TecArt learning practices for 1st to 3rd grade students

This paper reports on six prototypes developed for integrating digital technology and computational thinking into Danish visual arts education. We focus on discussing the learning potentials for the TechArt integration based on our experience from developing the prototypes. The prototypes came about as a part of the national experimental project: Technology Understanding (2019-2020) in which the implementation of digitalization from 1-9th grade took place partly through constructing a new school subject named Technology Understanding, partly by integrating digital technology into selected school subjects (Buhl 2019). As one of the chosen school subjects, visual arts education provides prototypes suitable for teaching 1st-3rd grade. Digital technology has officially been a part of the school subject since 1991 (M.E. 1991) where Danish experimental environments explored technology beforehand (e.g. Skov 1988). The role of technology is double: it is the tool for artistic expression when students experiment with devices and applications, and it is the topic for artistic expression when students inquire and explore the societal implications of man-machine in a world of social media, algorithms and mobile technology. The six prototypes were developed based on curriculum informed activities in combination with principles from programming, digital design and social empowerment. The six prototypes are entitled:(1) Pattern and Shape, (2) Exploring Colour, (3) Animated Stories, (4) Pixel Art In Art Programmes, (5) Nasubi Gallery and (6) 3D Sculpture. They represent learning objectives to facilitate a learning progression visually as well as digitally. Our paper provides short descriptions of the six prototypes, a presentation of the interdisciplinary and pedagogical ideas behind them and a discussion of the contours of the future school subject in visual arts. The theoretical framework draws on insights from studies of contemporary visual arts pedagogy (e.g.), visual culture (e.g. Mirzoeff 2013), digitization (e.g. Sack 2019). Contemporary visual arts education in Denmark is driven by learning through visual practice as well as developing skills within a broad field of art and visual culture, and it includes a critical perspective on visuality as a core-learning objective (Buhl 2017, Buhl and Skov 2019). Based on the developing work with the six prototypes, we argue that digitization of art making holds the potential to integrate computational thinking and social empowerment. Buhl, M. (2019). Computational thinking utilizing visual arts, or maybe the other way around. I R. Ørngreen, M. Buhl, & B. Meyer (red.), Proceedings of the 18th European Conference on e-Learning, ECEL 2019 (s. 102-108). Academic Conferences and Publishing International. Proceedings of the European Conference on e-Learning, ECEL https://doi.org/10.34190/EEL.19.138 Buhl, M. (2017) Students and teachers as developers of visual learning designs with augmented reality for visual arts education in A Mesquita & P Peres (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on e-Learning, 94-101. Academic Conferences and Publishing International, 16th European Conference on eLearning, Porto, Portugal, 26/10/2017. Buhl, M., & Skov, K. (2019). The Collaborative of Making Place Manipulations. In Shields, A; Genevieve Cloutier, G & Peisen Ding, P. (eds.) MAKING. 2019 InSea Conference Proceedings 36th World InSEA Congress, Vancouver, Canada. Graham, J., Graziano, V. & Kelly, S. (2016) The Educational Turn in Art, Performance Research, 21:6, 29-35, Ministry of Education (1991) Billedkunst [Visual arts education) 1991/4. Undervisningsvejledning for Folkeskolen [Guidance for teaching visual arts in the Folke School) file://id.aau.dk/Users/mib/Downloads/1991-billedkunst.pdf Sack, W. (2019). The software arts. Cambridge MA: the MIT press