Planning & More

As I began to think about an online recorder class a few weeks ago, I had a lot of mixed feelings. Music is such a hands on class, I was afraid that having my learners work online would take away my ability to interact and help my them get a good foundation to their instrument playing. These early skills can last a lifetime after all. I compromised and created an online course that was not intended to be done 100% at home without my support. We will still have recorder class during school. The difference, and what I hope will help my learners find success, is that they now have an online toolbox to work from at home. Some of my learners will take the information from their online course and soar. They will finish the entire course in a couple of weeks. Others, will still need my constant support in class. That is okay.

Before completing my course, I asked myself a lot of questions. This really helped me focus on what was important and keep moving forward. Online course take a lot of up front planning and that is something I am not always the best at doing.

Planning Questions:

This week in our readings for grad school, we read about selecting media for courses. When I first read the word media, my mind goes to videos or music. In this case, media is the technology that will be used in a course. All of it. I especially liked the straightforward look at media that the SECTIONS framework lays out. (Bates, 2015)

This framework is something that ALL educators should look at before introducing media to their learners. How many of us are guilty of playing a youtube video that we thought was totally appropriate and then quickly realized it wasn't what we thought it was? I know I am, and thankfully it wasn't totally inappropriate. When a school district introduces new technology, do they ask themselves ALL of these important questions before implementation? My district does a good job answering most of these questions, but sometime I feel like they get so excited to roll out the latest and greatest trend that they forget to think about networks, teacher trainings, issues with implementation in non-core subjects, and the diversity of our learners. Sometimes, it is good to roll an awesome product out to our educators and learners and then figure out the issues, but there are also times that it would be nice to wait until all parties involved have had a chance to look at potential problems and seek solutions. It still might have to be implemented with a few straggling problems, but with most problems worked out, it will be much more successful.

Resource:

Bates, T. (2016). Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Vancouver, BC: Tony Bates Associates. Retrieved from https://teachonline.ca/sites/default/files/pdfs/teaching-in-a-digital-age_2016.pdf