Bibliography

Final Project Research Topic

    I have not completely narrowed down the idea I want to research for my final project, but I am leaning towards focusing on technology uses in the art classroom, how it could improve student's digital literacy skills, and what would the potential challenges be. This could include using video tutorials to teach skills, rather than hands on/live demonstrations as well as referencing/using video games as a basis for art lessons and projects. I am being self-reflective on the types of technologies that I use in the art room, how can I use them in new/more effective ways, and what other types of digital literacy tools can I use to improve my teaching as well as improve students' digital literacy skills.

The following are the articles I found pertaining to this topic.

Hopper, J. J. H. (2016). Digitizing the easel: Student perspectives on tutorial videos in the art classroom. Art Education, 69(4), 23-28.

    Hopper is an art educator who recognized some areas that her students (and herself) were struggling in when it came to the demonstrations of new skills. The author explains how she conducted a study of 8th graders that participated in a hybrid classroom where students would watch video tutorials at home, review them in the classroom, and practice the skills they learned via the tutorials with her. Hopper used a qualitative method to gather data-she focused on six students, who she observed and conducted recorded interviews with. Her findings were that overall the students liked this hybrid classroom model, where they could view tutorials at their own pace and self-differentiating as needed. The examples she provided showed marked improvement, using images the students created before and after watching the videos teaching the skills.

Martyniuk, S. V. (2018). Game on!-Teaching video game studies in the arts classroom. Art Education, 71(3), 14-19.

    Matyniuk posits that video games are not just mindless options of entertainment, but rather a unique source rich with information and potential connections to content areas as well as a tool to increase virtual (digital) literacy skills. She presents the idea that there are three phases of virtual literacy when it comes to video games-1)Visual Representation, 2) Visual Communication, and 3) Visual Production. Maryniuk discusses how of each of these phases can be explored, citing specific video game examples that connect to each phase. She concludes her articles by reiterating that video games can be a useful tool for teachers and students.

Morain, M., Swarts, J. (2012). YouTutorial: A framework for assessing instructional online video. Technical Communication Quarterly, 21(1), 6-24.

    Morain and Swarts outline a rubric that one could use to assess the content of Youtube tutorial videos, considering their educational/instructional content. The three questions they addressed in their study/rubric were; 1) how effective was the use of sound, text, still images and moving images in the tutorial videos, 2) how do these help the viewers understanding and engage with the videos, and 3) does how they creators use the content differ between videos rated, good, average, and poor. The author's study consisted of 46 instructional videos which they sorted by ratings: they chose the first four videos with in the ranges of 3.5-5, 2.6-3.4, and 0-2.50 stars. While this study relied on descriptive data, rather than more quantitative data, the authors concluded that with a few drawbacks, there were also benefits. Beside merely obtaining descriptive data, the authors also concluded that another drawback was that their sample size was too small. However, two positive outcomes of the study were, that they believed this rubric could be used in other areas in media, and that it adds more data to this small field of research.

Overby, A., Jones, B. L. (2015). Virtual legos: Incorporating minecraft into the art education curriculum. Art Education, 68(1), 21-27.

    Overby and Jones discuss the game, Minecraft and how it can be utilized in an art-based educational setting. They present the idea that games such as Minecraft provide a "safe" online space for students to create and learn. The articles describes the different modes of the game-creative, survival, and adventure, though their focus is mainly on the creative mode. The authors interviewed and observed students ranging from 5 to 18 years of age, including both male and female participants. From these observations and interviews they concluded the there were several ways Minecraft could be connected to the arts, and other subject areas. Overby and Jones write that the use of games such as Minecraft provide students with an opportunity to learn basic programming skills, work collaboratively with other students and programs, and make connections to physical art projects such as pixel art.

Zhao, P., Kynashlahit, H., Sintonen, S. (2018). A qualitative analysis of the digital literacy of arts education teachers in chinese junior high and high schools. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 50(1), 77-87.

    The authors of this article discuss Information Communication Technologies (ICT's), and how they can be integrated into the arts in educational institutions. Their study included eight teachers, from several junior and high schools in China, after 2010 when China began restructuring their educational system. The study focused on the level of digital literacy these teachers had, and the use of their use of ICT's. The researchers used a qualitative method where they conducted semi-structured interviews with the participating teachers. From their interviews the authors concluded that all of the teachers in the study used CD's, DVD's, and Power point slides in their art-based classrooms. However, this just barely met the minimum requirement for ICT usage, as according to the Chinese educational standards. Additionally, only two of the eight teachers sought out additional ways to increase their use of ICT's and improve their digital literacy skills.