Group and Individual Creativity

Leisure, learning and ICTs

Exchange, communication and representation

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Digital arts in the curriculum

Rebekah Willett, Liesbeth de Block - The Institute of Education, University of London

Enhancing the curriculum
The national curriculum in the UK contains strong recommendations about using digital arts in the curriculum as a way of "developing pupils' creativity and imagination" (http://www.ncaction.org.uk/subjects/art/ict-lrn.htm). Digital arts are seen to help pupils:

gain greater autonomy in the selection of materials
speed up the process of visual exploration and facilitate more rapid development of ideas
take risks and explore ideas more widely because they can save different versions of their work and undo actions very easily
experiment extensively when working with traditional media, for example with image and colour options, reducing costs in time and resources
increase their confidence and skills in using traditional materials and processes
combine the sensory experiences of sound, image and movement, for example, in creating popular media products such as video and animation
collaborate on developing art and design work with a wider range of people
offer new tools and new ways to publish, present and communicate meaning, for example, by creating on-line galleries or graphics in computer games
gain access to a wider range of artists, craftspeople and designers

In primary schools, digital arts projects are often seen as cross-curricular, in particular drawing on art, music and ICT. In the UK, an extensive animation project was conducted in a range of schools over several years
(www.picturehouses.co.uk/site/cinemas/Cambridge/ralp.htm).
The project introduced the schools to new notions of media education, media literacy and moving image literacy. For some of the teachers, the project represented a different approach to the literacy curriculum, in which the use of visual media motivated children who might otherwise have been less engaged by print, as this teacher describes:

I think ... if you're doing anything visually it's going to hook in more children, the children who enjoy storymaking, storywriting anyway, will be there, doing the storyboard and up there with all the ideas, but I think if you've got the visual aspect it's going to excite the less motivated children.

While enriching the curriculum generally, the links to different subject areas were also seen as a way of "smuggling" the project in, justifying its place in an overcrowded curriculum:

It enriched their curriculum, to no end, I think, really. It's not something that you normally do in school. And we justified the time by saying, right, they wrote it, so that was literacy time. They did it in ICT, that was their ICT time. Um, some of them had done music, so that was their music time, their art time, and so on. But just the whole thing or actually doing a project and finishing it and having a finished product.
Within media education, one of the aims of digital production activities is use production as a way of engaging with young people's experiences of digital cultures. This aim is founded on two principles:

1) the importance of drawing on young people's culture and
2) the need to shift away from the prioritisation of analysis over production, especially within formal education settings.
The incorporation of media culture in schools is seen as a way of allowing young people to express themselves, not just as students, but as social individuals; and it gives teachers more space to draw on varying cultures, personalities, and values. Furthermore, in a constructivist sense, teachers are seen as having the opportunity to build on pupils' previous experiences and knowledge, helping them to make sense of the culture surrounding them and extending what they already know.

1. Software considerations
A range of software is available for schools to purchase, including educational versions of professional packages, such as Photoshop and Flash, and simpler "kid-friendly" packages such as Kid Pix or Hyperstudio. The Animated Debate project in the UK used Photoshop and Flash, therefore a discussion of these packages will be offered here. This section will include observations from a similar project, entitled Shared Spaces, which also used these packages (www.wac.co.uk/sharedspaces).

Photoshop - drawing and editing images
In Photoshop, the children (ages 9-14) in both the Animated Debate and Shared Spaces projects could use their previous knowledge from any basic drawing software (Paint, Kid Pix, etc.), and they found it easy to use tools such as filters to alter to images. They could use simple drawing skills to get started fairly quickly, and the filters gave the children ways to make their hand-drawn images look more sophisticated. They used the pull down menu in Photoshop to experiment with different effects. For example, Lawrence (age 12) gave his hand-drawn sword dramatic lighting effects (the background, the glinting tip, and the sunspots) using simple filters (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: LAWRENCE'S SWORD AND LUKE'S CAR

The younger boys (Jordan and Luke, age 9) struggled even with the basic drawing tools, as is evident in Luke's drawing of a car (Figure 1, above). Luke found the concept of layers difficult, and he only used the pencil tool on the software, changing the colour but nothing else. Jordan similarly used simple pencil tools to draw a knight. When Luke and Jordan were taught to use other tools, they were not able to "take on board" what they were being taught, indicating that perhaps the teaching and software were too advanced for them. Of course there were many factors which could have been affecting the boys' learning (for example, age, experience, lack of practice time during the week and erratic attendance), and therefore it is difficult to say if the teaching or software were generally too advanced.

However, although some skills may not have been learned by all the children, the tutors were introducing the children to the world of graphic work on professional software, much in the way Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss situated learning through "peripheral participation". The tutors regularly gave general advice such as "try to leave as many windows open as you can, "try to label each layer with a name that describes what's on it". The tutors also made general conceptual statements; for example "the machine allocates memory to every single application, so it will run much quicker if you close applications you're not using". They used technical terms such as bitmaps, jpegs, tweening and megabites and discussed issues such as layering, different types of files and relevance of file sizes. There is an enormous body of skills, knowledge, concepts and discourse that needs to be learned here. As the tutors used the discourse the children gradually developed an understanding of the field (especially the older children).

Flash animation software
In both the Animated Debate and Shared Spaces projects, Flash (a professional animation software package) was introduced through structured lessons. In these formal instructional sessions the children did experimental projects which included scripting interactive elements (using buttons, for example), "tweening" which allows for objects to be animated without programming every frame, and they learned frame-by-frame animation.

The children interviewed in both the Animated Debate project and the Shared Spaces project were very enthusiastic about learning Flash, and in reflection, expressed their preference over other software. Jake said, "Flash makes it simpler; with other software you have to keep putting it into different files, whereas in Flash you can just animate it and make it and just run it". Two boys said Flash was their favourite software because "it's quite easy to make cartoons, it's a really good drawing tool" and "it's easy to muck about with it". Jake said, "I think you need to be taught the basic stuff but then you can learn the rest".

The tutors chose to use professional software as opposed to more child-orientated software such as Stagecast or Hyperstudio. The tutor on the Shared Spaces project was an artist, games player and professional software user, and as such she had personal preferences about the style of software she wanted to use. For example, she said she found an alternative software package "clunky". However, several factors prevented the children from reaching the point of being independent (they were not using the software apart from a couple hours a week, many were young and inexperienced with different software, they had little experiencing conceptualising graphics, and the tutor may have been using an approach that was not effective).

The course introduced the children to the software, but (unlike software designed specifically for young people) the software is not scaffolded enough to allow young users to explore and learn independently. The software does not have a beginning level which introduces concepts and allows the user to gradually learn more technical aspects. Looking at learning of Logo-based software, Kafai and Resnick (1996) argue that learning depends on both the structure of the software and the developmental stage of the user. They describe the structures which scaffold learning on software as "training wheels". According to Kafai and Resnik, those structures are based on observations of what experts do, however, novices are unable make use of them until they are at the appropriate stage in their learning process (i.e. when they realise that things need to be organised in a particular way). One of the questions this raises is whether there should be a range of software which suits different developmental levels or whether software preference is more about the users’ learning style and mode of thinking. If we accept that software should have different developmental levels, this leads to questions about what cognitive skills are involved in using production software. Could we call the use of simple paint tools part of the first stage of development for young people using graphics programs, and if so what skills and concepts are being developed at this level? Is there a set of visual literacies that needs to be learned in order to use graphics programs? For example, in the image of the sword (Figure 1), how did Lawrence learn to conceptualise what he was imagining? The technology, therefore, raises questions about pedagogy.

2. Technology and pedagogy

Scaffolding
In both the Animated Debate and the Shared Spaces studies, we collected data which can be explained through several different models of learning. Some of the instances of learning which almost "jumped" out at us as significant moments happened at opportune moments when the learners where just at the level where they could take on new knowledge, and when the instruction was building on what they already knew. So, for example, when the children tried to do something but it didn't work, then the value of the tutor's instruction was maximised. At these times there was a context for the instruction both in terms of the purpose and the tools (the children had a goal and had already tried some tools to achieve their goal). This data suggests that "scaffolding" by a teacher or more knowledgeable tutor/peer is crucial to the learning process (Bruner 1987). Bruner, whose work is based on Vygotsky's theories, used the term "scaffolding" to describe the interactions between a learner and a teacher or more able peer whereby structures are put in place to support the learner in mastering a task. Effective scaffolding occurs within the learner's zone of proximal development and is gradually withdrawn as an action becomes internalised. A model of learning based on scaffolding perhaps indicates that a lot of time and energy (and ultimately enthusiasm) is wasted if instruction doesn't happen at the right time. In both projects the tutors spent significant amounts of class time giving one-on-one help, but in doing so they created a situation in which the children were often waiting before they could receive help. During that waiting time they were repeatedly trying to figure out how to do something, sometimes to the point of frustration. This strategy was thus counter-productive.

Clearly, a teacher can not always be present at exactly the moment when a learner needs the next bit of scaffolding. However, the scaffolding which the teacher provides can also be "faulty". On the Shared Spaces project, there some situations when the tutor's instruction seemed too advanced (i.e. not in the children' zone of proximal development, using Vygotsky's term). For example, the tutor would give advice about the size of files or about naming layers, but much of the advice went over the children's heads, given that they weren't even sure how to save files in correct places. However, using Lave and Wenger's situated learning model (1991) mentioned earlier, we could describe these occasions as times when the children were learning the culture of digital production use by a master. Therefore, we have to ask if it matters whether or not the children were "learning" everything the tutor was trying to teach, or whether the children should be expected to be achieving something all the time at all different levels. Pedagogic models found in many schools (at least in the U.S. and U.K.) based on Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky (1971, 1987, 1962 respectively), are more linear than a situated learning model, so instruction has to happen in a particular way, time and place. Certainly educators believe that children can stay on one step for a while or progress backwards, but given the right environment all children are able to progress. This model of learning perhaps does not apply to the learning in all aspects of digital cultures.

Alternative learning models
Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that there needs to be a shift away from the concept of an individual learner and that notions of mastery and pedagogy must be decentred. They write, "(R)ather than learning by replicating the performance of others or by acquiring knowledge transmitted in instruction, we suggest that learning occurs through centripetal participation in the learning curriculum of the ambient community" (p. 100). Therefore, instead of looking at the individual skills that each child developed (or failed to develop) in the projects, we could look at their learning as a process of interacting in a digital arts environment.

Researchers working with Logo and similar programming packages for children (Hoyles et al. 2001; Kafai/ Resnick 1996; Papert 1993) also see learning as a process which is not as linear and sequential as strict developmental models would describe. On a recent research project called Playgrounds (www.ioe.ac.uk/playground), which looks at children building computer games using specially designed software, researchers describe how the learning develops as the children experiment with the software. Instead of having a tutor impart knowledge in an organised way, children learned to programme through their exploration of the software. This is a recursive process, as Goldstein and Pratt write, As learners become familiar with the tools, they become aware of new opportunities and utilities of those tools. Through using the tools, the learners re-construct their understanding of them. This shapes the way that the learners think about their solution to the problem and the problem itself’ (2001, p. 2). Looking at this in relation to the projects, it is possible that the children did not require the tutor to give them step-by-step instructions, but instead they were gaining familiarity and learning to use the software through a gradual process of experimentation.

Another non-sequential approach to learning is taken by researchers looking at computer game playing. In our research and, we would propose, in the experience of anyone watching a child learning to play a computer game, there are few times when children will sit down and be given step-by-step instructions by a tutor or instruction booklet. Children start playing a new game with little instruction, and they learn as they play. Toni Downes (1999) argues that playing games is producing new styles and ways of learning. Downes writes, "Within game playing the continued success of using the "learning by doing" and trial and error approaches alter children's predisposition to learning and performing in similar environments, particularly other computing environments such as word processing or using information data bases. Importantly these computing environments, through their interactivity readily afford these approaches and therefore reinforce this pre-disposition towards exploratory modes of learning" (p. 77). Looking at this description of learning, we could say that the children on projects did not need the sequential instruction of the tutor, especially as they were all avid digital technology users who were accustomed to learning through trial and error. We were asking the children to apply their skills and knowledge of playing as they engaged in digital production, but in expecting a linear model of learning we overlooking an important gaming skill - learning by doing.

Discussions with the tutors and children from both projects about hand-outs exemplified the non-linear approach to learning which is used by the young people in the class. The tutors gave the children hand-outs when instructing on Flash, listing all the steps involved to achieve a particular effect (e.g. shape tweening or masking). The tutors described how the children didn't even glance at the hand-outs after they had been shown the steps on the computer. The children felt comfortable relying on their memory to go through the steps, and they were not anxious about remembering the exact sequence of steps. According to the tutors, the children were more concerned with the overall effect that they were trying to achieve, and they were comfortable exploring the software in order to achieve the effect, rather than following the specific steps. This approach taken by the young people contrasts greatly with the one taken by adults whom one of the tutors has worked with on the same concept. Adults are anxious about missing out steps, and they "glue" themselves to the hand-outs, taking additional notes during the instruction. These two contrasting approaches to learning are explained by the theories outlined above, and help explain why adults are less comfortable with non-linear learning and perhaps misinterpret learning situations, particularly in relation to new technologies.

It is clear that children and young people are experiencing various ways of learning through their consumption and production of digital cultures. Computer games, for example, can involve endless repetition, trial and error and risk taking. However, gaming can also involve careful scaffolding. When playing a computer game, the first level is easier than the other levels and sometimes includes auditory or visual hints on how to progress. Similarly, digital production requires some degree of scaffolding in order for users to make progress and avoid frustration. Therefore, we need to consider when to use a model of learning based on a developmental progression of skills related to production, or when to see young people as learning technology through immersion into the digital culture.