How technology is changing arts education

As technology changes every aspect of our lives arts educators are coming up with creative applications for when the screen can replace personal interaction and, just as importantly, discovering when it can't.
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The rise of the online world has increased access, speed and communications in many fields. Educators of all stripes are naturally keen to make the most of its possibilities. But perhaps the arts are an exception.

In a field where individuality, personal interaction and mentorships are key, how technology is adapted and used in the classroom is less straightforward. While some arts educators welcome the opportunities it offers, many are deeply aware of its limitations and disadvantages.

A supplement, not a replacement

NIDA teaching staff have invaluable practical experience, including experience of how technologies are used in stage and screen productions.

In the classroom, technology doesn’t so much replace the personal dynamic between lecturers and students as supplement it.

Michael Scott-Mitchell, Deputy Director/CEO and Head of Design for Performance said: ‘The practical experience of our staff combined with our conservatoire training model means that technology does not replace the role of the educator; rather, we select and employ technologies in specific ways to enhance the accessibility, relevance and impact of our teaching.’

‘We use a range of learning and teaching technologies, including e-learning delivery, moderated online forums and lecture capture – but all of these technologies serve to complement the judgement and feedback of the present and reactive educator in the workshop, studio or rehearsal room.’

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Changing how we move

Lucia Mastrantone, movement tutor at the Academy of Film, Theatre and Television (AFTT), said technology has even changed students’ physicality.

‘I have been teaching for 20 years and I have notice a huge difference in peoples’ fitness and stamina levels. At the beginning of every new group starting my classes I am seeing students be a lot less able to do simple things like jog very slowly for any length of time or roll to the floor easily or keep up with mild cardio activity. They are much more physically soft and less demanding of themselves to push through physical barriers than 10 years ago. Also I have noticed that many more students are fearful of a lot more things such as doing little slow ssomersaults, cartwheels or handstands or anything that requires going upside down.’ 

Far from making educators obsolete, technology has had the reverse effect for movement teaching. ​’If anything it has strengthened the purpose of having a movement specialist around as I think society has let physicality slip a bit. Not just in young people but all of us are doing less and less physically strenuous activity.’ 

But there is a place for technology in a movement class. Mastrantone also uses technology as a tool, viewing current trends in physical theatre around the world online and using these as a visual reference for students and also a point of inspiration for their work.

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More hindrance than help

JMC Academy teacher Kim Edwards said that although technology is fundamental in the two areas he teaches, games and animation, it can sometimes be more of a distraction. ‘Take, for example, looking at general ideas about how things move in time and space, if you do that through a computer you can actually get distracted from the actual examining of the detail of it. For example, in class we will do drawn examples of a ball bounce instead of plugging it straight into a computer and getting it to do it for you.’

‘If anything, maybe technology is a hindrance in terms of teaching students. If you can leave computers aside and cover topics without them, you might find you get a better outtake of things in those situations.’

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Creating an international focus 

At Monash University, the Master of Cultural and Creative Industries brings experts and activists from global agencies such as UNESCO into the classroom through guest lectures.  Students also get to explore real world projects online, accessing current information about cultural economies in countries including South Africa and Brazil.

But this use of technology is offset by personal engagement in real life with remote Indigenous communities visiting the campus to teach students about rural Australia as well. This access to extensive research paired with first-hand experience of overseas and local cultural economies through field trips has meant the Master of Cultural and Creative Industries is the first postgraduate course with this deep international and local focus.

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Teachers matter more

Terence Crawford, Head of Acting at Adelaide College of the Arts, said he doesn’t see technology changing the dynamic between lecturers and students in any profound sense.

‘The tradition of mentorship is so strong in performing arts pedagogy (the master/apprentice angle) that the dynamic between teacher and student must remain immediate, visceral, phenomenological, ‘felt’, experienced.

Instead, Crawford sees technology making the role of educator more vital in performing arts. ‘Theatre is a fundamentally primitive pursuit, a primitive urge. It remains best served by primitive means. Theatre embraces new technologies. Sometimes this is done in the service of the primitive theatrical root, and sometimes it is done for its own sake, and is pretty meaningless. So technology is all around us. The educator’s role is in part to not be distracted by it, or allow the student or the teaching to be distracted by it.’

‘One of the major theatre schools in the country is currently being distracted by technology, and being led down a tangential path. It is, I fear, looking for technology to found the careers of young actors. It won’t. Good teachers are necessary to help students identify the real, organic wood from the technological trees.’

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Valuing what’s irreplaceable off line

Luke Thurgate, a lecturer and project manager at the Adelaide Central School of Art, believes that the value of the studio model of learning for the arts can’t be replaced by technology.

According to Thurgate, face-to-face interaction between practicing artists and small groups of students provides unique benefits. ‘The intensity of the experience the School is for me unlike anything I’ve seen in other courses. The kind of rigour and focus of those classes, with so much one on one interaction with your lecturer, means that students’ learning curves are quite extreme.’

Thurgate explained that in a three and a half hour class, students will constantly be getting not only information from the lecturer, but also critical feedback both from the lecturer and from their peers. ‘This is why the School doesn’t offer units or provide content online. We value direct and ongoing exchange between lecturers and students in all our classes,’ he said.

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Promoting collaborati​on

Director of Shillington College Anthony Wood said technology doesn’t have the potential to replace lecturers or tutors.

‘Technology will never make educators obsolete. It might change our classrooms and methods, but trained teachers create a personalised environment that technology has yet to master. As of 2016, we couldn’t replicate Shillington’s varied and personalised curriculum in the digital sphere. But at the rate things are moving, who knows? Ask us again when holograms and robotics are perfected!’

But Wood does believe technology can improve traditional teaching methods though.

‘Shillington teachers use screensharing software to switch between student screens for group critiques, we livestream guest lectures between our international campuses and we’ve introduced a customised social network for students to chat outside of class. We believe technological advancements will continue to create new and exciting tools for communication, collaboration and learning. Plus, it definitely streamlines boring administrative tasks so teachers have more time to actually teach.’

He​ said there are no plans to take Shillington online. ‘We know the real magic happens when eager students and inspiring teachers have space to converse and collaborate in a real-time environment.’

‘During our past 20 years teaching design at Shillington, technology has evolved substantially and challenged us to keep up—not only in our curriculum, but in the classroom. Some institutions jumped to offer online courses, but we’ve stuck to our original mission of face-to-face, personable and purposeful education.’

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Effective information

‘I certainly think that from a theatre-making and educational point of view, our students are being exposed to different programs they can use for lighting and sound design and is enabling a more sophisticated delivery of their knowledge in practice,’ said Peta Downes, Head of Dramatic Arts at the Australian Institute of Music.

‘From an educational point of view a lot of our work is face to face. I don’t think we could deliver an acting class online. But I think at the same time to be able to deliver information really quickly to students – even the most basic forms of technology like emails and Dropbox – has allowed us to get a lot more information to students than we would have previously. I don’t ever think that the face to face teaching aspect will ever go away, particularly in this area but I think it has enhanced this degree [Bachelor of Performance].’

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A flexible component

Kathy Swaffer, Marketing Manager at IKON Education, said the institutions Creative Arts Therapies courses require two days a week of face to face learning.

‘We put a large value on the classroom component, as it’s essential to learn from people, when learning to work with people in the capacity of a therapist. We don’t cut corners by offering our qualifications online in their entirety. The classroom support that our students also receive from specialised trainers (who are practicing therapists themselves) as well as other students is also highly valued.’

‘We have introduced a small component of online learning to ensure we offer flexible learning to our students, many of whom are also working.  We also offer optional online support sessions for anyone that would like this.’

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Knowing the limits

Jennifer Murphy, Head of Music Theatre at the Australian Institute of Music, said there is room for technology in the arts classroom in the context of lecturers and teaching materials, but online only offers so much. ‘When it comes to performance it’s impossible to replace that face-to-face world. It’s not relevant to what we do.’

‘We use technology in terms of production and production values in our performances and musicals – cutting edge technology – and ideas to create a sense of the now, of relevance. But teaching an instrument – and teaching the voice in particular which has incredible variables, we are not a machine. We are not a thing you hold in your hands with a string and a bow. It’s a whole different experience. Teaching the art form of acting – can you imagine that being done online? And dance too? But thank god for that, that personal contact and communication that is intimate, because it is people being present to one another. And that’s why we call it live entertainment.’

‘That’s what we are doing – we are not making videos, this is about live performance and that is the thrill of it all that we see people sweating on stage and we hear people breathing and sniffing and we can completely connect to the electricity of joy in a room. You’ve got to be there.’

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Brooke Boland
About the Author
Brooke Boland is a freelance writer based on the South Coast of NSW. She has a PhD in literature from the University of NSW. You can find her on Instagram @southcoastwriter.