{"id":200384,"date":"2019-02-01T04:17:44","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T09:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=200384"},"modified":"2019-02-01T04:17:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T09:17:44","slug":"smartphones-connect-art-students-to-sights-and-sounds-of-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/01\/smartphones-connect-art-students-to-sights-and-sounds-of-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Smartphones connect art students to sights and sounds of Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With a smartphone, a student is connected to all their friends and millions of strangers on a vast virtual world of attention-grabbing apps. (UNSPLASH PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many teachers see smartphones as a weapons of mass distraction in the classrooms and have become convinced smartphones and school are a bad mix.<\/p>\n

With a smartphone, a student is connected to all their friends and millions of strangers on a vast virtual world of attention-grabbing apps.<\/p>\n

While there are many legitimate concerns over smartphone use in classrooms, the fact remains that smartphones are a major part of teens’ lives today.<\/p>\n

In this context, embracing the mindful use of smartphones in classrooms might be a more effective tactic than prohibiting their use in schools.<\/p>\n

I believe educators can have a positive impact on the everyday practices of youth by integrating smartphones in thoughtful and creative ways inside and outside classrooms.<\/p>\n

I am a member of a research team investigating how mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, can be used to enrich teaching and learning in art classrooms.<\/p>\n

I am also an artist whose sense of the learning possibilities with smartphones has been enriched by my own explorations with sound.<\/p>\n

Sonic energy<\/p>\n

One day, I borrowed an audio recorder and I stood out in my backyard in Verdun, a neighbourhood in Montreal’s south west, and started listening with the device.<\/p>\n

This familiar place had suddenly transformed into an aural ocean imbued with sonic energy!<\/p>\n

I became aware of a world full of sound that I had been tuning out and I began composing soundscapes that represent my relationship to my everyday surroundings.<\/p>\n

I began to wonder \u2014 could this type of attending, listening and creative representation of soundscape be useful in classrooms? What benefits might this offer students?<\/p>\n

This led me to work with art teachers to develop an approach for teaching soundscape compositions in art classrooms.<\/p>\n

A key insight I gained from these experiences is how mobile technology, like an audio recorder, can make us aware of our relationship to everyday places.<\/p>\n

And I began to wonder if smartphones could do similar things in schools.<\/p>\n

Expand the learning space<\/p>\n

Our team, led by my supervisor (Juan Carlos Castro), researches and designs ways for art teachers to use mobile devices in their classrooms.<\/p>\n

In the MonCoin project we collaborated with high school art teachers and about 300 of their students. The phrase mon coin, which literally translates as \u201cmy corner,\u201d also captures a sense of connection to identity and place.<\/p>\n

Our team used Instagram, the social media application for sharing photos online. At each school, we created a private, closed network accessible to only teachers and students in a class.<\/p>\n

On Instagram, we posted visual prompts (images), which we called \u201cMissions.\u201d Through these we invited students to post a response with a smartphone photograph. Such missions explored themes of \u201cself,\u201d \u201cmy school\u201d and \u201cmy surroundings.\u201d<\/p>\n

What we experienced was consistent with earlier research: sharing from their different perspectives and locations heightened the students’ desire to be connected at school and their sense of personal involvement in their learning.<\/p>\n

And, through sharing their own images, the students created a peer-learning network, in which they could teach and learn from each other by taking and sharing images online.<\/p>\n

Thus, through the MonCoin project, teachers initiated a new way for students to relate, but the students themselves were participants in expanding the learning space. This project allowed peers to be connected anywhere at anytime.<\/p>\n

Noticing our surroundings through the senses<\/p>\n

I’m now using the methods and approaches developed in the MonCoin project to design additional curricula for using smartphones to connect youth to their everyday surroundings:<\/p>\n

Sense Walks<\/p>\n

Sense walks are in-classroom activities, where a class goes on a walk together, while paying attention to one sense at a time.<\/p>\n

The group of students stops at various intervals to discuss each sense, and also to photograph what they sense.<\/p>\n

This gives students the creative challenge of translating different senses into visual images.<\/p>\n

Sense Maps<\/p>\n

Another tool I use is the sense map. We use Google My Maps to design sense walks in different Montreal neighbourhoods \u2014 for example, in Verdun by the St. Lawrence River.<\/p>\n

Creating such a map involves: Making a list of places in your neighbourhood to photograph its iconic, personally meaningful, or interesting sounds, sights, tastes and smells; using the list to design a walk in your neighbourhood; going on the walk and taking pictures; editing and posting those images on the map.<\/p>\n

Students who made sense maps talked about how the process encouraged them to go outside and discover new things about their familiar spaces that they hadn’t noticed before.<\/p>\n

Smartphones to connect to everyday surroundings<\/p>\n

In my current research, the smartphone is being used as a tool to pay attention, notice, and share observations about our everyday surroundings.<\/p>\n

By interviewing students, I have learned about some of the positive outcomes of using smartphones in the art classroom in these ways: connecting a group of learners to encourage peer learning; expanding the space of learning and encouraging youth to go outside and explore; encouraging youth to notice and pay attention to their everyday surroundings.<\/p>\n

Yes, smartphones are distracting, and they can have negative effects on learning. However, as an educator I believe I can have an impact by encouraging positive habits and uses with this pervasive technology.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

I wish to thank my research team for their collaboration and support with these projects: Juan Carlos Castro, David Pariser, Martin Lalonde, Lina Moreno, Bettina Forget, Melissa Ledo and Gia Greer.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Disclosure information is available on the original site. Read the original article:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/theconversation.com\/smartphones-connect-art-students-to-sigh https:\/\/theconversation.com\/smar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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