Playing, new music technology and the struggle with achieving intersubjectivity

Abstract

This study is an empirical investigation of what activities evolve when children interact with and around a new music technology (an Interactive Reflexive Musical System (IRMS), a kind of computationally augmented instrument), with and without an adult actively participating. What the nature of the participations’ communication is, what structuring resources they are introduced to and use, and whether or not the participants establish temporarily sufficient intersubjectivity are analysed. The empirical data consist of video observations from an after-school centre of, first, the children themselves interacting with each other and the music technology, and second, with a teacher participating in the activity. The result shows that the activities developed into different types of play-based participations: make-believe and/or musical play. Although the adult provides some structuring resources (counting, using metaphors and gestures) to engage the children in a ‘musical dialogue’ with the system, the participants do not establish temporarily sufficient intersubjectivity for engaging in a joint activity of this kind. The finding that the children (and adult) engage in many different kinds of activities illustrates the creative and open-ended nature of participating in social practices.

Play-Responsive Teaching in Early Childhood Education

“…Without such intersubjectivity, participants will talk past each other and effectively engage in distinct activities (Bendroth Karlsson, 1996;; and what one partner does may not make much sense to the other(s). Attempts to establish intersubjectivity is generally done through engaging in some form of meta-talk (Lagerlöf, Wallerstedt, & Pramling, 2014), that is, explicating and clarifying what one means, what perspective one takes on the matter at hand.…”

Interprofessional Dialogue and the Importance of Contextualising Children’s Participation: A Collaboration Between Different Disciplines Around New Technology

“…The participants were about 6 years old. In trying this alternative approach to the overarching project's protocol, we wanted to study children interacting more freely with the technology, friends, and an adult (Lagerlöf, 2015(Lagerlöf, , 2016Lagerlöf et al, 2013Lagerlöf et al, , 2014Lagerlöf & Peterson, 2018). The basic rationale for this idea was a desire to let the children take part together rather than being tested individually, and with an adult (teacher) as a partner, communicating and interacting with the children and the technology.…”

“…The ordinary teachers were not at all involved in the studies, as the technology itself was intended to serve as an advanced cognitive tutor (Ferrari & Addessi, 2014). Although we as researchers conducted extracurricular activities during which we studied the children interacting more freely with the technology, friends, and an adult (Lagerlöf, 2016;Lagerlöf, 2015;Lagerlöf et al, 2013Lagerlöf et al, , 2014Lagerlöf & Peterson, 2018), the teachers' perspectives were not considered in the project. In participatory research, these are important aspects to problematise; for example, who is participating, in what ways, and why were the teachers' perspectives not given relevance?…”

A Combined Research and Development Project

“…Without such intersubjectivity, participants will talk past each other and effectively engage in distinct activities (Bendroth Karlsson, 1996;Skantz Åberg, 2018); and what one partner does may not make much sense to the other(s). Attempts to establish intersubjectivity is generally done through engaging in some form of meta-talk (Lagerlöf, Wallerstedt, & Pramling, 2014), that is, explicating and clarifying what one means, what perspective one takes on the matter at hand.…”