Blog workaround
November 3rd, 2008
I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted to try to incorporate a school initiative to use wikis and blogs into Band and Guitar classes. The prospect of each student having their own online portfolio of recordings and reflections is exciting. Likewise, the possibilities were intriguing, if not clear, for using wikis for students to document and save their collected wisdom about…well, about whatever…but it was intriguing. I decided to move ahead on the blogs idea and take more time to think about the “authentic” (a.k.a., helpful rather than distracting to the music content) possibilities of wikis. After three months of trying to work with my tech department to make it work, I had given up on blogs. I wrote several posts for Third-Stream about the experiences, but chose not to post them; maybe I’ll give you the “short, positive” version later. In any case, the server we have just is not able to give each student their own blog. Sixty thousand dollars of advanced hardware and software, and it only does things one way…that’s disappointing.
Then last week, our school had an inservice day which included tech sessions. One tech session on student portfolios showed an amazingly simple work-around for giving each student their own web space to show off their growth in music. It is…(drum roll, please)…give each student their own page on the wiki. Done. Voila. Presto. Bam. Sure, students could mess with each other’s pages, but ours tend not to be the vandalizing type. I would be more likely to have a student edit another’s page by mistake because they really didn’t know where they were. Besides, the server keeps a log of all content changes, so detective work after an incident would be easy. For introductory pages, I took another cue from the workshop leader and wrote “STUDENTS DO NOT EDIT THIS PAGE” above and below content which I wanted to be only edited by myself.
So now, five days after the tech seminar, I have working, individual “blogs” for every one of my students.
They can make a recording of themselves playing, post it in their personal music wiki page, and write their reflections just underneath. Students can comment on each other’s pages (hopefully “comment” and not “edit”), and I can comment and give grades for student work all in one place. Students can even “retake” playing quizzes just by making a new recording of the material and writing a new blog post. At the end of the semester, students have a ready-made stash of evidence of achievement (or growth, creativity, etc.) in music to use in their student-led parent conferences. I have even posted my own demo pages in each class for students to see and imitate. In my Wind Ensemble demo, students can watch a video of me playing snare drum very well; in my Beginning Band demo, students can watch a movie of me playing trumpet at a mediocre level; and in my Guitar class demo, students can see me stink it up on guitar. They can even read my comments on myself, including my own appraisals of how I plan to improve each, so that they can see examples of constructive criticism…and know that their teachers are human, too!
So far, the downsides include commenting on a wiki (at the bottom of a page, rather than just below each individual posting as on a blog) and the speed and stability of our school internet connection. As the project grows from its infancy into its adolescence, I’ll keep you posted as to the growth and successes of the project.
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1. Jason | November 14th, 2008 at 9:06 am
I am very interested in incorporating technology into my music classroom. I have some experience with setting up and maintaining wiki’s, however, I found editing the template is a real pain. Where did you get your template?
2. carystewart | November 15th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Jason,
For my school blog (wiki) project, I have been allocated space on my school’s Mac OS X directory server. The server software includes about a dozen ready-to-go templates. My Tech department just typed in the kids’ names and I was off and running…no hassling with templates for me. The problem is that, like all Apple products, the server software is designed to work flawlessly so long as you want to do it Apple’s way, with no special requests, no custom parameters and certainly with no Microsoft components thrown in along the way.
3. Evan T | December 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Jason & Cary,
A nice option for Wikis is pbwiki’s system, which is also non-commercial http://pbwiki.com/
As for blogs…
At musiced.net we have a multiuser blog platform set up for music educators to use at no cost. All blogs can be password protected so it allows for privacy and if your school doesn’t have a server it is a possible non-commercial option.
Another option to having each student operating their own individual blog is to have one class blog with multiple authors and set the students as authors to the blog.
One of the keys in students’ work with blogs is ensuring their privacy and safety through password protection. So that’s an issue to consider as they are being set up.
Here’s the link where blogs can be set up using musiced.net
http://musiced.net/wp-signup.php
Edublogs also has a similar system for setting up multiuser blogs
http://edublogs.org/
Finally, an alternative to all of the above, though somewhat more unwieldy is NING, which can be thought of as a more contained version of Facebook. It lends it self differently than blogs and wikis but is another social-networking tool that can be useful in an education context. http://www.ning.com/
Good luck with it.
4. carystewart | December 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Evan,
Thanks for the great advice!
Edublogs looks like a great resource, with teacher control over student blogs and other administrative tools. However, with the lowest Edublogs package starting at US$900 and our school having just purchased its new server this year, I knew Edublogs was out of reach for me at this time.
There have been several blogs written in the past year mentioning ning.com as possible education resource, but little on specific details of the uses and benefits. Would you be willing to put together a post on C&C with more specifics?
5. Music Teacher Resources | June 13th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Having your own music teacher blog is really cool and advantageous. You may use this to communicate with your students and even share some tips in practicing. Technology can really help us, music teachers, effective and efficient in our job.
For more that two years now, Music Teachers Helper is providing me all the help that I can get in managing my private music studio. It is a web-based computer program for music teachers designed to handle our problems - from billing and lesson schedules, to communication and tax reports. It is just for us how to use these innovations for our own good. Keep it up!
6. Third-Stream Music Educat&hellip | December 8th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
[…] might remember my struggles last school year to implement student online portfolios for all of my students, in the form of individual blogs. The […]
7. video guitar lessons | February 14th, 2010 at 10:42 am
thanks! very helpful post!! like the template btw