2023:Program/Education/YSWVFE-The Role of Wikipedia in Personalizing The Music Education Process

Title: The Role of Wikipedia in Personalizing The Music Education Process

Speakers:

John David Vandevert (JohnDVandevert)

John David Vandevert is a Doctoral student in musicology at Uppsala University in Sweden where he is studying the role of nationalism and national self-identity within the Russian rap community and the ways in which nationalism is expressed. His research interests mostly pertain to Russian hip hop culture, popular music, nationalism, and musical aesthetics. Expanding musical education, however, is something that imbues his non-academic work, especially his writing with the online news source Opera Wire where he is a regular opera critic and contributing writer. Findings methods to educate and excite the public about classical music and the many forms it takes is a passion of his and one he fosters with his writing in both academic and non-academic spaces. He has presented on various topics within the Russian rap world and is the co-founder of the “Global Hip Hop Reading Room,” an international group dedicated towards the discussion of hip hop culture. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Headshot_JohnDVandevet.jpg

Pretalx link

Etherpad link

Room: Room 307

Start time: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0800

End time: Fri, 18 Aug 2023 10:20:00 +0800

Type: Lecture

Track: Education

Submission state: confirmed

Duration: 20 minutes

Do not record: true

Presentation language: en

Abstract & description

Abstract

As music education continues to leave the pedagogical classroom, incorporating more hands-on and community-centered practices, the question of the the role of the digital realm is still not one that has reached an easy conclusion. Wikipedia’s role is a fascinating look at the personalization of musical research, discovery, and learning.

Description

This 60-minute round table aims to understand how Wikipedia has been and can continue to be integrated into music-based research and educational opportunities for students of all demographics, ages, and socioeconomic statuses. By discovering ways in which Wikipedia can further incorporate editing Wikipedia pages concerning music and musically-related cultural topics outside of formal, academic contexts (i.e., Wikiversity), an integral step can be taken in developing knowledge itself and how we create it.

As a musicologist, I have learned a great deal by personal discovery, editing pages, making articles, and finding literature that I would only sometimes come across in my work-related research. Digging through the uncreated articles, the different projects, and stubs, I have learned about obscure operas, historical figures, and phenomena that traditional education may need to be revised or covered in its entirety. However, my case is unique as I am pursuing an academic career.

The imperative for Wikipedia and those operating in any capacity within Wikipedia’s musical centers to continually encourage musically-interested individuals of any kind to participate and engage is vital and urgent for the egalitarian development of musical education outside academic contexts and highly selective spaces of knowledge accrual. If individuals are not encouraged and/or prompted by teachers, libraries, colleagues, or other knowledge-creation catalysts to use this free resource for knowledge acquirement related to musical material, alienation from the music itself may set in as the learning process has not become an individualized experience tailored to their interests and desires.

The field of music education research is a vast and highly populated ecosystem. However, for the context of this round table, both academic and non-academic voices can be pooled in discovering how Wikipedia can offer a more personalized music education process without the pressure of grading, results, outcomes, or any concrete conclusion to the process.

Further details

Qn. How does your session relate to the event themes: Diversity, Collaboration Future?

The roundtable is connected to the theme as it is addressing the gulf between music and the student that academia has helped in creating as time has gone on.

By encouraging different communities of students to help themselves learn and discover new things about the musical world in whichever way they find themselves pulled, not only is Wikipedia developed but the entire field of music itself. Wikipedia offers a fascinating way to personalize the knowledge-creation process and by encouraging editors to think about ways editing Wikipedia can be framed as a more personalized process, becoming intimately aware of a subject from a controlled setting rather than a strict, external one, the entire project itself can be systematically developed as a result.

Collaboration, Future, and Diversity, all fall within the purview of this roundtable. By bringing minds together to generate ideas into how both academics and non-academics can help encourage musically-interested individuals to participate in the Wikipedia process in order to personalize their own development, the beauty of Wikipedia can unfold. The future of the project is diversifying who is editing and encouraging international collaboration by way of individualized and collective knowledge development in whichever fields participants are most interested in participating within. Within the musical realm, this means encouraging participants to marry their interests offline with their activities online.

Tapping into their personal tastes and interests, the collaborative point of Wikipedia can surface, in-turn diversifying the users of the platform as everyone has tastes and interests when it comes to music. Whether someone is fascinated by the historical part or more so the musical side, there is a place for them at Wikipedia and it is this that my roundtable addresses. How do we begin to make a place for everyone and not just those who wish to edit minutiae?

Qn. What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Qn. What is the most appropriate format for this session?

Onsite in Singapore
Remote online participation, livestreamed
Remote from a satellite event
Hybrid with some participants in Singapore and others dialing in remotely
Pre-recorded and available on demand