AESTHETIC PEDAGOGY AND DIGITAL RESOURCE DESIGN
By Kylie Readman and Josephine Wise
This article discusses the “the design of the CD-ROM “Physical Theatre, Performance and Pretext” developed for Drama Queensland in 2004” (Readman and Wise, 89); in this case, drama teachers participated in the development of digital teaching material. The authors assert that when teachers and students are involved in designing ICTs for use in the classroom, the benefits are “more fully realized” (89) It’s interesting that this should even have to be said: who normally designs arts-teaching resources?
I found the specifics of the CD-ROM quite interesting and was persuaded that it’s a tool I could certainly use, but the authors discuss some other very compelling background issues around aesthetics and social interaction that I’m responding to here.
Readman and Wise point out that, “many instructional designers consider virtual space as performative” (Readman and Wise, 92). It’s hard to ignore the obvious connection here to Drama. To what extent are we performing in every digital context that requires us to say something about who we are? When we post pictures and status updates on Facebook, aren’t we performing a role--enacting a version of ourselves over which we have a greater degree of control than the self that others can see, hear, smell, etc? Of course, real life is also performative. We have many selves—public, private, partner, professional, friend, daughter, parent, etc, and we play all our parts, some better than others. So digital environments are certainly not the only performative environments in our lives, but they may be especially liberated ones. The potential, then, is for inhabitants of digital environments to make their own rules for those environments, which is obviously empowering.
Repeated references to Augusto Boal, the remarkable Brazilian theatre teacher, author of Theatre of the Oppressed and great figure of political theatre so essentially democratic that performers and spectators are the same people (“spect-actors,” cited in Readman and Wise, p. 94), effectively link discourses of Drama with the subversive/ democratic potential of ICT’s: if ICT’s help students have greater agency in determining how they participate and on what terms, the benefits are profound. Referring to Boal is a great way to get the attention of even the most skeptical Drama teachers out there. If it's about democracy and access, we want it.
Reference:
Readman, K. and Wise, J. (2004). Aesthetic pedagogy and digital resource design: some considerations. In Change: Transformations in Education. Volume 7.2, November 2004
Accessed 18-4-2011
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