Last Second Thoughts...

A continuation of the previous entry...

About the student's works...

I really enjoyed reading Ying Ying's blog. She has posted some really interesting entries which I can definitely relate too. Among the entries I liked was "Welcome to Windows." In the "Welcome to Windows" post, Ying Ying shared with us an amazing piano piece that was composed using the Windows XP sounds. I agree with what she said about how the piece can be confusing to the listener because the sound can be coming either from your own computer or from the music. There were definitely times I couldn't help but feel slightly uncomfortable hearing the start-up sound again and again...This work of art is definitely music technology at it's best!

Justice brought up some interesting points in her blog entries as well. In her post "Interactive arts to replace traveling to rehearsals?" she talks about how technology has evolved so that it supports interactive rehearsals and performances. It never really occurred to me either that with the technology today, it is quite possible to do rehearsals/performances over the internet by simply using a chat program with your own computers. (Skype anyone?) No more commuting back and forth for long rehearsals. It really does make you think just how advanced technology has gotten in the past few years. Imagine what Web 3.0 will bring!

One of the best features of Kai's website is his Flash animation. It's a simple animation, yet it works very well because it serves as a nice introduction to his website. The pair of eyes is a creative touch because it really makes the users want to enter and explore his site. When creating animations it is important to remember the phrase"just enough, never too much." Overusing animations can distract users and their ability to focus on the content. After all, the eye is automatically attracted to motion. Nice animation Kai!

About me...

This course has taught me how to effectively work independently and creatively. I can be self-reliant, monitor my own progress and use support effectively as appropriate. Because the majority of the work that has been assigned has been done individually, it has allowed me to understand some of the fundamental aspects that are necessary to function successfully as an individual. For example, while working on class assignments, it is easy for me to see the progress I made. Throughout the course of the semester, it is easy to see that I have made much more efficient use my time. I think using time efficiently is one of the keys to academic survival and success.

Technology continues to be an ever-increasing presence in all aspects of performing arts and music education, from providing technical support to administrative staff and box office personnel, to the creation of Web-based projects, and to the development of internet based arts and education resources for teachers and students. To further my learning and understanding of technology in performing arts/music education, I will continue to take courses here at NYU involved in technology and music and the ways in which they can be used together creatively. I would like to obtain an internship in the future which will be especially helpful in that it will offer meaningful learning opportunities and on-the-job experiences for me.

Upon graduating with a Masters in Music Technology, I would like to continue working with electronic and computer technology within music. In the future, I hope to find a job that will enable me to use the latest technology (industry-standard hardware and software), while learning both technical and creative aspects of music production and recording.

Last Minute Thoughts...

It's hard to believe, but the Spring 2007 semester is already over. And I feel like I've just started...well here are what I like to call my "last minute thoughts" in regards to this course, music education, technology and everything else. Enjoy!

About Flash...

For general web authoring, Flash is useful in that it makes the website stand out and attracts attention, with interactivity. It makes the site different from other sites. When done correctly, it makes your site just that much more professional. Flash is definitely one of the more sophisticated tools available to web sites.

For music educators and in the performing arts professions, Flash is especially useful in that it can help music educators become more effective by improving teaching and learning in music. With Flash, teachers can integrate sound and notation in ways never before possible. They can develop interactive presentations that include text, graphics, animation, sound, and videos. Audio-visuals are helpful in that they promote and encourage student participation and stimulate creative and critical thinking. Multimedia technology helps students learn to better appreciate music as an art, and become participants in the joy of music-making.

About my accomplishments...

I think that the single most important thing I felt I accomplished in the class this semester is my blog. This is the first time I've ever "blogged" so it feels quite different and it's definitely a whole new experience for me. Maintaining a weekly blog was quite challenging at times due to the fact that I am not a writer and I find it hard to express my thoughts in a logical and coherent manner. Having to come up with new and interesting blog entries every week really helped to provoke my creative and original thinking skills and improved my writing skills. Writing my weekly blog post provided for me a fresh blank canvas for self expression. As the words formed sentences on the page, I felt a sense of accomplishment. All in all, blogs are a great way to practice and hone your ability to express yourself and your thoughts in print. Kudos to blogging!

About the course...

The strongest feature of this course is the course content and design. The course is well organized into three major lessons covering such topics as blogging, Flash and web authoring (Dreamweaver). The material is relevant to many of my personal and professional goals. Multimedia technology is not only advancing rapidly, but it also plays a part in everyday life as we are immersed in a world of multimedia experiences. As a result, it's of extreme importance to keep up to date with all these software programs. Another strong feature was the interaction between the instructor and the students. I felt the instructor was easily approachable and was always willing to answer questions. And the concepts were explained on a level that students could understand and handle.

I would have to say that the weakest feature of this course would probably be that there is a large amount of material over a very broad range. There is just so much to learn in both Flash and Dreamweaver that it is difficult to cover everything in a relatively short space of time. It's definitely a lot to take in you aren't familiar with any of the programs/software.

Musicovery: Interactive WebRadio

On one of my recent posts, I highlighted a website called Pandora, the internet radio. Upon further surfing, I came across Musicovery, an interactive web radio very similar to the Pandora web radio site. Musicovery lets you choose and explore music by mood (anywhere from dark to positive and from calm to energetic), style, genres, time periods, and much more. You can mix and match filters and customize your internet radio experience to suit your tastes even if that happens to be dark energetic pop or jazz from the 80s. The major difference between Pandora and Musicovery is that in Pandora, you enter an artist or song in and it spits out songs similar in their "music genome" while in Musicovery you input a mood and dance level and it picks a trail of songs that fit, and does so in a more visual way.

Each time you change your preferences in the nav bar the music selector jumps across the screen and plays another song. Genres are color-coded and really add to the aesthetic appeal of the experience. There's a large selection of music to listen to as well, from classical to disco, hip hop, world, rock and so much more. You can even scroll around the map and choose songs manually. For users with a good internet connection there's no lag or song loading time, so you can expect smooth listening from start to finish.

Musicovery has a fantastic interface. It's definitely a brand new way to think about music. Users are presented with what looks like a remote control. In the center of the remote is a coordinate axis with four adjectives: Energetic, Positive, Calm, and Dark. There is also a blinking dot placed in the axis. At the bottom of the remote is a list of 18 genres of music. Users can first select a genre and then place the dot anywhere on the axis. Musicovery then uses an algorithm to play a composition that relates to the location on the axis. In a manner similar to the Pandora site, Musicovery plays actual tracks in their entirety - and it’s perfectly legal. The graphical interface is very slick, and there are connections to related artists and works based on your placement of the dot in the axis.

This might sound a bit confusing, so the easiest way to understand it is to check it out for yourself. The first time I visited the site I spent a great deal of time playing in the Pop genre and found the selections in relation to my placement of the dot on the axis to be very interesting. I think that the site has some pretty interesting possibilities for the classroom, especially in terms of critical listening skills, discussions about music in relation to emotions, and more.

Musicovery is a great way to find new songs and play with different styles of music. It isn't really a game, but it's got the same sense of exploration and fun as any web toy on the internet. Click!

Pandora

Recently I came across a really neat online application. It's an internet radio called "Pandora" and it was created by the Music Genome Project, a group of musicians and music technologists. Pandora is not your average internet radio where you listen to random songs and artists. The really cool thing about Pandora is that when you create a radio station it lets you type in a song or artist you like and it instantly finds other music that might fit your taste, or what some may call "genetically similar songs." In other words, having analyzed the musical structures present in the songs you like, Pandora creates a radio station that will only play songs with similar musical traits to the song you typed in. It relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributes covering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics.

Another neat feature of Pandora is that you can give it feedback so it can refine our station based on our likes and dislikes. You can give any song the station plays either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, and providing this feedback instantly changes your station's playlist. The result is a progressively personalized radio station that really does play only music you want to hear. It's always nice to have a personalized playlist based on our own musical preferences!

Some of the other things you can do with Pandora: you can create up to 100 stations, share a station with a friend through an e-mail link, register for RSS feeds to find out what your friends are listening to, what the top 20 artists are, add a song to your favorites list so you can keep track of the music you like, etc. And who knows? Pandora may even help you discover new music that you'll like!

There's definitely a lot going on with the Pandora player, but it's all pretty easy to access once you get the hang of it. Do check it out when you get a chance!

Thoughts on Distance Learning Technology

Today, teaching and learning are no longer confined to the classroom or the school day. There are many technologies that can offer a great deal of flexibility in when, where, and how education is distributed. Distance learning applications, especially in higher education, are growing at a rapid pace. It is hard to believe, but it is now possible to obtain a college degree without physically attending a traditional class! I know that Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis offers an online Music Technology degree.

I really didn't know too much about distance learning until I read up on it. I now realize there are many many benefits to distance learning technologies (DLT). First of all, it is very convenient for both the students and instructors. Many of the technologies, (internet, videotape, telephone) are easily accessed at home. Others (desktop video-conferencing) can be distributed from a single point to multiple remote sites. DLT also provides flexibility in that students have the option to participate whenever they want to. They aren't required to do things at a certain time and they don't have a time limit. For example, some students may want to review a video in the early morning while another student may want to do so in the evening, and they have all the time to do so.

There is a wide variety of distance learning technologies. Because of this, it can meet everyone's learning preferences (well, at least part of the time). For example, some students learn from visual stimuli, such as video, and others learn best by interacting with a computer program. If distance learning courses are well designed, they will likely offer learners a wide range of choices, thereby providing the optimal combinations of interaction and media.

I remember during my undergraduate studies when one of my professors was out of town. Rather than hire a substitute or have his TA's teach, we watched a prerecorded video of our instructor on a large projector screen, teaching us the day's lesson. Not only was it an efficient way of delivering to us the materials we needed to know, but it was also very flexible. We could pause the videotape when we needed to or rewind the tape if we wanted to review the lesson again. If any of the students had questions, all we needed to do was send an e-mail to our instructor and he would provide us with feedback. I remember thinking to myself, wow, our teacher had become a "virtual professor!"

Happy Chinese New Year!

新年快樂!

February 18, 2007 marks the beginning of Chinese New Year, year of the Pig (or Boar, depending on who you ask). This year is very special in that it is the "Year of the Golden Pig" which falls once every 60 years. Definitely lots to celebrate :) Chinese New Year also means the beginning of an exciting two-week festival filled with lots of delicious chinese food, red envelopes (filled with $$$), fireworks, celebrations (Lantern Festival), and wearing lots of red!

Just an interesting tidbit, famous people born in the Year of the Pig include: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Humphrey Bogart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ernest Hemingway, Alfred Hitchcock, David Letterman, and Arnold Schwarnenegger.

Here is a clip of the 2007 Chinese New Year Spectacular, which was performed here in NYC at Radio City Music Hall just last week. (Is there anything that YouTube doesn't have)?


To celebrate the new year, Skype has a special promotion that allows people to receive 24 minutes of free calling to people in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. For those of you who aren't familiar with Skype, it is a program that lets you make free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has the service. It's free and easy to use, and it works with most computers. The audio quality is pretty good so is the webcam. As far as I know, Skype can even replace a standard phone or cell phone. Because Chinese New Year is one of the world's biggest celebrations of family and friends, Skype allows people to stay connected during this time and provides Skype users to send New Year's greetings to family and friends. Skype is definitely the most advanced voice communications tool available today. What would we do without the internet :) Hats off to Skype!

Speaking of Skype, I found an interesting blog on celebrating Chinese New Year with Skype and Flickr, two very popular and useful programs out there on the internet today.

Wishing everyone a Healthy, Prosperous and Happy Lunar New Year!

Thoughts on E-learning

Happy Valentine's Day! I love what Google does with its logo on holidays! They're so very creative!

With that said, back to business...

What is E-learning? "E-learning is to classroom learning as cell phones are to a pay phone at the bus station." I thought this was a pretty clever way to put it. (It's on this website if you want to read more). The article goes on to explain that as long as you have a computer, you'll be able to learn anywhere, similar to a cell phone. With a cell phone, you'll be able to communicate anywhere.

Web technologies are definitely shaping education. One example is podcasting, which has become a popular technology in education. I just read about how Stanford University has teamed up with Apple to create the Stanford iTunes University! Rather than being a large collection of student/faculty playlists, this iTunes is quite unique in that it provides a range of digital content (although some are restricted to Stanford users). Talk about creative! There are also a lot of student-produced podcasts out there today.

The photo-sharing site Flickr is another great example of web technology (not to mention it's considered an early example of a Web 2.0 application) being used in education. I find that it's one of the better photo-sharing sites out there, you can easily share, manage, organize, and store all your photos. Plus users can comment on pictures and search for them based on "tags." All in all, a very nicely designed (free!) application. My favorite web-based Flickr toy is the postcard browser, which offers a really cool, fun way to browse through images with a specific tag. I won't try to describe it, just go try it for yourself and I think you'll see what I mean!

In education, Flickr provides a valuable resource for students and educators looking for images for use in presentations, learning materials or coursework. Students can also use Flickr to publish their digital photography to a larger audience and with the commenting function they can get critical feedback. Another handy feature on Flickr are the "notes." Notes allow users to add hot-spot annotations to an image. This is a great learning tool as it allows students to annotate and discuss the images in more detail.

These are just a couple of web technologies used in education. E-learning is still developing today (and everyday) and it'll be interesting to see how it changes in the future!

Thoughts on Education Technology 2.0

Technology is such an innovative tool.

What is on the web today is just simply amazing. With all the audio and video content making its way on to the web, teachers can now have access to all the latest technologies to help prepare a lesson or a unit of study. Using technology in classrooms makes the learning process easier and students become more engaged in what is being taught. Technology also changes the dynamic between the professors and the students. People seem to feel more stimulated to respond due to the visual and audio enhancements. I think it's safe to say that most students today prefer education technology to the simple chalk and board method of teaching (no more having to clap erasers saturated with chalk dust)!

"Smart classrooms" are indeed "smart" in that they enhance the learning experience. Often students' imaginations are stimulated through these technologically enhanced classrooms. In addition, I think the use of multimedia technology also keeps students interested in the lecture (due to our short attention spans :) By using sound, video, and other media, many of the key concepts are demonstrated more effectively by the instructor. I know that I'm definitely more of a visual learner so using audio-visuals allows me to see something while I take notes.

I must admit I'm jealous of all the elementary school students today. Their classrooms are equipped with the latest multimedia technologies, (I'm talking electronic interactive whiteboards, handheld computers, DVD-VHS players, high-definition sound and video systems, LCD projectors!) and they're learning to use the latest software programs. When I was an elementary student, all I used were computers with green monochrome monitors and there was nothing even remotely resembling a palm pilot. I was reading about how nine-year olds are reading Aesop's Fables on their palm pilots and using them not only to read, but to write, do math, take pictures, do research. It's just unbelievable how technically advanced things have gotten (which means I must be getting quite old). Technology is the road to learning, that must be it.

So, if classrooms are smart, will that somehow produce better learning? Hmm, something to think about...

Thoughts on Web 2.0

Recently, I found myself trying to understand Web 2.0. Unfortunately, it appears to be a term that has been hyped up in all sorts of ways with no collectively understood definition. I was doing some research about Web 2.0 and realized just about everyone gives a different answer. Tim O'Reilly who came up with the phrase in 2004, talks about the "web as platform" whil technologists and designers have differing views focused on either the technology and standards or the experience. Even Wikipedia seems confused...clearly, Web 2.0 is different and many things to many people.

I'll have to agree with D. Keith Robinson's views on Web 2.0 "Depending on who is using the term, you could be talking about the Web as a platform for applications, a philosophy in building and designing Web applications, a group of powerful Web technologies, and much more." From my perspective, I'm going to say that Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making technology more efficient for computers. So Web 2.0 is about connecting people, and making technology more efficient for people. With Web 2.0 tools, people can share information and create content much more easily. And it's a place where users don't just find information, they are able to create and categorize it for themselves and their peers. (Wikipedia anyone??)

What is your definition of Web 2.0? How do you guys view these new emerging technologies? I'm curious to find out and I welcome your comments and suggestions!