Rock Band 3: This Time You Learn to Play Music

Rhythm game inches ever closer to ruining the game by making all your hours of playing result in the practical skill of actually learning how to play the musical instruments… First they made fans look silly playing miniature plastic instruments and now all of this might result in actually learning how to play music. Talk about accidental education.

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Empty School – Student Created Video

One of the benefits of working at Full Sail University is getting to sit-in on conversations with amazing folks like Apple’s Don Henderson (Senior Manager, Creative Expression). This past Thursday night (5/13/2010) he shared several videos about student creatives and entrepreneurs who weren’t waiting for graduation to begin their creative lives. While shortsighted bean-counters cancel arts programs and school continue to fail, Don is showing that tapping into student creativity is the direction to go and that we can’t let “testing” dictate curriculum. This video was created by one of six students that Don and Apple are promoting in their efforts to help improve education.

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Lit Reviews Are Like Talk Shows

We’ve had more than a few confused and frustrated students have a difficult time with the process of putting together their Lit Review and all of the re-editing requests that come with the process. The following is my response to one student’s frustration:

I appreciate your frustration and confusion at the requested changes. One thing that is “consistent” in academic programs and Action Research in particular, is that they tend to evolve. It can be a frustrating thing, but the overall thrust is to make the program the best it can possibly be, and thus the changes that happen along the way are part of that. In this way AR is very much like the technology we use, what worked 12 months ago might not work so well 12 months later.

So the core of what we are looking for hasn’t change but some of the sign posts might have. We’ve been working very closely with together as a team and these are the things that we are looking for:

1. The Lit Review check list: If you go to Dr. Bedard’s example website (see: http://web.me.com/suebedard/AR/Literature_Review.html), you’ll see the check-list. This is very important info.
2. Does it make sense: Just getting a fresh pair of eyes to read the document has proven to be very important. So we’re looking for missing words, missing sentences, things that might have made sense in your head but don’t quite work in print.
3. APA: In-line references and the resource list
4. Synthesis of Resources: The biggest enemy to a good lit review is when one doesn’t fully understand or synthesize the resources and tries to write a lit review. What results is more like an annotated bib where the lit review writer bounces from author name to quote, author name to quote, author name to quote, etc. What we’re looking for is for the author to have a grasp of the lit., so that the writer can act like a talk show host, bring in two or three sources, ask them questions about their work, where their work overlaps, where they disagree with each other and where there are gaps. The talk-show host (lit review writer) never shares his/her opinion, but lets the guests (sources) do all the talking. When they’ve shared their piece, the host brings on a few more guests until the spectrum of the subject has been covered. The host guides the conversation and blends all of the voices, whether they agree or disagree with each other and never shares his opinion or makes his voice louder than theirs. Of course, being a good host, he began the session with a brief intro, no opinion, just the main question at hand. Then when all the guests have spoken, he concludes with a brief summary, again, no opinion on the part of the host. That’s what we’re looking for

Please take advantage of Dr. Bedard’s website, http://web.me.com/suebedard/AR/Literature_Review.html.

Lit Reviews are too complicated to keep it all in your head and being one of the more “academic” things that we do, there’s always a need for re-editing. It’s just the nature of the process.

We want you to be successful and for your work to stand up to the scrutiny of any program in the nation. So we’re going to look at student work that is intended to represent a year’s worth of work with a fine-tooth comb. It’s a lot of work for all of us, but in the end it makes for much better results and speaks to those who under-estimate the value of online education. Hang in there, remember Rule #6, roll with the changes and you’ll be so happy with your work in the end. It’s not that your work is not good enough, we just want it to sing with all the passion that you’ve already invested in it. Hope that this helps. jbb

Joe Bustillos | Course Director
Media Asset Creation – EMDTMS | Full Sail University

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Gotta Keep Reading Video on Oprah’s Show Today

Got an unusual email from the boss, Dr. Ludgate, this morning saying that she wasn’t going to be able to make today’s graduation ceremony. Bummer. The reason for the absence was because the “Gotta Keep Reading“ video that we’d assisted in creating with Ocoee Middle School was going to be a segment on the Oprah Winfrey show today. What? Oprah’s people set up a satellite connection this morning so that she could talk to Ocoee Middle School principal Sharyn Gabriel, reading coach Janet Bergh and two students about the video, with the student body gathered in the same quad area where the video had been filmed last December. How’s that for a Friday morning wake-up call?

The segment featured a shorter version of the video and a little Q&A between Winfrey, Gabriel, Bergh and the students, and ended with Oprah announcing that Target Stores had been enlisted to help upgrade Ocoee’s library. Below is the original video and beneath that several stills of the 1,285 that I shot during the video shoot.

Hard to imagine that an idea shared last Fall in a downtown Orlando restaurant has resulted in an inspirational video that’ll be a life-long memory for the 1,700 students who participated and now has become part of the national conversation on the importance of reading.

sources:
all images by Joe Bustillos.

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FullSail Grads Comes Back & Grills Us on Web2 & Education

Nick Briscoe, Full Sail emdtms grad, talks with Dr. Deason, Dr. Ludgate and moi about Web 2.0 tools such as social networking and their use in education. This is the first episode of Nick’s Educatium podcast which he’s created with fellow emdtms grads Paul Martin, Aletha Williams and Emily Wray. They can only get better from this beginning video podcast. Really.

Here’s a bonus outtake of Dr. Siegel wanting to join in as we were setting up the interview:

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“A” is for Ax Murderer

Another student take on Zander’s giving student’s an automatic “A”:

Grades in middle school are controversial, especially now that students earn credits to be promoted to the next grade level. Ask a teacher at my school to “give an ‘A’” and their response is likely to be one of confusion, disbelief, laughter, or even anger. Administrators will tell you that grades should be used to measure student success and communicate progress. Unfortunately, many teachers use grades to communicate a very bad message and focus on “principle.” “Its the principle of the matter,” exclaims a colleague. “If you give an ‘A’ to a student who does nothing in your class, what kind of message are you sending the kid who works their butt off?”

So it goes back to measure and comparison (see chapter 2). Giving an A is not about allowing students a free ride and telling hard working students that it is all for nothing. Rather, it is eliminating the “anticipation of failure” and allowing the class to focus on what is more important; learning. It’s all about placing everyone on a level playing field (pardon the competitive sports analogy) and saying, “you already have the grade, what’s next?” It’s likely that the response will involve a feeling of relief and willingness to explore.

However, I think the next step of giving an ‘A’ is just as important as giving the ‘A’ itself. Teachers who feel that giving an ‘A’ would eliminate student accountability will like this step the most. Requiring that students predict how they have earned the A before they have actually received it, helps them develop goals and builds intrinsic motivation. It also helps them see the possibility of being successful, something many have given up on.

Interested in seeing how I felt about this in October, click here. – Noel Nehrig

And my erudite response:

Grades are a bit like religion. There may have been a point at some time but it’s gotten lost in all of the noise and people are very scared to consider what to do if grades/religion had never existed. In the classroom, has the point of all the effort gotten lost to pursuing a grade? I mean, just like religion, isn’t all of this effort suppose to amount to something intrinsic, some good that goes beyond measure?

Grades are institution solution to communicating student progress and/or position in the A-to-F continuum within the classroom. There the measure, not the point. But i’ve seen instructors at all level quibble looking to seal up any possible loophole that a student might use to game the grading system. At best a grade is an approximation that may or may not be related to student progress fulfilling course requirements. In the end, it’s what we carry in our heads and hearts that matters more than this imperfect approximation. Funny how only those who excel and those who feel besmirched care so much about grades. What’s up with that?

Sources:
Wk 1 Reading- “A” is for Ax Murderer by Noel Nehrig. http://web.me.com/noelnehrig/The_Blog_Prince_for_EMDTMS_MAC/2010_MAC_OCD_Wk1/Entries/2010/2/6_Wk_1_Reading-_%E2%80%9CA%E2%80%9D_is_for_Ax_Murderer.html retrieved on 2/9/2010

Astro’s Got an Axe! by tohoscope. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tohoscope/182444838/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

Stone mason by sk8geek. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sk8geek/3917647300/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

Pretty Princess Picking Her Nose by Pink Sherbet Photography. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/3295969599/ retrieved on 2/9/2010

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Gotta Keep Reading – Ocoee Middle School video

Dr. Ludgate, emdt program director wrote: “Ocoee Middle School is the state technology demonstration school for Florida- showcased every year at FETC. A few months ago the EMDT crew met with Sharyn Gabriel (principal) and a few staff to discuss a Flash Mob idea. They were so inspired by the Flash mob scene from the Oprah and Black Eyed Peas show- they wanted to try the same concept – educationally inspired. They hired a professional singer to write and sing lyrics related to reading and literacy to encourage kids to prepare and read for the FCAT test. “The amazing Full Sail Online Production team made this all happen- they even let the Ocoee Middle School production class shadow them and gave them mini-lessons throughout the shooting process.”

I was there taking still photos during the video shoot & the energy was amazing. If you look really carefully at 3:00 in the video I’m the little black dot on the extreme left of the screen by the trees taking pictures. What an amazing day.

Also, now the response videos are beginning to pop up (song pops up 1:40 in..) and I love that they “freeze” when the video stops because of buffering!):

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Scream Therapy

Full Sail student coping with the end of program requirements… thanks Mary

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Form Factor: 8×11

Nope, this isn’t about grading assignments while drinking beer, though that practice clearly deserves a blog entry/study of it’s own. This one is about a unexpected discovery I made last Sunday when I needed to get away from my domicile and plant myself at a local pub to watch a day of NFL goodness. Of course having 10-page student papers to grade wasn’t going to stop me. Now, because access to a power-outlet was in doubt and previously the wifi was iffy at best, I took the unusual precaution of actually printing out all of the assignments and choose to read through and make notes on these pages before uploading the comments onto my laptop. I’m pretty fanatical about NOT printing out things, so I can’t remember the last I graded something in the dead-tree version. But I have to tell you that it was remarkably convenient to quickly flip through the pages, mark them up and then move on. And from the perspective of my small table in the bar, it was a lot less conspicuous and I wasn’t looking over a screen to see the TV(s). Weird. It was just amazingly natural to work in an 8×11 form factor.

How much more efficient would it have been if I had some device, roughly 8×11, where I could have marked up the documents (in their native electronic form), that could run all day on a single charge and had access to the Internet even when there’s no nearby wifi. Hmm. No, I guess I could make the notes on the text with my finger, but a stylus works too. I doubt it’ll have a stylus, but I have to wonder if Apple’s upcoming announcement next Wednesday will include the announcement of a device that fulfills this content creation need. The announcement better not be just a rev of the iLife suite. Ack.

Sources:
image by Joe Bustillos

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To give an A or not to give an A – Ongoing Zander Dialogue

I’m back to teaching my Media Asset Creation class and Ben Zander’s The Art of Possibility is back on the menu. It never ceases to amaze me how his approach sparks debate with classroom teachers, particularly when it comes to “giving an A.” One of my students wrote:

Do I give my students all A’s? …no.

Why? …because I don’t want my best students to feel like all their hard work is for nothing. I feel strongly that some of my students would take advantage of an automatic A and slack off.

But within the rubrics I design for each lesson, it is very easy to get an A if they complete the assignment. I try to make them aware of this, but perhaps I should try harder. Perhaps I should regard them all as my best students.

However, I am often frustrated that many of my students feel like they deserve an A, they tell me so, even when their work is average at best and they copy answers from other people. I worry that their parents and teachers who have caused them to feel like they deserve an A are being set up for massive disappointments once they hit the real world. The real world doesn’t care, does it?

Regardless.

I should give everyone in my life an A. My father, my daughter, my friends, strangers, everyone… see what happens when I make a point of not accidently taking the wind out of their sails…. – Aneesa A

My response:
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