Introducing technology and media into participatory activities in the form of projects really intrigues me because I personally had experienced positive and negative products of this ideology in the classroom and am curious about how to develop a good criterion for classroom conduction these activities.
While I was in middle school, I had the experience of a recreating a cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” with my entire class, being in an alternative art school, which was successful and extremely fun and entertaining in the making. However, even though I agree that positive experiences could come from this practice if done right, reversely, like many other activities, the classroom itself could also suck away the “fun” in the activities. Frustratingly, although the article presents interesting ideas of applicating these engagement activities, it partially ignores the reality of the many ways such a project could really fall flat with the students. For example, take a random high school strings class, it is likely not to be brimming with young aspiring musicians that are overflowing with creativity, but instead, a large portion of students who really are just there for the sake of taking another class, with an older traditional teacher that only did this because the faculty decided to embrace the new generation (such was my experience in high school). For many people this will just be a brain-wrackingly difficult, uninteresting, and phony pro-creativity project that they will eventually whip something up for just to get it over with and then breathe a sigh of relief when the course turns back to “the normal stuff” (yes, this has become anecdotal). I am also doubtful and willing to challenge the notion that introducing these new participatory activities into the classroom would actually prepare students for similar situations outside of the classroom. First, because the instructions presented in the classroom undoubtfully hinders creativity and acts as a crutch for creation. Second, any solid material that could be taught in about music creation would be either easy to come by or so difficult that very few people will actually successfully learn it in the given amount of time. I also believe that creativity should not be taught simply in cry for creativity with a lack of quality.
Lastly, I was surprised about the point of turning to the student perspective towards the copyright issue, which is also what I would like to address author about, because it seems to be a flimsy argument and morally insecure to me that just by being in an institution that one’s right to music and creativity itself should somehow stand a higher ground than those that are not in an institution.
Bibliography Tobias, E. S (2013). Toward Convergence Adapting Music Education to Comtemporary Society and Participatory Culture. Music Educators Journal, 99 (4), 29-36