Week #6: Instructional Design & Technology

As we are nearing the end of the Technology Assisted Music Learning course, the focus is now shifting from learning about different types of apps and websites to formulating learning projects for our students using technology and the world wide web.

As we are doing so, I spent a great deal of time this week looking at an online form of learning called WebQuest. A WebQuest is an online learning module which directs students to different links and facilitates directed research about a given topic. A WebQuest consists of five main sections: introduction, task, process, evaluation, confusion, credits. With the introduction, a teacher can give a narrative or an informational paragraph about a topic to gain the attention of the students. In the process, guided activity using web links to informational pages about the topic give students direction to complete prompts such as writing a short essay, creating a timeline, collecting examples of videos or audio clips, and many other possibilities. The evaluation section gives the students a rubric to guide from, so they can make sure they complete the process tasks sufficiently. The conclusion section gives a brief closing thought on the topic and makes a connection to the work the students will have completed. The credits section gives proper credit where copyright is due, or gives the correct classification within the Creative Commons.

Here is a view of a currently-available WebQuest on Slave Songs:

Speaking of Creative Commons, I thought I had a good understanding of copyright law before this last week, but it turns out I was wrong. Did you know that every piece of music has a copyright as soon as it is written? Of course, if you want to be able to have protections if someone tries to steal your music or misuses it, you will have to file an official copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. It's comforting to know that if I happen to write a musical composition, it already has its own copyright. Now I feel validated by filling out the copyright attribution in Finale when I make a custom exercise for my students. 

As Copyright in the United States works, the works of a composer and covered by copyright for the duration of their live, plus 70 years. That seems like a long time, but I suppose it helps to ensure the composer's family continues to receive royalties. For works of composers who have exceeded the 70 years beyond death, there is an amazing website called the International Music Score Library Project, or the Petrucci Music Library, which can be found at www.imslp.org. This is a public domain website and works in a very similar way to Wikipedia, where anybody can contribute. Here you can find scans of the works of great composers like, Beethoven, Bach, Stravinsky, Mahler, and even Holst now! In addition, the pages for each composition have sections for recordings and arrangements, so there is a very extensive library of music to be used by just about any instrumentation you can think of. I remember learning about this project from my theory professor during my freshman year of undergrad, and it changed my life. It certainly saved more than a few dollars considering I didn't have to buy those big anthologies for music history. Well, most of them, anyway. Check it out!

Beyond copyright, there are times when authors create content to which they would like to allow others to use it freely, and even modify for their own specific uses. In this regard, authors will instead license their content through the Creative Commons. There are six different levels of licenses; some allow no edits, while others allow edits. Some allow the content to be used commercially, while others limit its use to non-commercial settings. Here is a quick video explaining Creative Commons in greater detail.

Knowing all of this valuable information, I am now able to begin crafting a unique WebQuest module for my own students. For this, I have chosen to help make my students aware of the influence music has had in society across the centuries. Not only that, I want to use this to make my students aware of references to classical music in modern day contemporary music, and enable them to explore such references in music they listen to. Do modern day artists borrow these old classical music compositions because they enjoy them, or perhaps because they have entered the public domain and are free to use? This is all great food for thought, and I'm curious to see how my students react. More information about my WebQuest will come in next week's blog. For now......see you later!

References:

Bauer, W. I. (2014). Music learning today: Digital pedagogy for creating, performing, and responding to music. New York City: Oxford University Press.

Noble, M. (2015, March 19). Retrieved February 17, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q3sbk7Zi1Q

The Music of the Soul: Slave Songs and The Birth of a New American Music. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://questgarden.com/61/99/5/080306154328/index.htm