Reframing creativity and technology: promoting pedagogic change in music education

Abstract

No matter what else may divide us, most music educators are agreed on one general point. A central aim of defining how effective music educational practice should happen in the new e-learning environments which expand and connect communities of learners in music classrooms, is an imperative; a view which is emphasized in policy and widely acknowledged in teacher training. Yet, the critical roles played by creativity and technology in supporting the promotion of pedagogic change are less clear. This paper integrates theoretical framing and practical insights into a set of basic principles that may be useful for researching the interrelationship between creativity (as an essential human attribute lying at the heart of all learning and as processes of making something new) and technology (as tools that mediate how creative activity occurs). Several ways of driving pedagogical evolution, in ways that resemble the relationship between creativity and technology as we see in the world beyond school, are introduced. These include consideration of the potential contribution of sociocultural, post-Vygotskian Activity Theory (AT) to overcome some of the problems that have plagued both music educational theorizing and practice. While outlining potentials for future research, the article highlights how these processes may be brought into a productive relation as agents of pedagogic change in music education.