CC by SA Resources for Arts Learning
Open Educational Resources – The Art of Improvisation
This resource is an educator guide focussing on improvisation as a technique for developing thinking and language skills. The resource is extremely thorough in making cross-curricular connections to literacies scaffolding common terms and recognising specific vocabularies. It provides a number of activities for students and further provides specific questions for students to answer to create a greater depth of thought into the process. The resource is in a safe format and sensitive to cultures. It breaks the content of improvisation down scaffolding the learning to differentiate for a range of learning abilities. This resource could be utilised in the Drama classroom specifically for warm up and at the beginning of unit's so get student's 'creative juices' flowing. It would allow for students to practice their skills in ‘develop[ing] roles and characters consistent with situation, dramatic forms and performance styles to convey status, relationships and intentions (ACADRM041)’ as well as ‘develop[ing] and refin[ing] expressive skills in voice and movement to communicate ideas and dramatic action in different performance styles and conventions… (ACADRM043)’ (ACARA, 2016). The resource is under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 license.
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Department of Education – Aboriginal Education
This resource, provided by the Western Australian Government provides lesson plans teaching a wide range of concepts within Aboriginal Education. Many of these lessons could be incorporated into the Arts classroom being used as introductions and providing background information for students to be inspired by and work from. Other lesson plans fit directly with the Australian curriculum such as ‘Milpinti, story wire’, ‘Creation story’ and ‘Kunja’; three programs that introduce Aboriginal art forms providing storytelling techniques, video clips of dances and describes the features and functions of these techniques (Department of Education, 2016). These lesson plans would help students ‘develop and refine expressive skills in voice and movement to communicate ideas and dramatic action in different performance styles and conventions, including contemporary Australian drama styles developed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dramatists (ACADRM043)’ as well as ‘identify and connect specific features and purposes of drama from contemporary and past times to explore viewpoints and enrich their drama making, starting with drama in Australia and including drama of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (ACADRR046)’ (ACARA, 2016). This resource is both culturally sensitive and safe to use. It provides great insight into Aboriginal themes incorporating a range of methods to present the learning through video clips, music, books and images catering for a range of learners. It is under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
This resource presents the idea of integrating Drama and the Arts into the classroom to improve literacy skills, attitudes about school and self-esteem (Art in Action, 2016). The site provides information regarding how the Arts teacher/s could collaborate with teachers from other subject areas to integrate cross-curricular connections by utilising Drama or another form of Art to increase student understanding of content from another subject area. This collaboration could occur through planning meetings between teachers, identifying a specific content to work from and discussing how Drama can add to student knowledge and skills in that area. The site provides video clips showing examples of how Drama can be integrated to improve student learning, especially providing diversity for students who may not learn as well in the more conventional classroom. Although the resource does provide an option to become a member it still allows access to a number of links and resources without signing up, therefore presenting no need to provide personal information. The site is professional, well presented and without unrelated advertisements. It is under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license.
K-12 Teacher Resources – Drama
This resource provides links to a variety of resources including how to make puppets, basic scripts and lesson plans. These resources have multiple uses for arts learning linking to a number of Australian Curriculum content descriptors for example the use of puppetry could enable students to ‘analyse how the elements of drama have been combined in devised and scripted drama to convey different forms, performance styles and dramatic meaning’ (ACADRR045)’ (ACARA, 2016). Furthermore, allowing students to choose relatable scripts would lead to ‘perform[ing] devised and scripted drama maintaining commitment to role (ACADRM044)’ (ACARA, 2016). This site provides resources for a range of ages including years 8-10 providing a number of scaffolded lesson plans catering for diverse student needs and abilities and incorporating significant literacy skills. There is no requirement for users to become the member therefore privacy is protected and no ‘pop up advertisements’ are present. Most resources are professional and appropriate for school use as well as culturally sensitive. The site is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license however this may not be the case for external links, potentially creating a barrier for resource use.
This resource is self-explanatory; it is a site providing free sounds. The user is able to search for specific sounds, are given a number of options to choose from and are able to download the chosen sound. It is a simple and straight forward resource that most students could using integrating cross-curricular connections by utilising ICTs. It could be utilised by students when needing sound effects for a dramatic piece they have created, to perform for assessment, relating to a content descriptor such as to ‘plan, structure and rehearse drama, exploring ways to communicate and refine dramatic meaning for theatrical effect (ACADRM042)’ (ACARA, 2016). Free sound is created through people sharing created sounds online and in turn a forum is provided for users. It would therefore be essential for the teacher to make explicit their expectations of the use of this site and provide information regarding internet safety, teaching appropriate internet use to students. Each sound has a small symbol to represent the terms of copyright however a majority of sounds are under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license.
References
ACARA. (2016). Drama: Curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-
arts/drama/curriculum/f-10?layout=1#level7-8
Art in Action. (2016). Drama in the classroom / theatre in the classroom. Retrieved from
https://artinaction.wikispaces.com/Drama
Department of Education. (2016). Aboriginal education: the arts. Retrieved from
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