Teaching with Technology
You might have noticed that it has been a little while since my last post about Technology in Music Education. In the last couple of months I've been on prac, had mid-sem break, and then come back for the final three weeks of class. I've learnt a lot in that time, but now I'm back to try and suck the life out of uni again!
This week (11A), Humbo hit us with a pretty content-heavy lecture, full of important information that will undoubtedly inform our practice as developing music educators. You can check out my full lecture notes here, but I thought I'd take you through a few highlights from the lecture with some of my reflections on key ideas.
So here we go!
Antisthenes and Cynicism
In the ancient Greek world, cynicism was not the maligned character trait of your bitter uncle who wanted to be in a band but never got there. Cynicism, founded by Antisthenes, was all about living in virtue and in agreement with nature. The Cynics did not want to get carried away by pleasures or the conventions of the time, but promoted practice over theory, action over words.
If you've just glazed over then stay with me! In music education, technology has indeed revolutionised the possibilities for classroom and private teaching. But we've moved far beyond the point where a new technology comes out every few years, which is able to be gradually integrated into curriculums. New technologies are emerging daily, and rather than reaching for the silver bullet that is going to change music education forever, we need to be 'cynics', genuinely looking for best practice rather than jumping on board with whatever is newest and most exciting.
In fact, I found out in my lecture that there is an actual name for how technologies explode onto the digital landscape and then fade into the middle or background depending on their success. It's called the Hype Cycle, and every year Gartner put out a graph that looks a little like this:
(Before you move on make sure you take note of the key terms on the x axis.)
It is most likely that technologies that make it to the slope of enlightenment are the ones that you want in your classroom. This is the point where people have realised that no, teaching will not unalterably change forever because of the new technology but yes, this technology is a useful tool amongst many others. So keep your eye out for Virtual Reality at a music class near you.
Teenagers and Technology
There are a lot of stats on my notes post, but there were a number of salient points that impact the way we think about using technology with teenagers.
Every year, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) produce a report on how teenagers are using the internet and social media. This is really important for teachers to know, because the way that different demographics use technology is quite marked. Here are some key stats:
Smart phone usage amongst teenagers is up to around 80%, and SES is not a factor for increased usage
Teens are more likely to use the internet on tablets and gaming than other demographic
Teens are more likely to use their phone to access the internet than a computer
So when it comes to teaching teenagers, it is clear that things like banning mobile phones for research just doesn't line up with how teenagers themselves use the internet. They actually use their phones more than computers for internet, and so it makes sense to think about ways to harness the interactivity that comes with personal smart phones. I found on my prac that Kahoot was an immediate way to engage students, because they used their own phones and it was competitive. The challenge will always be working out when and where phones can be used as a tool to assist learning.
And one more thing. When we think about how ubiquitous internet access is the norm for teenagers, in one sense this is exciting, because now learning is open. Students don't need to rely on teachers for information; they can do their own research and delve further into things that interest them. On the other hand, the way that social media (and indeed all of the internet) curates "information" towards what it perceives your interests to be (i.e. the filter bubble) means that now more than ever, critical thinking is an imperative skill for students to have.
P.S. If you don't believe me about the filter bubble, read this.
Putting the 'Power' in Your PowerPoint
So I'm not really sure about when the hype cycle for Microsoft PowerPoint occurred, but I think it's safe to say that it is now in the plateau of productivity. PowerPoint is a really useful visual aid to content delivery, but unfortunately, most people aren't using it properly.
Do you remember sitting in class with that teacher who would just read words off the slide? Lots of words in fact. Actually, do you remember that it was actually almost every teacher ever? Well, you weren't just bored out of your brain because you didn't sleep properly last night. There is actually science to back up the boredom!
Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory posits the simple idea that if you read OR listen to information rather than do both at the same time, you'll learn more. When you read information and listen to it at the same time, you double up on cognitive processing and end up forgetting a lot of what you've just seen and heard.
This fact alone needs to revolutionise how PowerPoint is used in education. So here are some handy tips I learnt about how to use it more effectively:
Minimise text on screen. If you absolutely need to have text, write up a very short summary of your point and then talk about it using different words than the words on the screen (avoid cognitive overload!)
Use images to complete the story of what you are saying. A picture is worth a... yeh you know it. Choose complementary images that help give context to your words and remind people what you are talking about
If you have a quote you want people to read, stop talking! Many trained speakers will direct their audiences to read quotes and then read along in their heads to allow sufficient time for the audience to get it all.
If you are using bullet points, introduce them one at a time. If you put a whole page of bullet points up, people will just read ahead of you and they won't listen to what you are saying. So just use basic animation (i.e. the 'appear' option not 'spin') and keep the audience focused on what you want them to listen to.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth millions. That's pretty self-explanatory. Visually representing music is a great way to engage students without needing to talk about concepts too much.
I am aware of the irony of using text to tell you about not using text, but I think we can all agree this would have been much more boring if I included an audio file of me reading out the words verbatim as well.
This lecture was very timely for me, as I had to give an Honours thesis presentation a week later, with you guessed it, a PowerPoint presentation.
In the slide above, I was talking about hip hop pedagogies, which are differentiated as hip hop as a bridge, hip hop as a lens, and hip hop as practice. I actually didn't need to put any words on the screen, because the images just helped remind people of the three key descriptors I'd mentioned. Also having no words meant that people avoided the temptation to read to the end before I got there. My speaking (audio) complemented the images (visual), allowing complementary processing rather than doubling up.
That's All Folks
Hopefully I've given you some things to think about! I especially hope that you'll make use of more intuitive visual presentations to complement your teaching.
****
In this series of posts, I reflect on some of the highlights from one of my university courses, Technology in Music Education (TME). To see my reflections from other classes, click here.