Category: Innovation
-
Music Zettel S2E5 – Thongaphone!
Well, five episodes in five days, and today’s episode coincides with our public presentation of learning, which you can still sign up for if you’re very quick: https://bit.ly/InventIdeas. In this episode, I look at the 5th elective stream – new pedagogies and technologies – including projects to build new social media, to build instrumental ensembles,…
-
MusicZettel S2E1 – The Elephant in the Room
Here I am, back with a second micro-season of MusicZettel, after abandoning the first one just when it was getting good (or was it?). Anyway, in this episode I’m going to tell you what the plan is for this short season, and for the future, as well as about a fabulous event coming Friday! If…
-
Introducing the #SCMTME cohort of 2020!
That time of the year has come earlier this year, as my Technology in Music Education class at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music has moved semesters this year (and next year moves a whole year earlier in the degree, so we can tool-up our students in their second year!). This year we also welcome some…
-
Music Zettel Ep. 8 – A load of Pollak
We’ve just had three wonderful days with our Maker-in-Residence, Linsey Pollak! In this episode, I reflect on the learning that went on, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Good, and we hear from my students who were involved in the residency at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. If you’d like to hear more music from…
-
Music Zettel Ep. 6 – The Creative Music Movement
This episode features a “flipped learning” video that I made for Key Approaches in Music Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the first year course that I mentioned in episode 2. For those wondering what “flipped learning” means, it’s when you take a part of a class that you’ve traditionally chalked-and-talked, and “flip” it…
-
Music Zettel Ep. 5 – Tech skills & industry collaboration
This week we are giving away dozens of free resources for music education and technology! I’ll be reflecting on the first 5 weeks of my Sydney Conservatorium course “Technology in Music Education”, which culminated in a media creation session with brilliant pianist Lolita Emmanuel in which the students were the film and sound crew. I…
-
Music Zettel Ep. 4 – longer version – Music Education & Social Justice
This is the longer version of Episode 4 of my podcast, Music Zettel, in which I’ve included more information about the plight of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in contemporary Australian society for context for listeners, especially from overseas, who may not know the background. Note – I suggest you don’t listen to this…
-
Introducing the #SCMTME class of 2019
The Technology in Music Education class that I teach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music has been one of the most successful I’ve run over the last 7 years. I put this down to two things – first, that the main assessment task of the course is entirely student-negotiated (i.e. what they want to learn…
-
Key Approaches in Music Education and completing degree accreditation for NESA/AITSL
I’m coordinating a new (for me) Unit of Study (UoS) this coming semester at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Key Approaches in Music Education. This is first year course that follows on directly from Key Ideas in Music Education. Taking over a UoS gives you chance to stamp your personality/philosophy on it. Ever since my first day…
-
Technology in Music Education – 2018 cohort
This Friday brings one of my favourite events of the year at the Sydney Conservatorium – the Presentation of Learning for my Technology in Music Education course. This year’s cohort is just as exciting as ever, and some students have really broken new ground. If you’re in Sydney this Friday from 5pm (probably until around 8pm),…
-
SCM Technology in Music Education 2017
It’s that time of year again – my Technology in Music Education course is kicking off here at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and my students have created websites to share their reflections on the course plus resources that they make. They’re establishing their professional presence online, and most of them for the first time! You…
-
My MOOC, 9 months after release
I really should have re-posted one of the many press releases or interviews I participated in about the MOOC (Massively Open Online Course – free to anyone) that I wrote and produced for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney earlier in the year. Here’s one by the university itself, for example. And here’s the rather…
-
My #TEDxOxford talk
I’m just in the middle of a blog reflecting on the year that was, and realised that I hadn’t actually blogged about my #TEDxOxford talk, so I decided to put that post on hold, and write about the talk – not just what it was about, but what it was like to give a TEDx talk! First, if…
-
Free and impressive #MusicEd digital resources from my 2016 #SCMTME cohort
Last Friday my students in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Technology in Music Education course (from which my MOOC Music in 21st Century Education came) gave their Presentation of Learning. If you go to the Con’s Facebook page and scroll down to 18th November, you’ll see a series of “was Live” videos and can re-live the event!…
-
Raising the Bar
A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at one of the Unversity of Sydney’s Raising The Bar events – an opportunity for “leading academics” (their words, not mine!) to give a potted (30 minute) lecture in a bar to anyone who wanted to listen. My lecture was at…
-
Slide2Learn conference, Sydney
I’m having fun at the Slide2Learn conference on mLearning in Sydney. Did a presentation this morning – the deck below was created in Apple Keynote and has been converted (and the many videos removed!). Here’s the session description: Reflecting on the uptake of music technology in schools in the 1980s, teacher, researcher and programmer Andrew Brown (Griffith…
-
Live jamming Ableton-style, with iPads & USB MIDI controllers
I posted an obscure photo last week showing set-up for a lecture I gave the following morning. I’m interested to know if anyone else has tried anything like this in music education, because it seems like a big technological uphill to get there (tho “there” is quite geekishly cool). I’m thinking I might write at length…
-
#SCMtech educational iBooks go live – download them free!
Last week my Sydney Conservatorium of Music Technology in Music Education (#SCMtech) students handed in their main project, worth 50% of the course marks. It’s an interactive iBook, designed for elementary or middle school music education, but also you’ll find they’ve shared equivalent resources to be printed or burned onto CD for schools that don’t have iBooks…
-
Please welcome the #SCMtech community of music educators for 2013
It will be no surprise to hear that I really relished the opportunity to rewrite the Sydney Conservatorium’s course Technology in Music Education this year. It was one of those tasks that was only difficult because I could write a 26 week course rather than a 13 week course (many of the 1h50m lectures have about…
-
iBooks comes to Mac OSX: James requests the world
Something that has troubled me for over a decade as an educator is finding the best format to publish my resources in. Three years ago it troubled me so much I even wrote a blog about it. Nowadays when I’m teaching students about creating their own resources I simply encourage them to create the resources…
-
Adventures in Project Based Learning part 2: back in the classroom
In my last blog I outlined some of what I learned from spending a week observing and even participating a little at High Tech High in San Diego last June. Naturally, the intention of such a big trip was not only to watch and document, but to give this process a go ourselves. And so…
-
Adventures in Project Based Learning part 1: High Tech High
There are a few blogs I’ve been meaning to write over 2012, so as I’m about to hit 2013, I’m going to publish what I have instead of waiting for the time to do a nice polished job. Maybe that time is never coming! So here we go… ——- In 2012 I was lucky to…
James Humberstone 