06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Paper
Musical Digital Assets for the Diffusion of Immaterial Cultural Heritage
Alessio Di Paolo1, Michele Domenico Todino1, Argyro Fella2, Stefano Di Tore1
1University of Salerno, Italy; 2University of Nicosia, Cyprus
Presenting Author: Di Paolo, Alessio
This research aims to explore how Musical Digital Assets can enhance inclusive processes through listening, bringing people closer to the rich cultural heritage that characterized ancient peoples, particularly the Mediterranean populations. In this sense, Musical Digital Asset represents a frontier that improves the educational context (Turchet, 2023). In this regard, digital technologies have transformed how music educators convey knowledge, offering a wide range of resources and learning opportunities (Sibilio et al., 2023). Digital libraries, streaming platforms, and sound production tools provide an inexhaustible source of educational materials, enabling educators to customize teaching to meet the needs of users, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence, which has recently been the subject of numerous studies about music and its application in education and inclusivity (Miranda, 2021; Caramiaux & Donnarumma, 2021; Di Paolo et al., 2022).In this context, transmitting cultural heritage based on digital assets enriches users’ repertoire and promotes interactivity and active participation. Through modern technologies, users can explore and experience theoretical concepts that can be learned in a virtual museum. Digitally assisted production allows them to apply theoretical skills, stimulating creativity and problem-solving. Furthermore, integrating digital resources prepares users for the challenges of the contemporary landscape, where technological competence is often essential for professional success (McPherson & Tahıroğlu, 2020).In a practical context, the integration of digital musical heritage can occur using streaming platforms to access historical and contemporary recordings, allowing users to compare interpretive styles and analyze performance dynamics. In particular, the Mediterranean populations, have left various cultural testimonies that should be paid attention to under the artistic-musical profile. For the user, therefore, approaching, and exploring music that in some way echoes the history of that population allows for greater reflection on immaterial cultural heritage, opening new perspectives for interpretation (Li & Sun, 2023).Specialized software offers the user the opportunity to listen attentively and repeatedly to a given composition, enhancing understanding of its harmonic structures and historical features. Open-access multimedia resources that are always available to the user, not but in a virtual context, allow flexible access to materials and in-depth study of complex topics that belong not only to historiography or museology but to musicology and its possible relationship to other disciplines.In this context, Transmitting cultural heritage based on digital assets enriches users’ repertoire and promotes interactivity and active participation. Through modern technologies, users can explore and experience theoretical concepts that can be learned in a virtual museum. Digitally assisted production allows them to apply theoretical skills, stimulating creativity and problem-solving. Furthermore, the integration of digital resources prepares users for the challenges of the contemporary landscape, where technological competence is often essential for professional success (McPherson & Tahıroğlu, 2020).In a practical context, the integration of digital musical heritage can occur using streaming platforms to access historical and contemporary recordings, allowing users to compare interpretive styles and analyze performance dynamics. In particular, the Mediterranean populations, have left various cultural testimonies that should be paid attention to under the artistic-musical profile. For the user, therefore, approaching, and exploring music that in some way echoes the history of that population allows for greater reflection on immaterial cultural heritage, opening new perspectives for interpretation (Li & Sun, 2023).Specialized software offers the user the opportunity to listen attentively and repeatedly to a given composition, enhancing understanding of its harmonic structures and historical features. Open-access multimedia resources that are always available to the user, not but in a virtual context, allow flexible access to materials and in-depth study of complex topics that belong not only to historiography or museology but to musicology and its possible relationship to other disciplines.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedA 3D scan of a reproduction of a Mediterranean flute was created to be included in a virtual museum to link auditory channels with visual ones in this virtual educational context. Using headsets and joypads, users can approach the artifact and experiment with its sound. In a subsequent phase, eye movements will also be recorded using the sensors of the Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset. This is motivated by previous studies that have demonstrated the utility of fixation eye movements for enhancing learning (e.g., Chan et al., 2022). Given the inclusion of textual elements in the virtual museum, the examination of eye movements (e.g., fixations, saccades, and regressions) becomes even more significant, particularly in the context of individuals with reading difficulties (Fella et al., 2023). It is noteworthy that the virtual museum incorporates text utilizing a font specifically optimized for dyslexics, augmented with Greek alphabet letters, developed in collaboration between the University of Salerno and the University of Nicosia (Bilotti, et al.,2023) and it is likely that in the future works of art and artifacts from Cyprus will become part of the virtual exhibition. The reproduction of Mediterranean melodies is based on previous studies, based on archaeomusicology studies (Bellia, 2021), seeking to create original compositions that evoke sounds that are not present in current scores. Using Sibelius software, scores were created for a Mediterranean dance in three variants: flute solo, accompaniment with tambourines, and a version with singing and ritual text. These compositions were converted into various audio formats, including MIDI, and MP3, to adapt to the specifications of audio cards and adjust bitrates.
Virtuality allows users to "touch" the flute and contributes to an improved perception of cultural identity, following theses related to psycho-materiality and cultural psychology (Iannaccone, 2010; Valsiner, 2012)
The project involves a three-phase implementation, integrating the scanned flute and compositions into the dedicated virtual museum. In summary, this initiative combines technology, history, and culture to offer an engaging and multisensory educational experience, enriching users' understanding of musical and archaeological pasts, and promoting appreciation of the rich cultural heritage through digital innovation.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe innovative approach to education aims to create a temporal bridge, allowing users to fully immerse themselves in the nuances of past daily life through music (Rogers et al., 2020).
Through virtuality, the objective is to transmit not only the sound of ancient instruments, specifically the Mediterranean, but to somehow try to re-propose the same atmosphere and emotion that listening to them aroused. Certainly, these experiments represent best practices, and efforts are already underway to replicate virtual museums with countries in the Alpine region, particularly Switzerland. Collaborations have been established with various universities, further expanding the project's content. This initiative aims to increasingly internationalize its scope beyond Mediterranean areas.
This hands-on dimension enriches the learning experience, developing tangible musical and cultural skills (Turchet et al., 2021). The proposal aims to transform users into true operators of cultural and musical heritage, inspiring them to keep this richness alive through their active participation and sharing of learned experiences. In this way, the project's mission is not only to educate but also to transform cultural heritage into a living treasure, continuously enriched and transmitted through generations.
ReferencesBellia A. (2021), From Digitalisation and Virtual Reconstruction of Ancient Musical Instruments to Sound Heritage Simulation and Preservation, «Archeologia e Calcolatori»
Bilotti, U., Todino, M. D., & Fella, A. (2023). Implementation of Greek alphabet characters according to the OpenDyslexic standard and teacher's guide for font use. Journal of Inclusive Methodology and Technology in Learning and Teaching, 3(1sup).
Caramiaux, B., & Donnarumma, M. (2021). Artificial intelligence in music and performance: a subjective art-research inquiry. Handbook of Artificial Intelligence for Music: Foundations, Advanced Approaches, and Developments for Creativity, 75-95.
Chan, A.S., Lee, TL., Sze, S.L. et al. Eye-tracking training improves the learning and memory of children with learning difficulty. Sci Rep 12, 13974 (2022).
Di Paolo, A., Beatini, V., Todino, M. D., & Di Tore, S. (2022). From artificial intelligence to musical intelligence for inclusive education: reflections and proposals. Italian Journal Of Health Education, Sport And Inclusive Didactics, 6.
Evidence for Simultaneous Cognitive Processing in Reading. Children, 10(12), 1855.
Iannaccone, A. (2010). Le condizioni sociali del pensiero. Contesti sociali e culturali. Unicopli.
Li, Y., & Sun, R. (2023). Innovations of music and aesthetic education courses using intelligent technologies. Education and Information Technologies, 1-24.
Magnusson, T. (2021). The migration of musical instruments: on the socio-technological conditions of musical evolution. Journal of New Music Research, 50.
McPherson, A., & Tahıroğlu, K. (2020). Idiomatic patterns and aesthetic influence in computer music languages. Organised sound, 25(1), 53-63.
Rogers, K., Milo, M., Weber, M., & Nacke, L. E. (2020). The potential disconnect between time perception and immersion: Effects of music on vr player experience. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (pp. 414-426).
Sibilio, M., Di Tore, S., Todino, M. D., Lecce, A., Viola, I., & Campitiello, L. (2023). MetaWelt: Embodied in Which Body? Simplex Didactics to Live the Web 3.0. In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 111-119). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Turchet, L. (2023). Musical Metaverse: vision, opportunities, and challenges. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 1-17.
Turchet, L., Hamilton, R., & Çamci, A. (2021). Music in extended realities. IEEE Access, 9.
Valsiner, J. (2014). Needed for cultural psychology: Methodology in a new key. Culture & Psychology, 20(1), 3-30.
06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Paper
Between Playing and Learning - Enablers, Barriers and Frictions of Digital Learning Opportunities in Educational Ecosystems
Claudia Boehme1, Andreas Weich1, Felicitas Macgilchrist2
1Leibniz Institute for Educational Media, Germany; 2University of Oldenburg, Germany
Presenting Author: Boehme, Claudia;
Weich, Andreas
With the aim to equip young people with skills, knowledge and competences for dealing with the challenges and uncertainties of the 21st century, educational experts have come to the realisation that this cannot be accomplished by school alone and should not be reduced to subject-specific learning. To understand and enhance students’ ability to navigate a digitally connected world and to steer this world to new futures, studies have adopted broader approaches which involve schooling and educational media and look beyond the school at further relations, practices and systems in which young people live. A decade of research from the Connected Learning Alliance (CLA) has shown that students learn most when educators give them the opportunity to follow their interests, to embed their learning in social relationships, and to connect their learning to real-world opportunities beyond the classroom (Ito et al., 2020).
Many emerging initiatives around the world have taken an ‘ecological’ approach to learning ecosystems (cf. Otto/Kerres 2023), which have been described as ‘a potential game-changer for today’s learners’ (Al-Fadala, WISE, in Hannon et al. 2019, p. i). In connecting different in and out of school learning spaces like schools, museums, libraries, youth centers under the umbrella of “educational ecosystems”, providers aim to offer young people more open and expanded learning opportunities. However, despite the thorough engagement with ecosystem research, projects mostly retain the individualist epistemology underlying mainstream educational research or focus on the communication and governance between the institutions involved (Huber et al. 2020). This stands in tension with a thorough conception of an ecosystem which emphasizes the interconnectedness and inter-relationships among biological, physical and chemical actors. In building on previous research in education we aim to adopt the conception of an ecosystem as ‘a fundamental organizational unit of the biosphere in which biological communities interact with their non-biological environment through energy flows and material cycles’ (Yu et al., 2021, p. 151). In this way, ‘ecosystem science is the study of patterns, processes, and services of ecosystems’ (ibid.).
In our presentation we will present the findings of a study of three such educational ecosystem projects in Germany which are funded by a company foundation. With a common slogan these networks offer STEAM based learning through gaming, robotic, digital production in makerspaces and youth centers or research-based learning in museum and school. Key underlying questions are how digital media technologies are embedded in these ecosystems, how they relate to traditional media and what kind of practices evolve within their contexts. One of the underlying theses of our research is that educational ecosystems can be considered as media ecosystems in which the interplay between different ‘media constellations’ (Weich 2020; 2023) is crucial. Media constellations can be conceptualized as a co-constitutive entanglement of materialities, knowledge/practices, content and subject positions. Between institutions within a given ecosystem, there might be continuities and compatibilities as well as frictions and tensions between their media constellations which can stabilise the ecosystem, helping it to thrive, but could also destabilise the ecosystem, potentially leading to rupture.
The presentation compares these three educational ecosystems with the following questions: Which goals are being pursued by the different actors in the network? Which media constellations do they create to reach their goals? What expectations, fulfillments and disappointments do the actors experience? And which frictions and tensions can be observed in these spaces?
Based on ethnographic research we aim to provide deep insights into how these educational ecosystems are developed, what they offer for participating youth and most importantly what young people make of these opportunities.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe research design is rooted in an ethnographic qualitative research paradigm, with participant observation, interviews, and thematic analysis, and draws from media anthropology (Coman 2005) and media theory (Easterling, 2021; Krämer, 2008). The project focuses on three maximally contrasting cases:
1) Pop-up Makerspace/ City library: Developing/Changing ecosystem
2) Research Learning/Museum of Natural History, Partner schools. Emerging ecosystem
3) Maker mobile/ City, Youth Centers: Stable ecosystem
One key method to explore participants’ experiences is semi-structured interviewing. Providers are interviewed in two stages: Stage 1 explore goals, barriers and enablers. Further interviews with providers and young people are identified via a snowball method, until saturation is achieved. Stage 2 interviews reflect on initial findings, exploring whether findings resonate across cases.
The second key method is an ethnographic sensitivity to ‘following’ threads, i.e., following things, actors and institutions across time and space (Marcus, 1995) within and across media constellations. Interview partners are likely to mention objects, people, institutions, practices, discourse or content which they consider key to the ecosystem. The research team identifies one object and one institution to ‘follow’ for each case study, i.e. to visit, to conduct participant observation, and to write extensive fieldnotes (Emerson et al., 2011). In each case study, two young people have been invited as key informants. The researcher follows their practices across the locations of the ecosystem. The focus lies on observing how media constellations unfold and how objects and students move across media constellations within the ecosystem. Analysis of the interviews and fieldnotes uses thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006; 2020), coding the interview material and fieldnotes, systematising these codes to central themes that respond to the three sub-questions ([i] goals, [ii] barriers and enablers, [iii] harms and benefits). Analysis also crafts contextualised user stories, to add nuance, complexity and narrative richness in order to understand how young people traverse the media constellations in which they are involved. From this, the project develops a systematic broader response to the overarching research question, teasing out which patterns, practices and services are visible in educational ecosystems. This cascade of findings enables the team to identify implications for practitioners creating, catalysing or managing educational ecosystems.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe findings tease out how divergent media constellations constitute educational ecosystems, what enables them to thrive or fail, and what renders them stable or fragile. By identifying emerging themes and key media constellations across educational ecosystems, the paper presents continuities/compatibilities and frictions/tensions within the ecosystems.
By crafting user stories rooted in young people’s experiences of the ecosystems, we aim to show their ‘journeys’ between different media constellations, and the impact of these journeys on young people’s narratives of self, community, connections, learning and technology.
In addition to these findings, the project aims to contribute to academic debates on ecosystems in education by exploring the different understandings of this key word “ecosystems” as enacted in practice. The paper ends by reflecting on implications for future research and for creating and sustaining educational ecosystems.
ReferencesBraun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2020). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 328-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238
Coman, Mihai. (2005). Media anthropology: An overview. http://www. media-anthropology. net/coman_maoverview. pdf
Easterling, K. (2021). Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World. Verso.
Krämer, S. (2008). Medium, Bote, Übertragung: Kleine Metaphysik der Medialität. Suhrkamp.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L. (2011). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. University of Chicago Press.
Hannon, V., Thomas, L., Ward, S., & Beresford, T. (2019). Local Learning Ecosystems: Emerging Models. https://www.wise-qatar.org/2019-wise-research-learning-ecosystems-innovation-unit/
Huber, S. G., Werner, R., Koszuta, A., Schwander, M., Strietholt, R., Bacso, M. A., & Nonnenmacher, L. (2020). Zusammenarbeit und Bildungsangebote in Bildungsnetzwerken–Entwicklungen, Nutzen und Gelingensbedingungen. IBB Pädagogische Hochschule Zug.
Ito, M., Arum, R., Conley, D., Gutiérrez, K., Kirshner, B., Livingstone, S., Michalchik, V., Penuel, W., Peppler, K., Pinkard, N., Jean Rhodes, K., Tekinbaş, S., Schor, J., Sefton-Green, J., & Watkins, S. C. (2020). The Connected Learning Research Network. Reflections on a Decade of Engaged Scholarship. Connected Learning Alliance. https://clalliance.org/publications/theconnected-learning-research-network-reflections-on-a-decade-of-engaged-scholarship/
Otto, D., & Michael K. (2023). Distributed Learning Ecosystems in Education: A Guide to the Debate. Distributed Learning Ecosystems: Concepts, Resources, and Repositories. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 13-30.
Weich, A., Koch, K., & Othmer, J. (2020). Medienreflexion als Teil „digitaler Kompetenzen“ von Lehrkräften? Eine interdisziplinäre Analyse des TPACK und DigCompEdu-Modells. k:ON -Kölner Online Journal für Lehrer*innenbildung, 1(1), 43-64. https://doi.org/10.18716/ojs/kON/2020.1.3
Weich, A. (2023). Medienkonstellationsanalyse. In L. Niebling, F. Raczkowski, & S.Stollfuß (Eds.): Handbuch digitale Medien und Methoden. Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-36629-2_28-1
Marcus, G. (1995). Ethnography on/of the world system: The emergence of multi-site ethnography. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 95-117
Yu, G., Piao, S., Zhang, Y., Liu, L., Peng, J., & Niu, S. (2021). Moving toward a new era of ecosystem science. Geography and Sustainability, 2(3), 151-162.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geosus.2021.06.004
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