Connections Between Drama Education and the Digital Education Revolution

Kim Flintoff Curtin University

The Centre for eLearning 6 Sarich Way Technology Park

Bentley 6102 +61 08 9266 2194

k.flintoff@curtin.edu.au

ABSTRACT Drama   Education   has   long   been   regarded   one   of   the   most  innovative   and   critically   aware   areas   of   contemporary  pedagogy.   With   the   increasing   emphasis   on   the   role   of  technology  in  education  and  the  tremendous  injection  of  funds  towards  deploying   technology  within   the  K-­‐12  sector,  Drama  is  charged  with  considering  the  ways  in  which  it  will  embrace  the  challenges  of  the  net  generation.  

Keywords Drama, Digital technology, ICT, eLearning, Blended learning

1. INTRODUCTION

“The aim of the Digital Education Revolution (DER) is to contribute sustainable and meaningful change to teaching and learning in Australian schools that will prepare students for further education, training and to live and work in a digital world.” (DEEWR, 2010)

For more than a decade the call to arms for Drama educators to start engaging more appropriately with technology has come from several quarters. This author, with many colleagues and fellow travelers, has been identifying possible shifts in practice that could serve to redefine and reposition the relationship between Drama and digital technologies.

The Australian Government in its 2010 budget projections for 2013-2014 heralded the arrival of the Digital Education Revolution. While the government of the day was probably 40 years late in this proclamation what it did do was set in motion a new agenda for the role of technology in schools. Accompanied by grand plans for a National Broadband Network promising to bring optimal access speeds to the whole of Australia, many dimensions of the DER are already being set in place. What concerns this author is the apparent absence of any provision for Drama to play a role in this revolution.

A total of $2.4 billion dollars is set to be applied to the provision of new technology and technology training across the face all Australian schools. What this means is that there is the potential for a radical transformation and reinvention of approaches to teaching and learning. Along with the delivery of tonnes of hardware in the form of computers, networking solutions, servers,

access hubs and personal mobile devices, will come an expectation of teachers’ mastery of technologically enhanced pedagogy. I ask why should Drama escape these expectations?

2. A BRIEF HISTORY

“Students should be enabled to use IT in creative and imaginative contexts as an entitlement and in order to enhance their understanding of its power, how it can be used and the extent to which they have control over it.” Neelands (1993)

Nearly 2 decades past, Jonathan Neelands proposed that Drama students had an entitlement to access and demonstrate mastery of Information Technology.

In 1995 in a Drama class at this university (Edith Cowan University) two students experimented with running a processual drama mediated by the introduction of a computer and a simple set of programmed instructions. Neither student had extensive experience with technology and both were just learning to mesh their understanding of Theatre and Drama with the pedagogical insights of Drama Education. Nonetheless, they demonstrated that technology can be an effective mediator and driver of Drama activity.

Later that year one of those students became the first Special Projects: Technology officer on the committee of Dramawest and subsequently, the Director of Technology for Drama Australia. At the time Australia was seen as the leader in the exploration and engagement with technology in the Drama Education arena.

In 2001, the first Special Interest Group for Drama and New Technology was convened at the IDEA World Congress in Bergen, Norway. It has subsequently been reconvened in 2004 Ottawa, 2007 Hong Kong and expanded in 2010 Belem to become the SIG for Science, Technology and New Media.

In 2004, Tarquam McKenna and this author drafted the first (to our knowledge) Drama Education unit focusing on the need to engage with the shifting trends in technology. In 2007, the unit Advanced Techniques in Performance: Process, Drama and Information Technology, was offered to students for the first time. At fourth year level it provided students with many challenges and introduced many approaches to Drama that were not well documented.

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Around Australia, and around the world, throughout the past decade there have been numerous explorations and projects that draw together Drama and Technology. I will expand on some of these projects and their significance in due course.

In this brief flurry of activity that has been user driven, in many cases with little or no external support and funding, the scope of engagement in Drama Education has been expanded exponentially. And yet, we see little evidence that there are significant changes in the practices and principles that guide (and limit) Drama in the K-12 sectors.

If there has been so much shift at these levels, why does it appear that school-based Drama still seems to be little influenced?

3. QUESTIONS

“The birth of a new medium of communication is both exhilarating and frightening. Any industrial technology that dramatically extends our capabilities also makes us uneasy by challenging our concept of humanity itself.” (Murray, 1997)

In a research study reported in 2005 this author determined that many drama teachers do see engagement with technology as a very important aspect of the future of Drama Education. The same study also identified that many teachers saw obstacles to the realization of this engagement. Teachers reported that the biggest limiting factor was their own limited knowledge of how and where to begin with introducing; and that other factors included limited access to appropriate technology (including hardware and networks), administrative pushback because school managers could not easily rationalize a need for these technologies in a Drama program and finally a perception that Drama would somehow be diminished in its essence if technology were introduced too readily. (Flintoff, 2005) Subsequent studies and projects have shown that it is quite straightforward to use a wide range of technologies to engage in/with Drama activities, even though the resulting forms may not be immediately recognizable to a Drama traditionalist.

More and more schools are moving to ubiquitous technology use through the adoption of one-to-one laptop programs, personal mobile devices and improved ratios and accessibility for computers and students. So, it might be that the argument that technology isn’t available is now becoming less of a concern. Certainly, the promise of the DER is that this will not be an issue in any school in the very near future.

A recent report from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER, 2010) presents evidence about the need and efficacy of introducing technology across the curriculum, so education administration will have a less tenable position in trying to defend a position that denies access based on subject area. With accessibility and adequate exemplars now being implausible arguments we are left wondering as to the reasons why technology does still not seem to find a comfortable marriage within Drama education. One reason might still be the legacies within curriculum documents, but even in 1998 we were able to point to the WA Curriculum Framework and find justification for incorporating

technology. The Courses of Study that emerged a few years back originally had significant reference to new technologies and emerging forms that should be accommodated in a dynamic, vital and ever developing Drama curriculum.

Perhaps the teaching demographic has some bearing on why the widespread adoption of new technologies is still to be realized? Statistically the average age of Australian teachers is somewhere in the middle of their fifth decade - around 43-48 years according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, 2003). Could living on the cusp of the Baby Boomers and Generation X suggest that these pre-millenial educators are typically immigrants in the digital world? Are we simply waiting for the net-savvy Gen Y to rise to positions of authority and implement the requisite changes?

Of course, there are assertions that students have particular expectations about their engagement in Drama. School cultures evolve around the significance of having a role in school productions; Drama is perceived in many lower school contexts as the subject choice when you don’t really want to work; the culture of Perspectives, of bounding around a traditional stage in a raggedy costume of some sort; isn’t Drama supposed to be fun above all else? Do we adequately cater for the students for whom the traditional models of Drama activity do not entice, challenge or extend?

Is Janet Murray on to something when she asserts that these shifting expectations have a dual outcome in generating both exhilaration and fear? Could it be that fear still has the upper hand?

Simply stated, we really don’t know all the reasons why there isn’t a more pronounced integration of new technology forms into Drama classrooms. Certainly, there are programs that utilize blended approaches to learning, so that students will research their drama topics and maintain their reflective journals on computers and cloud-based applications. Drama educators are utilizing many of the more common aspects of educational technology in very familiar ways. But where are the innovative engagements with technology that begin to transform our familiar, and safe, non-challenging, classroom practices into confronting paradigm shifts?

How many teachers are still reluctant, for whatever reason, to take role-play, character development, narrative, games and other dramatic engagement into the non-traditional spaces afforded by technology and the internets?

Of course, we are aware that there are incredible sensitivities about children and the internet fuelled by similar sentiments as those espoused for the past year or so by Senator Conroy. The validity of many of these concerns and the claims that students are put at risk in online contexts are highly contentious, and debate always prevails. Perhaps our Drama teachers are concerned about being caught up in flurries of hysteria about working online? How does this sit in the face of the critical and liberation pedagogies that are supposed to underpin the real value of Drama in the curriculum?

Are demands to create marketable product from Drama classes – the school play, the festival piece, the competition entry are all fodder for the school’s marketing and promotion arm – pushing Drama teachers to work within particular comfortable forms? Surely the viral nature of a well-executed online drama could garner global acclaim rather than just a photo opportunity for the yearbook and the community newspaper?

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Perhaps preservice teacher education isn’t adequately preparing new teachers by insisting they engage with and utilize technology more comprehensively. A recent report (Cunnane, 2010) about an US Department of Education survey on technology use highlights the surprisingly low level and low order use of technology by academics within parts of the higher education sector in the US. I would venture to guess that the numbers wouldn’t diverge much in an Australian study. Do we see new Drama teachers being required to demonstrate competency in the use of a broad range of teaching and learning technologies, and appropriate technology-mediated pedagogical strategies?

4. NEW DIRECTIONS

“As Dr. Frankenstein learned, that which we create desires our care and responsibility. We are animals, and our machines are our extensions, supplementing and sometimes displacing ourselves. Transgenic art is a process for the manufacturing of monsters and machines, and thereby the artist must become the care-taker of these other beings. Without a concerned care-taking, these monsters and machines will return with desires and demands no posthuman can supply” (Causey, 2006)

In 2007 Steve Dixon released his significant volume, Digital Performance that examined the history of new media in the performing arts. This work examines a vast array of projects and explorations where practitioners have engaged with new media and new technologies to radically transform the types of work they produce. Examining such challenging issues as Stelarc’s efforts in physical enhancement through integrating the body with technological devices, to more “acceptable” explorations of using simple artificial intelligence applications as characters in performance.

Similarly, the 2006 publication of Matthew Causey’s decade long interrogation of theatrical encounters with digital technology recounts posthuman encounters and issues of disappearance, the arrival of cyberspace and the potential to take live theatrical performance into the realm of the virtual and insubstantial.

To date, there seems to be little penetration of these ideas into the study areas addressed within the K-12 Drama curriculum. The ideas have been created elsewhere, the monsters and machines have been let loose on the world of theatre and drama; from whence will our new generation of posthuman care-takers arise?

Educational drama and Drama in schools have been encouraged by many ventures into the uncertain world of technology-mediation. Anderson, Carroll and Cameron (2009) gathered together a dozen practitioners to contribute to an anthology of descriptions and expositions of the use of digital technologies in the drama world. In the Foreword, Jonothan Neelands once again asserts that,

“Issues of power and ownership remain central to any discussion of both the educational uses of technology and also to the shaping influences of technology in the

wider world beyond the classroom” (Anderson, et al, 2009)

Perhaps, our new care-takers will be found when some of these works are considered as normal and valid as the contributions Heathcote, Neelands, Haseman and O’Toole. With that in mind this section will introduce some of these investigations.

4.1 When Worlds Collide – Dunn and O’Toole

In this this project, Julie Dunn and John O’Toole describe a journey into computer games and roleplay intersecting with the established practical work of process drama.

Primary aged students engaged in an extended drama activity that began with enrolling them as historians working within a new media publishing house. The tensions introduced throughout the drama introduced the debates about who was the first to have conquered Everest’s peak. Students through engaging in =real and virtual spaces discovered the stories of George Mallory, Edmund Hillary and Norgay. The participants were faced with uncertainty about the common assertions of history.

Participant feedback indicated that entering a virtual space provided some useful scaffolding to the experience. The virtual space introduced features and experiences that extended and enhanced the imaginary and constructed spaces of the drama in the classroom.

Primary school drama students challenged the construction of History with the use of virtual worlds and computer games.

4.2 It’s more than theatre – Sutton C&T from Worcester in the UK have a long track record of innovative technologically influenced drama strategies. From Cambat, the Adverb Project to the Epiphany Virus discussed in this book they have always pushed the boundaries and blurred the lines between performance and participatory drama forms.

In the Epiphany Virus, director Paul Sutton and the C&T team devised a web-based narrative and participation strategies using relatively ubiquitous video distribution technologies like YouTube and Vimeo, as well as a suite of popular social media sites to draw together its well established network of participants to engage in the creation of transformative performance works. Working with existing art expressions and through remixing, reinterpreting and repurposing these works new meanings and new expressions were constructed.

This project purports to have successfully encouraged school-aged participants to develop “authentically postmodern texts”. This type of work aligns learners with such international bodies of practitioners as the Organisation of Transformative Works (OTW, 2010) - http://transformativeworks.org/ and places them in the vanguard of such new legal and intellectual shifts as the recently announced “DMCA circumvention exemptions”; the Copyright Office in the US argued that the creation of transformative artworks is a valid and acceptable exception to certain copyright limitations.

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4.3 Mash-ups – Cameron

David Cameron discusses the affordances of new media forms and the established form of the “mash-up”. Utilising a wide range of API integrations and interoperabilities, it is now possible to create and use new forms of technology to achieve old ends. Cameron draws on examples from Neelands epistle (Structuring Drama Work) to highlight how well established drama conventions can be reinvented and experienced using new media forms.

Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Gmail, and other cloud based applications are integrated to provide a unique digital platform for traditional forms.

Cameron provides a range of examples that illustrate how text-based, participatory, mobile forms can emerge from working online with tools that are comfortably manipulated by many digital natives.

4.4 Drama teacher as Games Master – O’Connor New Zealand has been a prominent regional partner in the exploration of new media forms. In this exposition Peter O’Connor describes how he drew upon the conventions of MMORPG and computer games worlds to combine with very familiar mobile technologies in the form of cell forms to create a dynamic program of drama introducing and exploring one of the dark forces of the cyberworld, cyberbullying. While the process was in many ways a traditional physically based processual drama, it was unmistakably informed and driven by the knowledge and understanding of the cultures surrounding and residing within networked technologies. As Levy (1997) asserts, “all knowledge resides in networks”, and this project works to reveal how this knowledge can be utilized to empower students to break the tyranny of hidden knowledge and placed it in the light of day where it can be scrutinized and disarmed.

4.5 Process and a digital perspective - Carroll

Having spent time working with Dorothy Heathcote and developing mastery of the nuances of rich process drama it isn’t surprising that co-editor John Carroll should work to bring together the richness of applied drama and the novelty and engagement of digital gaming.

Carroll’s arguments on the efficacy of drama enhanced games-based learning are compelling and situate well-established understandings in practical drama within a framework of digital game play. Carroll highlights the relative ease with which a rich knowledge of drama forms and new media can generate a forms that are totally familiar to all drama educators but existing within a radically transformed expression of contemporary learning.

4.6 Blogging: the diffusion of threat - Raphael

Jo Raphael guided the development of Drama Australia’s VINE project. This project drew upon the well established Wordpress platform to create a networked blogging environment for teachers and students.

Blogging is shown to be a manageable and easily adopted form of engagement with familiar aspects of writing in the drama classroom.

Blogs are shown to “encourage reflection”. Reflection, both in and on role, is one of the key strengths of drama education. Adopted as a process across most learning areas, reflection on practice is now considered essential to rich student-centred learning. This is one area that seems to have found favour in some areas of K-12 drama, and while drama is seen to be aligned with similar reflective processes across the curriculum there are certainly possibilities for extending the use of blogs to establish and explore characterization, narrative development and even as a performance form in their own right.

4.7 Cleo Missing – interactive drama - Davis

One of the most intriguing encounters in this chapter by Brisbane’s Sue Davis is the discovery of the now famous face of Josh Thomas beaming from one of the images from the project.

A fictitious website is created where an initially anonymous young woman announces she is searching for her friend who has gone missing. Cleo hasn’t been seen by her friend for some days, the friend calls for assistance. Using a modified version of the role circle participants are encouraged to use the online messaging system to post what they know about Cleo’s whereabouts.

Behind the scenes a group of young actors negotiate the information and devise improvised encounters to extend and develop the narrative. Those following this unfolding tale soon meet significant characters in Cleo’s life, traces and transcripts of her encounters, teachers and psychiatrists who have been part of Cleo’s journey.

This rich and engaging variation of devised drama provides not only a novel platform for the creation of drama but also a rich articulation of the skill set required by teachers embracing this form. The teacher must be comfortable with a limited and emerging knowledge of how such a project might play out. A broad understanding of the technologies employed and a rich awareness of how young people will play in this environment are essential criteria for any teacher in this digital realm.

4.8 Generativity in 3D MUVE drama - Flintoff

This author’s own contribution exploring the journey into the virtual world called Second Life.

This chapter describes the design elements of the virtual space and the instructional design inherent in the construction of the virtual process drama. The strategies are well known to any practitioner of process drama – the use of embedded pretext, situated role, teacher-in-role, the injection of tension and inevitable shifts in and out of role to reflect upon the action.

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This journey into the three-dimensional representation of an island called Godot challenged participants to take on roles as residents of a small island community facing a contentious attempt to introduce a restrictive law affecting internet use. Predating the similarly contentious Mandatory Filtering proposal from Senator Stephen Conroy, this drama asked participants to explore the impact of the internet on their world and to find more about how the internet is governed.

The drama allowed for engagement beyond class time and the discussion on the implementation speculates on whether we can reconceive the notion of metaxis to be a sustained state of awareness.

5. THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN

“There is no doubt that technology can enhance our drama teaching. Teachers can enrich their practice and students can have deepened and expanded learning opportunities with new tools for constructing our thoughts and feelings…The potential for invoking technology inside our work as drama educators is at the heart of this book, and the contributors have strengthened our resolve to meet the future as wired (or as wireless) as our students deserve.” (David Booth in Anderson et al, 2010)

David Booth’s closing commentary leaves us with the feeling that we are all poised to embrace these new forms and new directions; drama teachers have seen the LED light and are ready to pixellate and digitize the work they do each day.

If this is the case, then the Digital Education Revolution has arrived just in time. With its promises of developing leadership in technology enhanced teaching and learning, and backing it up with billions of dollars, there is little reason for any drama teacher to shy away.

Which drama educators will be amongst those chosen to lead us into this world of monsters and machines looking for our care?

It is clear that its all possible; it is clear that students stand to gain enormously; its is clear that the strategies and starting points have been defined; it is clear that the revolution is underway and about to be distributed by Really Simple Syndication (RSS). The Digital Education Revolution has sent out the call to arms, and awaits the brave drama educators to step up and claim these leadership opportunities. Where will be when the revolution is over?

6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Dramawest, Sven Sorenson and Christina Gray for the invitation to contribute to the 2010 Dramawest Conference.

7. REFERENCES and BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Anderson, A., Carroll, J., Cameron, D. (eds) (2006) Real Players?: London: New York. Continuum.

Anderson, A., Carroll, J., Cameron, D. (eds) (2009) Drama Education with Digital Technology London: New York. Continuum.

Cunnane, S. (2010) Students ‘let down’ by the academic Luddites in Times Higher Education August 12, 2010 accessed at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=412958

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