elearning for music

I attended a 2 day course - Flash for beginners, run by Andrew Richardson and Matt Rimirez. It was well run and a great learning experience. My approach to making learning materials with Flash has been (and I can’t see it changing) - if you can’t learn it, buy it. Chris Savage has been my one-stop shop for fancy Flash stuff and this course will help me speak the lingo with Chris and tweak his files more competently. And perhaps this would make a good model in learning institutions - don’t expect teachers to become digital publishers but give them the basic skills to be able to dabble with the technology with the support of a professional.

Attending this course also gave me a measure of how my attitude to learning technologies has changed in the last few months. When I booked myself on the course I was convinced it was the way forward for teachers - creating interactive learning materials for their particular corner and methodology - responding to local needs. After all, there is no off-the-shelf BTEC curriculum as we should always respond to our learners in our unique environment, so why should we expect suitable (comprehensive) learning materials to already exist?

But with the coming of Moodle and my research on Web 2.0 and learning, my game has shifted towards empowering the learner with tools to create for themselves. I’m not expecting them all to become proficient with Flash on a music course, but I am convinced digital media and Web 2.0 makes learning fun and engaging.

Which brings me on to my new lappie - a Macbook.

What a faff - transferring my (professional) digital life! But it will be worth it, I know. This is the tool I want my learners to have (see earlier shopping list) - but why?

I have to admit to being pretty obsessed with my Mac as the heart of my professional life, so maybe I should not try to answer that question.  Apple puts forward a strong case - the Mac environment helps to stimulate learning and expression; there seem to be few barriers and much enticement to explore and create, breaking down the boundaries between learning and life.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 2:30 pm and is filed under ccm elearning, elearning and. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.