Part 3 Reflection Week 5

Week 5 Task 3 reflection:

With online teaching to fully commence next week in Victoria due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it has been ironically a busy fortnight searching for effective and appropriate digital technology to utilise in this new environment that primary and secondary teachers across our nation find themselves in. I am a music teacher in the classroom and instrumental program and finding digital tools for the ensemble program has been a priority for my school as we have up to 800 students learning instruments and numerous ensembles such as concert bands, string orchestras, choirs, stage bands, rock bands, VCE ensembles etc. So many online learning platforms and tools have been made available for free for the period that this virus is estimated to be affecting us. Smartmuisc is one such application that promises to be a useful addition to suite of teaching tools available to us. The link has been placed on my blog (https://jazzydave.blogspot.com).

The teacher can sign in, create classes and invite students to the appropriate class, the student receives an email with a hyperlink and class code that allows them access to anything the teacher requests them to do as a task. The platform is connected to an enormous data base of music that publishing firms and composers have negotiated the rights for Smartmusic to utilise them in this way. The teacher has numerous choices of categories to view such as method books, solos, exercises, jazz improv, sight-reading and singing, choir, band and orchestras etc. 

The teacher can set assignments by choosing music from within the database. This database has a good representation of the standard repertoire seen in the ensembles that usually occur at schools. Once the music is chosen the teacher can set assignment instructions, a rubric and a ‘tolerance’ for accuracy so that differentiation is taken into account for the level of each student.

Once the student receives the task, they open it and the music will appear.

There are many functions available at the top of the screen, including a colour blind mode to help colour blind students see some colour aspects more clearly. At the centre of the screen, above the music, is the play and record buttons that the student can use to complete their task/s. Looking at different drop-down menus brings up sliders that allow the tempo to be altered, accompaniment volume to be altered and even the students part to be made louder or softer. The teacher can preset these settings for the recording mode. 

A feature of this platform allows students to practice assignments as many times as they like within the assignment set date. When the student has completed the task by recording it through Smartmusic it is submitted, and the teacher will receive the following information.

The music is displayed, and the notes are colored to represent different aspects of errors made by the student. You can also see in the bottom right corner a comment from the student showing how they were able to reflect upon their achievements. 

Also supplied is the recording of the students’ performance with the software’s assessment mark so that the teacher can review and adjust the marking as appropriate.

Recording

The mark and feedback given to students appears like this:

The teacher is also able to see how much practice the student/s have done within the program.

As you can see it is a comprehensive digital platform that I am sure can do more than what I have so far outlined. How does it stack up with the SAMR model though?

Substitution: It provides another way for students to practice their music parts, ensemble and solo. 

Augmentation: While the students are practicing their parts, they are able to hear how the other parts fit in with theirs and enhance their ability to blend within the ensemble, including intonation accuracy.

Modification: Task redesign is made possible by the teacher being able to set ensemble part performance assessments where the students record and are marked on the accuracy of their part prior to being in the live ensemble rehearsal. 

Redefinition: It would have been previously inconceivable to be able to give immediate feedback at any time to a student playing their ensemble/solo pieces unless they were at their weekly rehearsal lesson. Here the program is able to give its immediate feedback with indications of what mistakes were made before the teacher is able to give theirs. Sight-reading is always a difficult aspect to have students practice and be monitored on with feedback. With Smartmusic sight-reading activities can be assigned specific to a student’s skill level that helps develop the student’s accuracy, providing them with immediate feedback to inform their growth. It can help motivate a student to want to increase their skills. 

The Smartmusic platform is a safe environment for students to work in as there is no advertising involved and the only information students supply is their name and email address so that teachers can receive recordings of the assignments set. It is up to the students if they wish to email recordings to people other than the teacher. Ethically this software ticks all the boxes to be safe for schools to use within their music programs.

Part 2 Reflection Week 4

Week 4 Task 2 reflection:
As Eddie McGuire used to say each week on the Channel 9 Footy show, ‘It’s been a long week in football’. Well I can say it’s been a long week in digital technology! I reiterate what I reflected upon last week, setting up technology is an extremely time-consuming activity for those that like to use a manual. 

                         (Doherty, 2019)

I remember learning the music publishing program a decade and a half ago that I now use proficiently to compose and publish my compositions. I read the manual from cover to cover whilst copying a large score into the program. 
                                             
 ("Cartoon Businessman Carrying A Heavy Manual Posters, Art Prints by ... | Art prints", 2020)

I learnt so much and what I learnt stuck from this experience. A number of updates later and there is no hard copy manual, this blew my mind apart. I am sure there are still things that I do not know because of this. For technology, not having a manual is standard today and this makes it quite difficult for those non-kinaesthetic learners that like to follow instructions.

Regardless of these walls I have needed to climb, I have been able to consider further my initial ideas for a task within the blogger and WIKI platforms. I was suggested an online app to create a timeline for my wiki sites through Sutori. This has proven to be perfect for my requirements. I have set up a timeline for each period of music:

• ·      Renaissance era https://sites.google.com/view/renaissancemusicera/home
• ·      Baroque era https://sites.google.com/view/baroque-era/home
• ·      Classical era https://sites.google.com/view/classical-era/home
• ·      Romantic era https://sites.google.com/view/romantic-era/home
• ·      Modern era https://sites.google.com/view/modernmusicera/home
• 
  

                                      

I then embedded it into the website by the use of the HTML code (see image below).

               

Remember the task I considered was as follows; 

A music class has a concert class each week whereby students perform some or all of a piece of their repertoire, the class discusses not only how the performance can be improved but also some contextual information about the repertoire that can guide the performer in what performance techniques might be appropriate. By linking a Blog to the website ‘Composers Timeline’ https://sites.google.com/view/daveygcomposerstimeline/home students can research their repertoire and the contextual information surrounding the composers and create a WIKI site in which I hyperlink to the composer’s name within the timeline. The end result would be an interactive timeline/s that the class has collaboratively created that will help inform them of performance and compositional techniques appropriate to that composer and/or genre. 

For this task I have not made these timelines editable for students, however I did hyperlink the title and invite a co-worker so that they could edit if required, clearly if I change my mind this can occur for students. 

     

                                   
My thoughts are that students can communicate through the blog by directing me to their own created WIKI site that they have populated their findings in about the composer and repertoire, from here I can hyperlink the site to the composer’s name in the timeline. I have set up an example for students to view in the Classical era site https://sites.google.com/view/classical-era/home simply press on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which is hyperlinked to a WIKI site that informs about him and his composition ‘Clarinet Concerto Mvt. 1. 

On the sites that I have set up I have inserted documents with information about each period or composer and have made these editable in share settings so that students can add to it when required.

                             

                         

Initially I was concerned that this would allow students to fill documents etc with potentially incorrect information, however, I have since discovered the ability to return sites back to previous dated settings, see below:

                             

       

Although this task was already occurring in the classroom environment, it now has far more depth and collaborative abilities. Where before the students were merely informing the class of their repertoire as they were about to perform it, they now are contributing, for the want of a better word, to a class encyclopaedia outlining in depth information through the use of audio and visual digital environments. This has allowed a considerable task redesign that is allowing more collaborative involvement that was previously inconceivable, moving it to the highest level of the SAMR model, ‘Redefinition’.

I have also created a second blog site this week https://stayathomelaerning.blogspot.com that is hyperlinked from the original blog https://jazzydave.blogspot.com. I created this in reaction to our current situation with COVID-19. The school I work in went online last week with both classes and instrumental lessons. Although this was a very stressful process to initiate it became clear that it was an incredibly positive and morale lifting event for not only teachers and students but parents and the family unit as a whole. Parents and students were on the whole so happy to have contact with their friends and teachers in maybe not the same, but a similar environment that they have always been used to, it gave their home life more purpose and the positive comments came flooding in. The blog is there for everyone to communicate to each other with, as long as it is with positive comments. I have hyperlinked on the top right to a WIKI site that comments, photos or videos can be inserted under teacher, student and parent tabs. The inspiration for this was not only the parent’s emails and texts but a short video that was sent to me, see below:

 (Desjardins, 2020)

As you can see from the citing above I have now gone through all the inserts into my blog and wiki site and cited where appropriate so that I can set the correct ethical examples to any students that would be using these sites. 

References:

Cartoon Businessman Carrying A Heavy Manual Posters, Art Prints by ... | Art prints. (2020). Retrieved 4 April 2020, from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/316870523755927798/ 

Desjardins, C. (2020). The pets will thrive! (A parody). Retrieved 4 April 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i97VF8XeBQ4

Doherty, C. (2019). How Your Computer May Cause a Headache. Retrieved 4 April 2020, from https://www.verywellhealth.com/is-working-at-my-computer-causing-my-headaches-1719432

Part 1 Reflection Week 3

A number of years ago I created a website through Wix.com to promote the jazz band that I was leader of and also help sell Compact disc recordings, although I think it is now time to consider investigating downloadable audio files as compact discs seem to be a thing of the past (https://www.davidgardnerquartet.com.au). This process was time consuming as I had never done it before, however, mostly it was not ‘rocket science’, I am sure a website builder would have many criticisms and suggestions of how to make it better. I have found using Blogger and creating websites through the Google ‘Sites’ function similar; time consuming but with enough patience and persistence an achievable task. 


("A Look Back at the Future", 2015)

The ‘Sites’ function in Google has allowed me to set up a number of websites that I have linked to one main site titled ‘Composers Timeline’, https://sites.google.com/view/daveygcomposerstimeline/home . This site I have made accessible from a link in the footer of my Blogger page, https://jazzydave.blogspot.com . I also discovered how to place a link to my band’s website mentioned above and placed it in the sidebar titled ‘About me’ as this website has my biography embedded within. 

As I have been and still am a music classroom teacher of up to thirty years’ experience, I already have assignments that I present to my VCE classes; however, none are using technology that would encourage the students to go any further than the augmentation level of the SAMR model.  Music performance on the whole occurs live without necessarily the need for online technology, nevertheless so far this unit of work and the work I have so far done with Google Docs has given me some fruitful ideas of how to collaboratively use the technology within my classes to enhance their learning. 

 (Pitzer, 2015)

Each week for all my classes I conduct a concert class whereby students perform some or all of a piece of their repertoire, the class discusses not only how the performance can be improved but also some contextual information about the repertoire that can guide the performer in what performance techniques might be appropriate. Having a class Blog that can allow students to discuss out of class (24/7) their thoughts and explorations could increase the engagement of discussions surrounding this activity. By linking this Blog to the ‘Composers Timeline’ website I am considering that students could research their repertoire and the contextual information surrounding the composers to enhance their ability to play their works with a far stronger knowledge of the performance techniques and conventions required and maybe retain this knowledge better by the engaging nature of the task. 


("Music Concert Cartoons and Comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock", 2020)

Each period of music has been given an individual website that is accessible via a linked button on the main ‘Composers timeline’ page. These sites are:

Classical site: https://sites.google.com/view/classical-era/home

Renaissance site: https://sites.google.com/view/renaissancemusicera/home

Baroque site: https://sites.google.com/view/baroque-era/home

Romantic site: https://sites.google.com/view/romantic-era/home

Modern Site: https://sites.google.com/view/modernmusicera/home

I have been able to insert some basic background knowledge via PDFs, of each period of music to help students begin their learning. By making the websites editable I intend students to be able to do their research about their repertoire and edit the websites by firstly placing their composer in the correct position in the timeline and hyperlinking this to a website that they create that will be filled with information specific to the repertoire of the composer that they are performing. 

At this point my only issue is that I have yet to work out how to construct an editable timeline that can be placed on each of the websites: Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern. Once I discover how to achieve this I can link my example site from the Classical page which gives an exemplar of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto, https://sites.google.com/view/mozarttimeline/home. Within this site I have embedded some youtube clips of two different performers performing the first movement of the concerto and a clip outlining the analysis of the movement. The task for students would be to research their work and create a website similar to what I have done for the clarinet concerto and link it into the music period site appropriate for the work that they are performing. 

The way this task now presents itself within the digital format will possibly allow students to collaborate more effectively than when we were only discussing it briefly in each concert class as a student performed the work. This moves the task further up the Blooms Taxonomy pathway as students are applying the facts that they are researching to analyse and evaluate their repertoire so that they can create a far more convincing performance. To be able to achieve these outcomes in a digital environment, such as what I have been exposed to over the past few weeks, appears to me to be far more collaborative than how the task is set now. If students are able to engage in this format, I believe a far deeper knowledge of all genres of music could be achieved throughout the class. To further enhance this task I need to include the jazz and popular music genres of the 20^th and 21^st centuries to be more inclusive of the all the musicians in my classes.

                                        ("9 Unique Ways to use Technology in the Classroom", 2019)

In the next week I need to further consider the legal, safe and ethical protocols in what I have created in the websites so that students have clear examples of what is required when using other people’s intellectual property. My youtube clips and any pdfs that I have gathered from the web need to be cited correctly and by doing this in my part of the site will set an example for the students. I have set the sites to be editable, however they cannot be searched on the world wide web, a person has to have the link to get in the site. This adds a layer of safety to students so that they will only be communicating within the class.

("Safety Lesson Cartoons and Comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock", 2020)

References:

A Look Back at the Future. (2015). Retrieved 21 March 2020, from https://blog.capitalogix.com/public/2015/06/a-look-back-at-the-future.html 

Music Concert Cartoons and Comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock. (2020). Retrieved 21 March 2020, from https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/m/music_concert.asp

9 Unique Ways to use Technology in the Classroom. (2019). Retrieved 21 March 2020, from https://www.goguardian.com/blog/technology/9-unique-ways-to-use-technology-in-the-classroom/

Pitzer, M. (2015). Your light bulb moment [Blog]. Retrieved from https://blog.qlik.com/your-light-bulb-moment

Safety Lesson Cartoons and Comics - funny pictures from CartoonStock. (2020). Retrieved 21 March 2020, from https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/safety_lesson.asp

My first thoughts about ICT

ICT is something I use every day and to be truthful on those days that my computer has been in for repairs I feel quite naked; however, in the classroom I have many concerns. I have been an instrumental music teacher and classroom teacher for almost three decades now, I know this immediately conjures up visions of an inflexible old man that struggles with ICT and in some ways that could be me. Nevertheless, I do deliver some of my curriculum with ICT and I find it fascinating how clever some programs are within the school environment. Unfortunately, the concerns I have are real-life circumstances that I see every day. Students sit up the back of the room watching whatever they desire while they are supposed to be working on classroom activities. You walk around the class and as quick as you can say Jack Robinson, they have exited what they are watching and appear as if they are doing their work, however slow it appears to have moved forward. Then there are the students that come from families that are not ICT savvy and just finding the power button is a challenge.

I favour collaborative environments in my music classroom and have many activities that my classes participate in to achieve learning outcomes and from what I have experienced students enjoy this way of learning. Standing at the front of the classroom directing traffic is not always conducive to a productive classroom so I try to mix this style with activities that allow students to experience their learning in authentic situations. I have set up extension activities for those students that are advancing through the curriculum with ease and these are set up using ICT. I wonder though, are these students easy to trust to do their work independently, on their devices, because they are displaying the commitment to complete their work in good time. I know I sound cynical, but the wool comes over one’s eyes quickly when dealing with teenagers.

Setting up my class this way also allows me to spend more time with those innocent students that just need more help and are advantaged by a little one on one attention. As happens throughout society it is always the few untrustworthy ones that make it difficult for those that are doing the right thing. I wonder if I am barking up the wrong tree and it is my cynical age that is preventing me from seeing the advantages of the use of ICT in the classroom. I hope this unit opens my eyes to this as I find great joy and learn many valuable things from using my computer, why shouldn't our learners!