This week we were not beaten by technology, for a change, but by a locked door. Poor Gary had had a rough day and forgot to leave the instrument cupboard unlocked for us. However this wasn’t all doom and gloom, it did allow me to go into more detail on the assignment than I’d planned to. Much more of that follows. What we did miss out on was the opportunity to play the transcription I’d done of The Penguin Café Orchestra’s Music For a Found Harmonium. Hopefully we’ll do it again another week, because it’s a lot of fun (I got the idea from the marvelous Jon Madin who performs it on his wacky instruments) – this is the performance I transcribed:
LMS
So, what did we do in the lecture? Well, first of all I went through a Powerpoint on LMS (Learning Management System) which I’d made last year and which was fine, according to Sweller’s guidelines 😉 The lecture notes from last year provide you with that, but even better, there are some YouTube movies which practically recreate the whole lecture. I did a live demo of Screenflow, which is my preferred screen capture program. There are other programs, some of them free, and they’re mentioned in the lecture notes.
Assignment
When that was done we got into the assignment. I explained to you that you need to deliver assignment 1 online in your website, and the clearest way to do this will be to plan it in advance so that it ticks all of the boxes required. I suggested you have an introduction page, which it all hangs off, a teacher page, which will explain to a teacher (and me when I mark you!) how you will deliver the unit, what the pacing is (ie how many weeks to learn what), what stage you’ve aimed it at, the topic and the prior knowledge of the class.
Then you should have a series of student pages which take them through the unit. Yes, you will still teach it, but the information they need to do the project should all be on your website. I have created a similar kind of structure here as an example for you, or on my own website here (tho note this wasn’t done to exactly line up with the assignment outcomes so make sure you check those).
I showed you how to do this in static pages in WordPress, which you can use (even if you’re using Tumblr, Blogger or something else for your website) or you could use another website builder such as Google Sites. Do some searching for solutions – extra marks will definitely be awarded for creativity. The basics are outlined in the old lecture notes, but wouldn’t it be nice if I made it even clearer? Watch these:
Man, talk about leading from the front. You’re lucky!
Learn Sibelius 6 in 1 Hour
In the tutorials we learned to use Sibelius. We didn’t have time to do my whole 1 hour course, but since it’s free, why don’t you have a look at it here. Of course, you don’t have to do your assignment in Sibelius – if you’re already an expert in Finale, use that. But it’s very useful to know both programs as you never know what the school you end up in will have.
If you have any questions about the assignment email me. I’ll be in at the Opera House the next two days, so hassle me if you need a response, and don’t forget Monday’s tutorial starts at 5pm with the hands-on session on drum labs – get that at 4:30 or 4:45 if you can to help the load in. Wondering what I’m doing at the Opera House? Well, then you need to see this – the trailer for the documentary film made about what we do in Music at MLC. Go see it at the cinema if you can…
