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