Skills 1: DAWS

Our first week in "Technology in Music Education" I would say started off with a bang but actually we did the opposite with a guided mindfulness session. We then started delving into the world of technology in music, what it is and how it can be used and to start this learning we looked at DAW's. A DAW is a something that encloses an area, usually being attached by hinges... sorry wrong type. A DAW is a digital audio workstation that is used to record and edit music. Today we looked at Soundtrap and got to have a play around. This was so much fun and really easy to use and understand as a first time user.

Skills 2: What's That Sound?

Today we walked into class with one goal in mind, to make a podcast. This was something that I had never done before. Yes, I've listened to my fair share of podcasts but never have I been the host. We had to make our podcast educational about different microphones and their benefits and different situations where one would be better than the other. The 4 girls, Nicola, Gemma, Izi and I set off on this task. We found this super enjoyable, having musical chats in between our microphone centered sections. Again we used Soundtrap for this which made it so much easier. All we had to do was press record and we were off!

Skills 3: Lights, Camera, Action

Week 3 we were embracing our inner film makers, learning how to use cameras and microphones and why clapping syncs the videos up and the best way to set up lighting for a shot. I moved into the later class for this week and because they had fewer numbers we worked in one large group. We decided to make a 'mockumentary' about the life of a con student, although it did take us a little while to get started on this idea. I had done a little bit of camera work throughout highschool, mainly watching how my teacher would set up cameras for livestreams but had never been hands on with them so this was a cool elaboration of what I had seen throughout High School.

Skills 4: That's Write!

Week 4 we were looking at music notation software. This was an area I was definitely more familiar in, having used Musescore 3/4 and flat before. Where I was unfamiliar was Sibelius, I had definitely heard of it and had a friend who has used it but I had never used it myself. James gave us a brief rundown of Sibelius but then we jumped into Musescore. We gushed over the release of Musescore 4 for a little while talking about how cool the MuseHub was with the different sound packs and the increase in the realism of the instruments. We had a really interesting conversation about copyright and what classifies as copyright and I was surprised of how much stuff is considered copyright.

Week 5: Cut and Paste

This was a fun session where we edited the footage we filmed for a mockumentary from a few weeks ago. I had to come to the late lesson again for this class so continued on from some of the editing work that Izi had already done. To edit our videos we used ScreenFlow and I found this really easy to understand and use. My only editing experience would've been using iMovie in primary school so it had been a while. I had a really fun time and I think that this skill could be quite handy in making educational videos.

Session 6: Synthesis and Dawlessness

We got to play with sequencers today using the Little Bits synthesiser kits. It took a little while to get our synthesiser working but once we figured it out we were able to easily add all the other parts. There was one segment that was a keyboard which was very fun to play around with. We then had a look at drum programming and one website: Rhythm Controller I found very intimidating and confusing to use but after a little bit of playing around I started to understand it... although I still don't really know what I was doing.

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Session 7: The Maker Movement

This week we dove into creation using scratch creating our own memory game. We got given instructions on how to create this which were super easy to follow. Unfortunately my scratch creation didn't save so I don't have any photos, but I can assure you that it was a really fun memory game that worked. What was really cool was that we were able to use Play-Doh and connect it to the scratch game with Makey Makey so we could colour code our memory game and use the Play-Doh like buttons. The Maker Movement has gotten me to start thinking about my end of year creative project as this lesson has been quite interesting for me.

Session 8: Sir

Mix-a-lot

Today we got a deep dive into Ableton by Ableton's own Tom Cameron. I have very, very briefly used Ableton before and I'm pretty sure it was the lite version and I found it quite confusing. We worked through the Get Started Learning Music Ableton site which let us play around with different aspects of Ableton like beat making, melody creation and more. We then had a look at remixing and Mashups in Ableton. We got given Bury a Friend by Billie Eilish and we got to remix it, learning how to speed up and slow down sections and playing aroudn with a predesigned soundboard with clips from her song. We also got to try and mash up some songs, scanning through to find areas where they could fit together. I actually found this part of the lesson quite tricky as I couldn't really figure out Ableton, guess I was still confused by it.

Session 9: AI: is it A OK?

AI, it seems to be taking over the world at the moment and this week we were having a chat about how this could Impact the music realm. I feel there are pros and cons for AI in music. Pros are it can be a really helpful idea creation tool and can create guidelines or scenarios for such things like a creative project. For a different assignment we were asked to use AI for this reason, creating a scenario based on a set of criteria. For generating ideas I think AI is OK. When it comes to using pieces of music, voices or artwork I feel like it has the chance where line between OK and copyright/invasion gets a bit blurred. This though becomes completely different if consent to use things is given. Overall I feel like it can be a really beneficial tool if used correctly.

Session 10: Research, Philosophy, Practice

This session was spent talking about BYOD devices and our opinions on it. We talked about how equitable it was to have BYOD devices where they could be different generations, brands, models etc. so would therefore have different capabilities for downloading programs or apps. James showed us how old laptops, such as the Chrome Book he happily threw across the room, aren't able to get the most updated versions of programs. We then got to test this out ourselves seeing what websites worked on certain laptops. I've known firsthand as an old Chrome Book user how hard it is to do stuff especially musically in comparison to Apple users. The ability to access the Apple App store which has familiar apps was really noticeable when I had to use all the google chrome/android versions. We also looked at the outcome of the phone ban in schools and how it may actually be a hinderance.

Session 11: Is This Two Players?

This session was Digital Game Based Learning. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the Zoom as I had a rehearsal, but that didn't stop me from playing around with some of the games. I definitely see how playing games can be beneficial to learning but I think it can also be detrimental if the game isn't targeted enough. It's so easy for younger kids, and even older ones... I know I could easily get distracted by an educational game, to get distracted and off topic playing games and they can easily think of it as "game time" rather than "learning time". The games that are done well are those that are able to be fun and educational and not have one take over the other. I always found Mathletics a great example of this. Who doesn't love a bit of healthy competition! Even stuff like the Isle of Tune, is a great and fun way of learning about m. That can be rhythm, pitch and harmony. A triple whammy.

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