Our 2010 TLT Faculty Fellows have been announced! Please join me in welcoming Sam Richards, Ann Clements, Laura Guertin, and Richard Devon. In the coming days project descriptions and introductions will appear. It is going to be a great summer!
We've assembled quite a team here! In addition to Ann, Elizabeth Pyatt, Jason Wolfe, and myself, Hannah Inzko and Trace Brown have joined the team, bringing their video expertise into play.
In the past several weeks, we've been meeting and lining up all our ducks. We have all our equipment needed for the study, and this week we spent some serious time making sure it was all charged up and more important, that we all know how to use it!
We spent several hours on the 5th floor of RIder testing equipment, running it, and having fun! Check out the pict I snuck:
Ann, Trace, Hannah, and Jason spent time Friday recording video off the Wii and the Nintendo DSi for upcoming presentations. It's far easier (and safer) in a presentation to show a video clip of a game in action than lugging all the equipment to the site, setting it up, etc. We purchased a Neuros:
to capture video off the Wii, and it works as well for the XBox or PS3. It's dead simple to use, and will be quite useful beyond the FF project for the EGC as we record video snippets.
On Wed, July 14, Ann will have breakout session on her work at the Penn State Learning Design Summer Camp. It will be great time for all to see what she's done and where she's headed!
On Monday, July 19, the EGC will have an open lab at the Pennsylvania Music Educator Association Conference, held this year at the Penn Stater. We'll demonstrate musical game apps from 1 - 5:30 PM, leading up to Ann's presentation on her work in this area from 4:30 - 5:30 PM. I believe this combo approach will open up quite a few eyes!
We've finally decided on an approach to the repository. Using the Blogs at Penn State, we'll build a customized solution for storing and referencing musical educational game related media and articles. Elizabeth Pyatt is leading the charge here, building some customizations to make this all happen.
The only item of concern at this time is obtaining IRB approval. Always a process fraught with unpredictability, Ann is in the process of a rewrite of the original submission and is scheduling a meeting with the great IRB folks to ensure a timely processing of the revised IRB forms. I think for future Faculty Fellows that believe they will need IRB approval, ETS should consider starting that process ASAP - maybe as early as mid-Spring semester.
In the past several weeks, we've been meeting and lining up all our ducks. We have all our equipment needed for the study, and this week we spent some serious time making sure it was all charged up and more important, that we all know how to use it!
We spent several hours on the 5th floor of RIder testing equipment, running it, and having fun! Check out the pict I snuck:
Ann, Trace, Hannah, and Jason spent time Friday recording video off the Wii and the Nintendo DSi for upcoming presentations. It's far easier (and safer) in a presentation to show a video clip of a game in action than lugging all the equipment to the site, setting it up, etc. We purchased a Neuros:
to capture video off the Wii, and it works as well for the XBox or PS3. It's dead simple to use, and will be quite useful beyond the FF project for the EGC as we record video snippets.On Wed, July 14, Ann will have breakout session on her work at the Penn State Learning Design Summer Camp. It will be great time for all to see what she's done and where she's headed!
On Monday, July 19, the EGC will have an open lab at the Pennsylvania Music Educator Association Conference, held this year at the Penn Stater. We'll demonstrate musical game apps from 1 - 5:30 PM, leading up to Ann's presentation on her work in this area from 4:30 - 5:30 PM. I believe this combo approach will open up quite a few eyes!
We've finally decided on an approach to the repository. Using the Blogs at Penn State, we'll build a customized solution for storing and referencing musical educational game related media and articles. Elizabeth Pyatt is leading the charge here, building some customizations to make this all happen.
The only item of concern at this time is obtaining IRB approval. Always a process fraught with unpredictability, Ann is in the process of a rewrite of the original submission and is scheduling a meeting with the great IRB folks to ensure a timely processing of the revised IRB forms. I think for future Faculty Fellows that believe they will need IRB approval, ETS should consider starting that process ASAP - maybe as early as mid-Spring semester.
During Laura's visit to State College last week, we made some substantial progress in our effort to build out a Google Earth choose your own adventure activity. Thanks to Laura's concept map and TK's exploration of the spreadsheet mapper template, we were able to build out a nice shell of interlocking locations, which required almost no knowledge of code to build. Based on what we've done, the stage is set for students to take an interactive tour across the world while studying paleontology, across Pennsylvania studying green living, or pretty much anywhere while they study anything. Because while we will be creating specific learning materials for Laura's courses, part of the aim of the summer is to build the framework that can allow any student or instructor anywhere to create their own stories using their own content, regardless of their technical ability.
But as exciting as it was to see the beginning of our first choose your own adventure story come to life, two other recent developments have been just as exciting over the past week.
Google Earth and Music Education
The first, is an update on the collaboration between Laura and fellow Fellow, Ann Clements who are looking to find out of Google Earth could be used to help in Music Education. With a little creativity and the addition of media elements, Google Earth could help bridge geography, culture, and music in new ways - helping students to develop a better local, national, or global perspective on the music they are learning about and how and why it sounds the way it sounds.
Where will it all lead to? At minimum some fresh ideas about music education. But the sky is certainly the limit and it is tremendously exciting to see two of our faculty fellows coming together from completely different disciplines to create something innovative. Stay tuned.
A Global Portfolio
The other interesting development from last week came from taking a step back from the specific goals of Laura's summer fellowship to consider Google Earth's place in her teaching.
Instead of using it for a specific assignment, why not use Google Earth (GE) as the hub of a student's portfolio for Laura's course?
Because of GE's flexibility in including media elements, there is no reason why the podcasts, the pictures, the presentations and papers - all of the artifacts students create during the course of a semester, couldn't be geo-tagged and mashed together to create a literal map of the work each student had done during the course of the semester. A geo-based ePortfolio if you will.
What better way to reinforce the spacial understanding so core to Laura's teaching and create an interesting archive of student work that they can be proud to share.
Its still just an idea - but its an exciting one that we look forward to exploring over the course of the summer.
But as exciting as it was to see the beginning of our first choose your own adventure story come to life, two other recent developments have been just as exciting over the past week.
Google Earth and Music Education
The first, is an update on the collaboration between Laura and fellow Fellow, Ann Clements who are looking to find out of Google Earth could be used to help in Music Education. With a little creativity and the addition of media elements, Google Earth could help bridge geography, culture, and music in new ways - helping students to develop a better local, national, or global perspective on the music they are learning about and how and why it sounds the way it sounds.
Where will it all lead to? At minimum some fresh ideas about music education. But the sky is certainly the limit and it is tremendously exciting to see two of our faculty fellows coming together from completely different disciplines to create something innovative. Stay tuned.
A Global Portfolio
The other interesting development from last week came from taking a step back from the specific goals of Laura's summer fellowship to consider Google Earth's place in her teaching.
Instead of using it for a specific assignment, why not use Google Earth (GE) as the hub of a student's portfolio for Laura's course?
Because of GE's flexibility in including media elements, there is no reason why the podcasts, the pictures, the presentations and papers - all of the artifacts students create during the course of a semester, couldn't be geo-tagged and mashed together to create a literal map of the work each student had done during the course of the semester. A geo-based ePortfolio if you will.
What better way to reinforce the spacial understanding so core to Laura's teaching and create an interesting archive of student work that they can be proud to share.
Its still just an idea - but its an exciting one that we look forward to exploring over the course of the summer.
I know Ann Clements is looking at the relationship of how musical play like guitar hero translates to actual music creation. I just found this video demoing Rock Band 3's new "pro" mode where you can play with an real guitar and the game prompts you to play the actual notes and chords. Check it out.
My thanks to Mary Janzen for her great article at http://news.its.psu.edu/story-1219 .
This sums up the project to date. We're waiting on some equipment, nailing down our IRB, and have two presentations lined up - both for professional music organizations. Interesting things are happening!
This sums up the project to date. We're waiting on some equipment, nailing down our IRB, and have two presentations lined up - both for professional music organizations. Interesting things are happening!
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2010/annclementsff
Clements, who gives guitar instruction, said that guitar sales actually increased by 23 percent after the release of the first "Guitar Hero" game. She is interested in how to help music teachers assist K-12 students who have become good at playing a game like "Guitar Hero" to undergo the necessary transition to be good at playing a real guitar.We are so lucky to have Ann as a Faculty Fellow this summer. I would encourage you to check out the story linked above. Her work with music and musical play is really quite interesting. After you read the article above, check out the wiki page for her project.
On Thursday night all of out TLT Faculty Fellows (current and past) got together with project team leads at Otto's for an evening of food and conversations. It was the kind of evening that has left me wanting more time with these brilliant people in settings like this. How we work to make sure we create informal time together is a big goal of mine for this year ... building these connections between all of our Fellows is the next step in my mind. I had an amazing time getting to hear each of them talk about their own projects and start to build links with each other.
Check out the Flickr photo set to see more from the evening.
I know I should probably be posting about my own project, but I have to share how a short conversation across the dinner table has inspired a short spin-off project.
I was sitting across from Ann Clements at the TLT Faculty Kickoff dinner. We don't have a music education department or faculty at the Brandywine campus, and I was fascinated to hear even just a little about her program and what her students do. I've been working with middle school and high school teachers for the past few years, and one of the tools I've been helping them use with their students is Google Earth. As my background is in the geosciences, the projects I've been working on are increasing Earth science content knowledge and geographic literacy through student use of and content creation in Google Earth.
But what about music education? Can Google Earth help someone teaching music? I had never thought of connecting these two disciplines before. My drive home from the dinner was filled with "what if".... What if an audio file is placed in a Google Earth pop-up window, and a student has to then find the geographic region where they might hear that style of music, then learn and write up something about that culture and musical style? For example, a student could listen to a clip of reggae, then in Google Earth be zoomed over to three areas pre-highlighted for them - let's say Bermuda, Cuba, and Jamaica. Pins could be on each of these countries, and the correct pin has more links and information for the student.
It's still a rough idea, but a great project for a student to work on. Who knew a dinner conversation could lead to a project that would enhance the cultural, geographic, and digital literacy of an undergraduate student researcher, while the student creates a "product" that could be used by an in-service teacher?
So thank you, Ann, for inspiring a new direction for me to get students to explore! (Although I bet Ann already does some cool things with Google Earth, too) I hope there are more opportunities for the TLT Fellows to get together soon. Who knows what other inspirations and creative directions may result from "the fantastic four!"
I was sitting across from Ann Clements at the TLT Faculty Kickoff dinner. We don't have a music education department or faculty at the Brandywine campus, and I was fascinated to hear even just a little about her program and what her students do. I've been working with middle school and high school teachers for the past few years, and one of the tools I've been helping them use with their students is Google Earth. As my background is in the geosciences, the projects I've been working on are increasing Earth science content knowledge and geographic literacy through student use of and content creation in Google Earth.
But what about music education? Can Google Earth help someone teaching music? I had never thought of connecting these two disciplines before. My drive home from the dinner was filled with "what if".... What if an audio file is placed in a Google Earth pop-up window, and a student has to then find the geographic region where they might hear that style of music, then learn and write up something about that culture and musical style? For example, a student could listen to a clip of reggae, then in Google Earth be zoomed over to three areas pre-highlighted for them - let's say Bermuda, Cuba, and Jamaica. Pins could be on each of these countries, and the correct pin has more links and information for the student.
It's still a rough idea, but a great project for a student to work on. Who knew a dinner conversation could lead to a project that would enhance the cultural, geographic, and digital literacy of an undergraduate student researcher, while the student creates a "product" that could be used by an in-service teacher?
So thank you, Ann, for inspiring a new direction for me to get students to explore! (Although I bet Ann already does some cool things with Google Earth, too) I hope there are more opportunities for the TLT Fellows to get together soon. Who knows what other inspirations and creative directions may result from "the fantastic four!"
The well-known song December 1963 (Oh What a Night), by Bob Gaudio of The Four Seasons and his then future wife Judy Parker, is lyrically full of a nostalgic remembrance of a first encounter. What is less known about this song is that it was original entitled December 5, 1933 and the lyrics were a celebration of the end of prohibition.
Last night, while driving home from a wonderful evening spent with the TLT leadership, former Faculty Fellows and this year's new Fellows, I found myself humming this familiar tune while reflecting on our first encounter as a large group and celebrating what may very well be the end of many of my prohibitions/inhibitions in working collaboratively in educational technology.
I am completing my third week as a Faculty Fellow and have begun to feel cohesion among the team I am working with as we begin to find our communal "groove". Many of the big decisions within our project have been made and we are quickly moving away from the thrills of our first encounters and into the nitty-gritty of getting work done. It is an interesting and exciting transition.
Some of the most meaningful elements of the process thus far have been the social interaction and the personal admission that sometimes, I just don't know things (and sometimes these things that I don't know, are quite large). It is so easy for us as faculty to reside, relatively peacefully, in the comfort of our areas, departments and colleges, surrounded by familiarity and routine. We are often working alone or in small groups with colleagues from within our discipline, or those closely related to our discipline, which make it all too easy to become over inflated with our general sense of knowing. It is surprisingly difficult to wander across College Avenue into the unknown and unfamiliar.
Social interaction is the primary means for the development of projects through the TLT Fellowship program. According to Vygotsky (1978), social interactions play a fundamental role in the way we as humans develop, learn and grow. His well known theory states that the primary source of leaning is from others, with the "more knowledgeable other" guiding lessons through the process of scaffolding. While I certainly know about music and the typical processes of research in my field, and I have experiences in the forms of research we are currently undertaking - there is much that I don't know. What is the source then of new knowledge when the culture one is surrounded by changes? Vygotsky states that humans use tools that develop from a culture to mediate their social environments, thus it is those around us from this new culture that push our knowledge and thinking into new directions. It's humbling to be feeling the push, but it is also exhilarating.
The process of learning from and in a new culture is challenging, but the rewards can be great. The potential rewards of working in a team as part of the TLT Fellowship program bring to mind the concept of Groove, as explored by Charles Keil (http://borntogroove.org/).
Groove is an elusive concept, but in essence, it is the feeling, phrasing, and inflection that are communally created among musicians who are in the peak of their united playing. It is also based in the concept of "discrepancies," the little gaps in musical timing and pitch. Groove does not require perfection; it actually comes about through imperfection and the attempts to remedy these imperfections as a group. Being in the Groove requires acknowledgement of our defects, imperfections, weaknesses, mishaps, and discrepancies and to remedy these issues through group participation and collaboration - playing together, balancing, sharing, arguing, resolving differences, relating, and keeping together in time. In Groovology, to imply that imperfection, or not fully knowing, is equal to being loose, sloppy, mistaken, not entirely in control, or "wrong" negates the very heart of true artistry. Groovology reminds me that it is perfectly fine to be the "less knowledgeable other" in term of technology and to recognize that my contributions are made more significant through collaboration with my TLT Fellowship team members. Awareness of these processes of coevolving imperfections does much to shape us as human beings, teachers, and scholars.
While it is common place in traditional academia for the teacher/researcher to be the dispenser of knowledge, that model just doesn't hold the same value to me that it once did. Imparting knowledge is easy, creating new knowledge is significantly more difficult. I view all teaching and learning, as a place for new experiences, where I don't have to "know" to a particularly great extent, I simply have to "be". Too often the academic environment rewards those who "know this", "have done this", and, heaven forbid, "are this". The role of the expert is so glorified in academia, that there is little room for open wondering, for saying "I don't know but I'd like to explore". I believe that at the heart of the TLT Fellowship program is not only the allowance of open exploration, but the expectation that we will openly explore together.
I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of the TLT Fellowship program and look forward to new learning, new knowledge, and new friendships along the way.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
On 5/20/10, the EGC Team consisting of Brett Bixler (lead), Elizabeth Pyatt (Instructional Designer), and Jason Wolfe (Programmer), met with Ann Clements. Ann is an associate professor of music at Penn State and is also a music ethnographer. For the fellowship, she'll be investigating modern musical play, looking at how technology can influence it, and how we can leverage that influence for educational purposes.
This initial meeting was for all of us to get to know each other, and to set some protocols. Ann gave us a stellar presentation on her research in this area to date, and her plans for her work this summer. You can view this presentation at
http://www.slideshare.net/brettbixler/ann-clements-2010-ets-faculty-fellowship-background
Her project seeks to investigate the following questions:
http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Children's_Music_Play
Stay tuned!
This initial meeting was for all of us to get to know each other, and to set some protocols. Ann gave us a stellar presentation on her research in this area to date, and her plans for her work this summer. You can view this presentation at
http://www.slideshare.net/brettbixler/ann-clements-2010-ets-faculty-fellowship-background
Her project seeks to investigate the following questions:
- What are the similarities and differences between children's traditional music play and their musical play with the use of video games?
- To what extent and in what ways are musical video games impacting children's musical play?
- What meanings do children associate to musical video game playing and are these meanings similar or different to traditional musical play?
- What can music educators learn from children about the transmission of knowledge in video game play?
- What can music educators learn from children about the meanings of musical play through the use of musical video games?
http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Children's_Music_Play
Stay tuned!