Arts & Digital Literacy Initiative

Thomas H. Waggoner
Program Director of
Fine Arts Education
College of Fine Arts
The University of Texas
at Austin

The Arts and Digital Literacy initiative, which focuses on integrating fine arts education and technology, was established as a result of a legislative appropriation to the Texas Cultural Trust and is a collaboration with The University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) College of Fine Arts. Theatre and Media Communications is a project-based theatre curriculum for high school students that develops the link between traditional theatre education and digital media. Theatre and Media Communications, Levels I-II, has been submitted to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for approval as an innovative course designed to prepare students for post-secondary study in creative disciplines and for work in creative industries using technology as a primary tool. Digital literacy is the future of communication and commerce and creates learning experiences that develop students' capacities for critical thinking, creativity, imagination, and innovation.

Theatre and Media Communications, which, if approved as an innovative course by TEA (by March 31, 2012), may serve as an elective credit toward high school graduation and will provide students with a rigorous and relevant experiential study of theatre in addition to video and audio design. Creation and analysis of student performances will be balanced with explorations into contemporary practices in digital media. Students will learn how to bridge traditional stagecraft with current technology applications to create new media, such as animations, digital images, multimedia presentation, digital video, websites, and interactive performances. Furthermore, student work will culminate in a capstone project that investigates an issue relevant to the student and utilizes a digital stage to address a problem within the community or to affect a change. This project will afford students an opportunity to learn and practice creative research skills, develop a narrative, engage an audience, and connect an online community to their project.

Theatre and Media Communications combines the knowledge and skills of theatre study and digital media. Students will study acting, technology, and management of the theatre experience in addition to the responsibilities of digital publication in social networking environments. Students will learn how to analyze, evaluate, and refine ideas as well as gain media literacy and technology application skills. Students will study issues relevant to creating and communicating a message in a participatory culture through online communications and across multiple media. Students will learn valued workplace skills, such as how to work in teams, how to think critically, how to maintain motivation, how to plan and document project progress, and how to present their ideas to their audience.