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A study of the integration of technology in the school arts classroom

This study explores the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Educational Technology (ET) as an educational resource in the school Arts classroom. Many teachers lack the qualifications to teach the Performing Arts (PA) of the Curriculum and Policy Statement (CAPS). Therefore, teachers rely on curriculum documentation and textbooks to help guide planning of lessons and the execution thereof. Technology as a resource tool can assist teachers as they incorporate an overwhelming amount of content/concepts in lessons. In this way they could improve classroom practice in the PA disciplines. With the emergence of Operation Phakisa: ICT in Education (Department of Education [DoE] 2015), the researcher acknowledges that the integration of ET is unavoidable. Moreover, the research highlights the importance of engaging with the rising hegemony of ICT as the defining characteristic of the information society. Literature supporting the inclusivity of media and media-related resources in education are discussed. In addition, the literature review focuses on a wide variety of ET and concludes with the implementation of ET in a South African context. Teachers from the Foundation Phase (FP), Intermediate Phase (IP) and Senior Phase (SP), namely grade R – 7, were invited to participate in the study where they were observed during contact time drawing on technology to aid teaching pedagogy. The research design involved a qualitative inquiry with aspects of crystallization where the data was collected through observations, interviews and teacher’s self-assessment. The findings suggest that teachers received little or no training in one or more PA disciplines. The integration of technology in the teaching pedagogy led to an enhanced learning environment where the teacher could actively engage learners in meaningful activities. The findings furthermore revealed that the use of technology was not uniform and did not lead to neat conclusion. Instead the researcher found that a great deal of divergence in the use of technology. This divergence was found across art disciplines and the use of technology also differed among teachers. Finally, individual teachers also differed in their use of technology across the art disciplines that they taught. The learners benefited from the use of technology insofar as they displayed a better understanding of the concepts in subsequent lessons. Furthermore, by the end of the study, teachers had begun to implement the new teaching style in learning areas other than the PA.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:21342
Date January 2016
CreatorsSauls, Maxwell Martin
PublisherNelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Arts
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Masters, MA
Formatxviii, 149 leaves, pdf
RightsNelson Mandela Metropolitan University

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