J. & Wright, S. (2015). Signs, meaning and embodiment: Learning and pedagogy in the early years. In M.Fleming, L. Bresler & J. O'Toole (Eds), The Routledge international handbook of the arts and education. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Visual arts: To display or to not display.. that is the question!

"How children learn and what they learn through art is largely influenced by the values of their surrounding culture: families, teachers and the local community" (Brown and Watkins, 2012, p. 111).

Visual art display at my son's preschool - spiders, caterpillars and butterflies!

My son's memories of his visit to the National Museum of Australia.

Research has highlighted that children feel a deep connection with their artwork, through the experience of creating it and the personal investment they made towards it. This connection is also linked to displaying the art. By treating the practice of displaying student’s artwork with less sensitivity (including consultation about whether or not a student wants to display their artwork) than the practice of making art, diminishes the emotional investment made by the student. Research shows that as adults we underestimate the significance of art experiences and the direct impact they have on young children, and we should be more sensitive about the entire art experience including displaying their artwork (Boone, 2008, p. 22- 40).

Displaying my children's artwork at home is something I have always done, albeit quite selectively and usually without much consultation. Here is what our family room looks like:

A selection of my kids art displayed at home.

More art on display at home.

From now on, not only will I plan to ensure I am sensitive to my future students about their art experiences, I will also consult with my children about which pieces of artwork they'd like to put on display at home!

Visual literacy (being able to read, understand and create visual texts) is a crucial skill in our increasingly complex visual, digital world, and picture books are a simple and effective way of cultivating such skills (Brown and Watkins, 2012, p. 123). Analysing illustrations in picture books using Bloom's Taxomony is a fantastic visual literacy resource for students of all ages. The following links provide some useful ideas for how to integrate picture books in to the curriculum:

• Ways of viewing and teaching picture books: Every picture tells a story
• Visual literacy through childrens picture books

References:

Boone, D. (2008). Young children's experience of visual displays of their artwork. Australian Art Education, 31(2), 22-45.

Brown, R., Macintyre, P. & Watkins, M. (2012). Learning in and through the visual arts. In C. Sinclair, N. Jeannert & J. O'Toole (Eds), Education in the arts. Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.