Informal Learning Practices in Distance Music Teacher Education: Technology (De)humanizing Interactions

Abstract

This paper discusses the implementation of a university teaching module, based on Lucy Green’s (2008) informal music learning model. The synergy between Green’s model and Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy is addressed through explanation of the module and its practices. The module was offered six times, from 2011 to 2016, as an action research project on a mixed-mode distance education undergraduate music program at the Open University of Brazil. The choices of technology in the module were aimed at promoting interactions in a dialogical, humanizing, and problem-posing approach to education in order to achieve conscientization (Freire 1970). However, the uses of technology and some of the practices of students led the author to ponder discourses of technological determinism.