Session 10- Wrapping It Up

After so many years working with, in and on instructional technology, it was wonderful to take my first distance learning class. I have worked on learning distance classes as a developer and instructional specialist, and it was great to be on the other side as a student. Also, I have learned so much with my projects- I have created websites and blogs, but never learned how to host them myself until now.

I enjoyed looking at Rogers again, and very much appreciated Dr. Newberry's Technology Hierarchy- I have been using this model as a way of explaining and justifying my recommendations for adoption and diffusion of new technology, both at my site and within my district.

And to give a name to the frustration that is Ed Norman; what a droll, perfect two-word descriptor for this syndrome. Mostly, I need to look for Ed inside of myself as I branch out to more and more support and innovation within my region.

As anyone that has had a chance to look at my Project #3, one can see where I am going with Instructional Technology. I am very much interested in exploring the power inherent in combining Visual and Performing Arts and the use of technology to support these standards. In so many ways, our performing and visual arts are stuck- literally and figuratively- in the 1950's. Band, choir, drama, drawing/fine arts dominate the classrooms of what is quickly a disappearing, underfunded quagmire of anachronistic artistic expression. There is a need, both in terms of instructional opportunities, as well as real-world connections, to present the visual and performing arts through technology. To give drawing/painting classes real immediacy, all student work must be catalogued and shown via websites create and maintained by the student artist. The musician must be able to not only be able to play in an intricate and musically complex marching and/or orchestral band, but they need to be able to record, arrange, compose and publish music electronically, and to harness the power of technology to advance their musical expression.

I am developing the REAL Project (recording and electronic arts lab), which will be a classroom with 20 workstations (pairs of students working each station). Each workstation will have a USB connected guitar, bass and keyboard, controlled by a Macintosh computer loaded with recording, looping and sound creation and management software, allowing students to create, compose and record their own music. Also, students will be able to record remotely, allowing them to record, mix and archive performances by the school band, choir and theater. Also, each station will have a digital video camera, allowing for video recording editing, program creation and event archiving. Using the REAL workstations, students can create video for web applications, local cable affiliates, and live video and image projections for concerts and school events. Finally, the same labs can serve as web creation stations, allowing students to learn to create webpages for music, video, and school and community orginizations.

By marrying current VAPA programs with the future and real-world power of technology, students will be engaged in projects that gaurantee that their passion for the arts will be joined together with skills and knowledge that will make them marketable in the world of their tomorrow.