Supporting Student Agency Through Heterogeneity in Digital Art-Making

• In Event: 34.078 - Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 34.078-12 - Art and Creativity in the Learning Sciences

Abstract

New technologies offer rich opportunities for cognitive, social, and creative development. However, when digital technology is introduced in low-income schools it is often done in a functional and straightforward way; that is, students are asked to do simple tasks that emphasize low-level skills (Margolis, 2008). Therefore, although technology has the power to facilitate collaboration, inspire innovation, and enable new forms of expression (Papert, 1980), it may instead amplify present social conditions (Toyama, 2015). Youth are capable of learning how to use technology at a high-level and produce creative artifacts if programs are intentionally designed for them (Barron, Gomez, Pinkard, & Martin, 2014). In this paper, I detail a digital art making experience in which students use a new creative technology to make interactive, digital murals. I argue that student participation in this digital art making process supports the development of student agency by allowing them to participate in heterogeneous ways (Rosebery, Ognowski, DiSchino, & Warren, 2010) that draw from both official and unofficial discourses of school.

Author

• Maggie Dahn, University of California - Los Angeles