Critical Thinking, Technology and BaB
In the final lecture before we went on prac (3B), the class took a more philosophical tone, but as per usual, exposed us to a range of options while attempting not to favour any particular one.
Critical Thinking and the Filter Bubble
At the start of the lecture, in recapping some of the arguments surrounding the use of technology in the classroom, we briefly discussed the role of critical thinking in education. Now more than ever, students really need to learn critical thinking skills, because the information age does not just mean that learning is 'open' (i.e. anyone can learn anything, anywhere, at any time). The internet means that anyone can create information, without the usual rigours of fact-checking and trustworthiness that went into publishing books in the past. This means that students need to be able to learn to discern what is trustworthy and reliable, and they need to learn how to use critical thinking skills to engage with the complicated issues of the world in a thoughtful manner.
But more than the internet creating reams of competing claims, the rise of social media has led to the filter bubble, a concept named and explained by Eli Pariser in this TED talk (which I implore you to watch now if you haven't already):
The thing that I found most interesting about Pariser's talk was the analogy he drew between the development of journalistic ethics in the early 20th century and the need for tech companies like Facebook and Google to develop their own ethics. While in many ways the 21st century has brought incredible progress in our ability to communicate and link ourselves to people around the globe, Pariser argues that knowledge ethics move more cyclically. At this point in time, the 'gatekeepers of knowledge' are a very small number of people (or robots), and the primary concern is with keeping you on the internet longer, so that you buy more things. But I really hope there will come a time when ethics will develop such that people are exposed to views that are different from their own. Many commentators have talked about talked recently about the role that lack of dialogue (and even fake news) has had in recent events like Brexit and the Trump election.
Now how do all these concerns about critical thinking, journalistic ethics and the filter bubble play out in a music classroom? Honestly, at this point I don't have a lot of ideas. One thing that comes to mind is the way that music education in the past has been presumed to be value-free, particularly when it involved teaching classical music. Teachers claimed that the value came from the music itself, and so no discussions of the exterior world were needed. Many people do treat music this way: as an escape from the quagmires of the world, a zone of peace and mental relaxation, a space of bliss and harmony. While I do think this could be one purpose for music, the reality is that music does not exist in a vacuum. It is born from the world, and everything in the world goes into music and comes out of it. There is no facet of human life that does not reach into some kind of music. And so in this way, if music is so deeply human, and humans have myriad problems, challenges, victories and calamities, music education should seek in some way to speak to those things, which may include thinking critically about the world we engage in.
Now I'm being quite vague here, because I honestly don't know how you teach critical thinking while teaching composition, performance, listening, the concepts, and actual music. Certainly, critical thinking is needed in listening, because students have to learn to discern the identity and meaning of a huge variety of different sounds. Students learn to listen closely, and must isolate the relevant sounds from the irrelevant in order to understand the music, describe it, analyse it, learn to play it, or compose using principles developed from it. As Topoglu argues, the kind of music education students have is really important in determining whether they will develop critical thinking skills through music. If students learn only to memorise, copy and repeat, they will miss out on developing the skills that are required to develop one's own practice regimen, interpretation, performance styles, arrangements and compositions.
1-2-1 Learning
One to one learning is the concept of each student having access to their own device. This could be a computer or tablet, but it will normally involve having access to word processing and the internet at the very least. In class we briefly discussed a range of the options that are being taken up by schools:
Standard options: laptop, iPad, Android tablet, Windows Lenovo tablet, ThinkPad
Chrome book: a laptop with no hard drive - all the data is stored on Google Chrome through Google Drive and Google Sheets
OLPC (one laptop per child): this is not the Kevin Rudd rollout! This is a Western company that aimed to provide cheap robust laptops for the developing world. It has now been taken up by some educators in Australia and other developed countries
BaB: An Alternative
If you've read my notes for this class, you'll know that BaB stands for Bring a Browser. It's the idea that instead of students bringing their own devices, which can be fitted out with mutually incompatible software and functionality, students just need to bring a way to connect to the internet. So this concept moves away from centrality of apps, and instead focuses on the programs that internet browsers can use.
Since HTML5 came onto the scene, the potential for the internet has greatly expanded, particularly now that Flash is inbuilt. When it comes to music education, being aware of the browser-based applications that are educationally friendly is very useful (Edit: check out my friend's school music program built entirely from free browser-based applications).
So the usual suspects (Soundtrap, soundation, audiotool, audiosauna, and music first) are all really useful to know about. There are also equivalents for notation software (which you can check out in one of my previous posts). It's worth picking at least one of those tools to get familiar with, so that you can use it with your students and they can access these software programs at home as well.
In Summary...
Technology provides innumerable ways that students can be engaged in learning, and it also provides access to things that they never could have seen in a classroom 50 years ago (e.g. a recording studio). As music educators, we need to be aware not only of the resources, but of the ethical implications of taking part in the digital world, to create critical and thoughtful digital citizens. We can also have lots of fun making sick beats! And the two can work together I'm sure.
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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.