Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 2007 × End date: 2007 × Type: Masters Coursework thesis × Author: Werda, Monique Kathryn ×

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    Using new media in the drama classroom
    Werda, Monique Kathryn (University of Melbourne, 2007)
    This study explores the ways in which primary school drama students engage with new media technologies in the drama classroom. Specifically this study investigates a multi-media project combining live role- based performance and digital role-based performance. The research addresses whether the drama classroom can operate effectively within a digital framework. In particular the study seeks to clarify whether the virtual world and the real world of the drama classroom can come together to produce new dramatic works. Using an action research approach, I draw on my teaching of nine weeks of drama in an all girls K-12 school in Melbourne, Australia. The data was collected through observing and facilitating the drama workshops, conducting interviews with both student and teacher participants and collecting digital discussion forum reflections. A review of the related literature focuses on the current state of drama education and the ways in which drama educators are adapting to the technological changes in their curricula. In the drama classes the girls were challenged to create improvisations and stories from new media pretexts and stimuli. In their dramas the girls also addressed the ways in which new technologies were present in their everyday lives and how these technologies could be used in the drama classroom. This study addresses the possibilities of building a digitally viable drama classroom that still enables students to learn and express themselves through dramatic form. The findings of this study indicate the importance of drama education to connect young people to their real life technological experiences and also the importance of giving young people physically active opportunities that they do not find in their highly mediated world.