Hi,

I just wanted to share this little app I coded in Scratch (www.scratch.mit.edu) in my son's account

Musical Assessment and Professional Productivity with Technology

According to Marzano (2006, as cited in Bauer, 2014) assessment should be a tool for students to improve. Assessment should also be frequent precisely because, under the previous logic, it is a formative tool more than it is supposed to be an approve/fail denominator. Assessments are also to help teachers to make informed decisions on the methodologies to be used to make her classes more effective.

Summative assessment can is also an important formative tool, although in this case assessment is used to measure in what degree students have learned or acquired a specific skill or knowledge. Nevertheless, the final outcome of a summative assessment should not only be about the student achievement, but of the process in general, including the methodologies used by the teacher. One question that always haunt me is if what we are measuring in a specific unit is actually relevant or a necessary step before other learning can take place. I have found that in some cases, my understanding of the different stages to be considered to acquire a skill or knowledge fails to represents the stages some students may go through when doing so. When that happens, I wonder if by using summative assessment as a pass/no-pass denominator we are helping or actually contriving their possibilities to learn.

Last week, when checking on my Facebook account, I saw something really interesting, although I have not searched for academic articles on it. It was a story about some mother who was trying to help her child to acquire the necessary motor skills to be able to write. She would have the child to draw circles and straight lines, and using a pen with green ink she circled the best examples that her child had drawn. What is interesting in this story is that through this method she was evaluating, but not focusing on the things her child was doing wrong. Instead she focused on what the child was doing well.

According to the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL, as cited in Bauer, 2014) organization, feedback should be corrective in nature. What troubles me about the McREL statement is that I can only understand as corrective an action that is focused on an issue, and that then corrects the issue.  When I think on the green ink story, I come to the conclusion that maybe focusing on the positive aspects, on the positive things we can get from assessment, we indirectly encourage our students to reflect on their performance in a way that they can discover for themselves what they have issues with­ (instead of pointing them out their mistakes). Evaluation is a complex process, and I advocate constant reflection on it.

Technology can be a friend when trying to expand our assessment tools’ repertoire. We can use diverse applications and games to assess music-performance skills and music theory understanding, and the best is that, through games, we reinforce the positive outcome, instead of pointing at the students mistakes. We can also use some web apps to create our own quizzes or surveys. Using google forms, we can design quizzes that can be taken by our students when they feel like to, and have them to share their thoughts. Google forms automatically records the respondent's answers, and the teacher can access a summary of all the answers either in a web page or in a sheet similar to those of Microsoft Excel.

This is a small survey I created using Google Forms. Feel free to take it and share your comments.




I personally think teachers should take advantage of these tools. There are many web apps that are free-access, and that allow us to improve not only to assess our students' progress, but also to organize better our assessment and our productivity. Google apps are free to access and provide many practical tools, such as calendars, text processors, presentation processors, and more. There are also other web apps that are specially designed for educators, though most of them are paid.

Please, share your favorite apps with me in the comments section!!!!!

Instructional Design and Technology

This week we will discuss instructional design. Departing from the constructionist theories of Vygotsky (1978) and the descriptions by Discoll (2002), Bauer (2014) understands learning as contextual, active, social, and reflective. Contextual because we construct knowledge by associating new elements with what we already know. Active, because the process is an active construction, as opposed to some kind of one-directional stream of content that goes into our brains and stays there through constant drilling. Paulo Freire (1970) described the later example the “banking” mode for learning, in which educators are the ones who have all that is to be learned and they deliver it to students, who are supposed to be blank slates.  Social, because we learn through interactions with others, such as modeling, and because in isolation the important element of affect would be missing. And reflective because it involves thinking over what we know and being flexible to modify our beliefs once we have constructed them. In Freire’s though, the connection between practical knowledge, theory, and reflection, is called praxis (Freire, 1970).

The belief that learning is contextual, active, social, and reflective is fundamental for the development of critical pedagogy, which is an application of critical thinking (the Frankfurt school tradition) to education (see Giroux, 2007; and Freire 1970). I found this connection particularly meaningful because, as critical pedagogy states “education is not neutral” and that “it is impossible to separate what we do in the classroom from the economic and political conditions that shape our work” (Giroux, 2007, pp. 2–3). Is in the mood of that statement that I found that to understand learning as contextual, active, social, and reflective is politically compromised with democracy.

Click on the picture to go to Paulo Freire Institute website, where you can find more information about Critical Pedagogy and Paulo Freire.

Technology can help educators to make encourage contextual, active, asocial, and reflective learning by making it an active and personalized process in which the student is able to make important decisions on the content and the methods of her own learning process. Using guided inquiry processes such as WebQuests, educators can stimulate students to find their own paths to a specific content. The use of instructional software is also a way in which students can personalize their learning process (especially in music education). The ability to share information also makes technology suitable to make the learning process social, and through the sharing of feedback, it also helps to make it reflective. All mentioned affordances of technology in learning do not mean that technology based or assisted learning is the only or the best alternative, but as educators is one alternative we have to be aware of.

Project Based Learning (PBL) is an approach to learning that also takes in account the contextual, active, social, and reflective characteristics of learning. In this approach, an issue is explored, and a project is proposed to be undertaken by the students and teachers. Different approaches to achieve the proposed outcome are explored and decisions are made in hands-on fashion. Finally, through the completion of the project, a number of varied learning outcomes are achieved. To be able to complete the projects, students have to recur to their own ingenuity, to their previous learning and experiences, to new theories, materials, and methods, engaging actively in a group effort which requires a great amount of reflection. Finally, specific contents are learned through a process that is closely related to a real-world experience, and therefore is meaningful. Technology can also be used in PBL, as WebQuests are designed as projects, although it differs to other PBL approaches in that the project is predetermined by its author instead of being proposed by students and teachers as a team.

To learn more about PBL, click on the picture.

Backward design is a concept that is fairly new to me. Being an educator, I have reviewed several planning approaches, and they all have something good you can learn from them. Usually, what I would do is to set up a learning outcome or goal, then an activity to achieve that goal, and then an evaluation system. In backward design, you start with the outcome, but then go immediately to the evaluation stage. Does it sound weird? Actually, now that I have thought about it, I think it is pretty logic. We know what we want to achieve, and it is logical to figure out the way in which we can know if students have learned, and then to think of how we can work our way to achieve those measurable behaviors (Bauer, 2014). When we leave assessment to the last part of our design, we are planning on activities to achieve an outcome, but we have not stated how that outcome will be manifest in an observable behavior. While it is true that every stage is connected, and that there is a certain statements of the observable behavior within our learning outcomes, by setting assessment as the second stage we are able to make more informed decisions when selecting our activities.

On the other hand, when stating an assessment level before setting our activities, we have to evaluate a product, which implies that the process itself is not the focus of assessment but it is a product-oriented process. Usually that is the case in music education that is performance based. In general music classroom, however, sometimes the process is more important than the outcome, especially since what we are attempting to do is to develop an affective response to music making. Again, it is not the only option, but is something we cannot just disregard as educators. In technology assisted learning modality, backwards design can be a particularly useful approach, especially since there is not the person to person contact that allows a teacher to assess the evolution of students regarding a specific issue.

If you are interested in learning more about backward design, you can watch the following video. Thanks for reading!

Responding to Music with Technology

Listening to music is not the same as hearing it. Hearing it can be considered a passive process, while listening is a process involving attention and cognition (Bauer, 2014). Listening is one of the most important abilities for a musician (Bauer, 2014). Listening, however, is culture dependent, and therefore proper listening depends on the values of each culture. Preference is related to experience with a style of music and the ability to listen to it properly (Bauer, 2014). In our modern society, some desirable outcomes for any student are the ability and openness to listen to diverse musics, the ability to provide verbal or nonverbal reaction to the expressive qualities of music, the use of appropriate vocabulary according to the music style, relate music to another discipline, and describe why music is important personally.

Some tools used to promote an adequate music listening are call charts and listening maps. I decided to focus on listening maps, which are graphical tools to follow some determined aspects of a piece, in the same fashion of a score, but not necessarily involving music notation. Charts also may involve text, drawings, and more.

Internet access as we know it today has broadened the possible ways in which we can use technology to facilitate music learning and, specifically, response to music. .

Perhaps one of the greatest resources available today is Youtube.com.One of the great things about youtube is that it afford us to integrate visual elements with the sound element of music, and have access to a variety of mixed arts works. This can be useful in a variety of ways, but I will just show here two cases from Western Art Music.

 

The video above is the video made by Donald Craig of the visual score developed by Rainer Wehinger to accompany Gyorgy Ligeti's Artikulation. Since the video follow the picture as the music happens, it can be used as a listening map, which can help the student to engage in attentive listening.

The following video is an example of a visual interpretation of Mozart's music according to the harmonic functions.

 

Another interesting web tool is Zaption.com. Through Zaption, one can manipulate a video to include captions, questions, pictures, and more, to create a sort of tour through a video (See here my Zaption tour example). In the case of music education, we can make comments on videos with music pieces, scores, listening maps and more. Students could also create their own Zaption projects to show to the rest of the class, and the teacher can organize a cycle of Zaption tours. The important thing, in the case of culturally relevant music education, is to be flexible and honest: We have to assume the limitations of our perspectives and we have to be open to our student’s interests and opinions.

Performing music with technology

Music performance is an important element of music in our culture (Western culture). Since we have developed our music around a specialized segment of society, quality standards are technically and artistically high, and a high degree of proficiency is required within this specialized world in order to be successful. In a democratic western society, our goal as music educators, besides providing each student with the possibility of express musically, must be to also provide our students with the necessary skills to be successful if they were to decide to become professional musicians or to follow any profession related to music and music industry.

In the field of music performance, these skills are highly technical, and require constant practice. The development of psychomotor skills is a process that may imply time and effort, especially considering the three stages of this process: cognitive, associative, and automatic stages (Psychomotor Learning, 2010, as cited in Bauer, 2014). The development of self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation are key to a consistent development a set of good practices necessary for success (Bauer, 2014).

Luckily, technology can be our ally, since it offers more affordances than ever as a tool to practice with. Desktop and web based metronomes and tuners can help to optimize a practice session. Access to video and audio recordings can be used as a tool for modeling, which is crucial for the development of standard technical skills (Bauer, 2014). Audio tracks, MIDI files, MIDI capable software, notation software, and special software designed to generate accompaniments can be used either to enhance the practical of technical exercises or to simulate the presence of a live accompanist, which can prove to be essential for students and schools without enough resources to have an accompanist.

On the stage performance aspect, technology can also provide new possibilities. It is important to understand that the traditional ensemble setting is not all encompassing, and that an estimated 80% of students do not participate in them or any other music class in high school (Bauer, 2014). To remain focused exclusively in the remaining 20% is an undemocratic practice. It would be naive to assume that the 80% of students that do not participate in school music have interest in music what so ever. Music is there and students are part of it, and the 80%-20% is not reflect of music participation or music interest, but of a systemic failure to become relevant in the musical life of the majority. The creation of new ensembles accord to the musical practice of our students is imperative. Technology might provide the means to implement these new ensembles and to encourage self-efficacy in their participants.

The creation of digital ensembles might offer new aesthetic possibilities that can be of interest to our students. This type of ensembles may offer students the chance to perform without having the need of a high proficiency level in a traditional instrument (Bauer, 2014). Also, since the standards of quality of such ensembles is not yet defined, technical proficiency might not be the main focus.

One constraint to this technological approach can certainly be the access to adequate software and hardware. Software might be expensive and, if used with low quality hardware, it may behave in a faulty way. The purchase of powerful computers and audio devices might prove out of the possibilities of many schools. The implementation of a digital ensemble might be unpractical if there is no access to adequate amplification. In order to become a democratic community, music educators should develop networks to promote the use of the best software possible at the lowest cost. Programs with plenty economic resources will not have issues in finding appropriated software and hardware.

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In contrast, teachers from schools in which the budget is limited can find the implementation of the above discussed technological elements very frustrating. One example of a counter measure is the creation of a database of free software, and discussion forums on cheap and creative hardware solutions.

We must never forget that education is a right for everybody, and that it is our task to make education as democratic as possible.

Creating Music with Technology (2nd Part)

Last week's entry was more focused on improvisation. Today's post should be focused on composition and the affordances of technology to develop composition skills.

Kaschub and Smith (2009, as cited in Bauer, 2014) state that all children should be able to study composition, since:

1. it challenges children to consider their understanding of the world in new ways;
2. it allows children to exercise their generative potential in music;
3. it develops a way of knowing that complements understanding gained through other direct experiences of music;
4. and it is a process that allows the child to grow, discover, and create himself or herself through artistic and meaningful engagement with sound. 

It could be easy, however, to assume uncritically that all those benefits can only be achieved through music composition in a Western art aesthetics. Form, for example, is a constraint that may allow our students to compose successful pieces under our Western-trained ear, but if we are truly attempting to "challenge children to consider their understanding of the world" we must open our arms to diverse aesthetics, and form is one of the very cultural-specific elements of music, as it is tonal composition and perfect temperament.

The following is an example of music from India, which doubtless has a structure, but which challenges some of our Western aesthetic values such as the need for contrast or development, and the tempered tuning.

    


According to Shepherd (1977), tonality was “not generated simply from within musical forms, but was constructed and created as part of a continually developing social process.” He argues that the definitive tendency of the harmonic progressions to “progress” towards the “key note,” among other characteristics of music notation and textural developments of the period, are reflexive of and only conceivable under the perspective of the industrialized society and its notion of progress as a spacial-temporal movement towards a focal point. This perception is linked to the growing awareness of industrial man of his capacity to manipulate the environment in a specific period of time, namely his life span. In this sense, he explains, the perception of musical progress as conceived in tonality is hardly understandable from the perspective of medieval man who lived more in “a revelationary time.” It is necessary, in the light of what is discussed above, that we become aware on how the values we try to foster in our students might serve the purpose of hegemonic ideological interests.

Going back to the benefits of developing composition skills, and to entering the realm of affordances of technology within composition, Bauer (2014) states that music composition-oriented software can benefit the development of an aural vocabulary and facilitate the critique process, especially since it makes easier to obtain immediate feedback through playback capabilities. At the same time, the uncritical use of notation software can have detrimental effects on the development of audiation.

One important distinction to be made is that of composition and music literacy. The ability to create music is related directly to music literacy in terms of managing a language, but the use of language does not necessarily implies the acquisition of notation literacy. According to Bauer (2014), there are two approaches to composition regarding the need of notation. One approach is that of notation as being a prerequisite for composing. The other suggests that notation will come as needed to have a record of aspects of composition that want to be preserved and for which memory would not suffice. It is this last approach that I advocate, and the use of technology opens the door to a practice that can easily lead towards the development of some type of notation. The use of Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software allows us to manipulate sound via MIDI and digital audio.

The following link (click on the picture) will take you to an online software with both, MIDI and digital audio capabilities

and here you can see my little composition using this software

https://www.soundtrap.com/play/VhngevH_TouFrcb6KfGxlg/calamondin-jam/

In this example I used MIDI and digital audio. MIDI is not an audio format, but it is a protocol which is used to convey information that can be interpreted by MIDI capable devices and software. It can be used to control a great range of parameters using a small amount of data processing. The quality of a MIDI rendering varies depending on the way MIDI data is being used. Generally, today's computers have an audio card that is MIDI capable and can reproduce MIDI using little data processing, but the quality is not very good. There are a number of software and hardware that can render MIDI using more developed digital instruments such as VST, which quality is better, but they use more data processing.

In contrast, digital audio is a digital image of an audio signal. It is used when recording acoustic or electric instruments or your voice, and it can be thought as an extension of the process undertaken by a transducer when transforming acoustic data into electric one. In the digitalization, the electric image of the acoustic signal is transformed into binary-coded data, which has to pass the inverse process to be rendered as audio signal. Sometimes MIDI can be use to control prerecorded audio signal in the form of samples.

The use of software as Soundtrap.com gives our students access to a wide variety of music possibilities which they can manipulate in several ways to create their own compositions. They will also have immediate feedback, and in a near to professional quality. By exploration, then, our students will be developing musical composition skills and potentially notation skills. They will also be developing skills that can be very useful in the current musical industry, as a field separated from traditional classic music.

Creating Music with Technology (1st part)

Two musical activities of utmost importance for the development of creativity are composition and improvisation. They are somewhat similar processes, but they differ, according to Kratus (1996, as cited in Bauer, 2014) in that as opposed to improvisation, composition implies the revision of the material produced. In that sense, improvisation is more of a ephemeral experience in which the communicative process bares more importance than the final product. It would be more accurate to say, though, that their final product is different in nature, since the product in the composition process is a fairly fixed piece of music, and in improvising the product is reflected in the evolving ability to produce new improvisation.

Both composition and improvisation share some features, and there are pedagogical practices that can be applied in any case. First of all, they both are types of creative process, which Wallas (1926, as cited in Bauer, 2014) has four stages: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Secondly, and here we can see how some practices can be applied in both cases, Hallam (2008, as cited in Bauer, 2014) suggest that creativity can be facilitated by (a) developing aural skills, (b) imitating, (c) analyzing, and (d) engaging musically with more experienced people. Educators should be able to provide students with (a) creative opportunities, (b) necessary resources, (c) appropriated stimulation, and (d) sufficient time ( Hallam, 2008, as cited in Bauer, 2014). One way of facilitating the process is to deliberately putting constraints which give the process a framework.

The following video shows a basic exercise of improvisation which is limited to just a few elements

     

This exercise constitute part of the exploration level or level 1, a pre-improvisatory level according to a seven-level model for learning to improvise, described by Kratos (1996, as cited in Bauer). Exploration is also important for the composition process, which constitutes part of the preparation stage of the creative process discussed above (Wallace 1926, as cited in Bauer 2014), and helps to develop aural skills, the first facilitator described by Hallam (2008, as cited in Bauer 2014).

Technology (meaning digital technology) can be of great use to foster creativity in music. Some affordances of current technology are

• Developing aural skills

A variety of software might be useful to this purpose. Notation software allows one to associate notation to sound, providing the means to explore harmonies, melodic gestures, textures and so forth. The development of MIDI (see previous entry on Pixel Tune) protocol have resulted in an increase and diversification of software, from MIDI sequencers, to mixed media software as Pixel Tune (see previous entry).

• Developing an understanding of a particular style

Internet provide us with access to many resources in various formats, such as videos, audio recordings, music scores, even books and articles, which allows us to explore a broad variety of styles with practically no effort and almost at any instant.

• Understanding musical structures

A variety of software and web sites are designed to develop an understanding in such matters. The following website contains links to many such apps.

http://musicianswithapps.com/music-education-apps/

• Practice

Software such as Band-in-a-box are designed to provide a somewhat interactive environment that can be used to practice . Here a video on the specific software

     

• Live ensemble participation

Social media tools, which increasingly become more capable to provide multimedia communication, either previously recorded or in real time, is being used to produce virtual ensembles. The following video is a clear example of such a use of technology

     


The use of such technological resources, however, also has its limitations, and we cannot afford not have a critical perspective regarding its uses. According to Bauer (2014), the use of notation software may have a negative impact on the development of audiation (the ability to imagine musical sound, see http://giml.org/mlt/audiation/). Availability of notation software can also lead individuals to skip stages in the composition process, such as sketching (Bauer, 2014), therefore committing to the development of the musical idea too early, which might result in a more random decision making and less exploration of melodic and harmonic possibilities.