Teaching via Zoom started this week. It's pretty tough, for both the teacher and student. Being unable to physically touch makes it really hard to diagnose and solve problems. I spent about 15 mins relaying possible fixes for a student's saxophone through which he was having trouble making any sound. He was feeling frustrated that the lesson couldn't progress and no doubt picked up on my anxiety of losing precious time.
That's not to put down on online learning though. Other situations have had me questioning the significance of my in-person presence. Two high school girls came to me this term having learned by themselves Yiruma's 'River Flows in You' by watching YouTube tutorials. Even if the piece triggered a rather strong sense of nostalgic cringe, I was impressed by their fluency.
So when asked about what they wanted out of piano lessons, they both replied that they wanted to play more technical songs/pieces but YouTube videos could on get them so far. Sounds a lot like what James and Brad were talking about with Musical Futures...
Online learning has become such a huge asset to modern education, classroom teaching or not. People like Eddie Woo or Khan Academy have showcased what is possible and what is useful when technology is integrated with educational passion. As a possible future classroom teacher, it's imperative to learn about how one can create online resources as supplementary to in-person teaching. While what Eddie and Khan do are highly effective for those with high internal motivation or mathematic based subjects, simply lecturing to a camera or using virtual whiteboards only will not effective for music teachers who need to demonstrate technique, while still being personable.
We learned in #TME about how to set up and use equipment for videography, particularly in educational applications. We got an opportunity to film ourselves using two separate cameras and, by interpolating the images together, make a seamless transition between them using video editing software.
Here's me sucking at juggling a football (actually a netball) and getting it stuck on the patio:
The lack of exercise frustrated me a lot, and in the end the final product felt still very amateurish. Some tips on how to make things less noob:
A better videographer, expensive equipment does not make. Maximise the capabilities of what you do have on hand. Cheat if you must! Quality editing can disguise that you don't have two cameras!
Clap every time you want to do a new fresh take, especially if the previous take is clearly unsalvageable. It will make lining up your clips so much easier (Believe it or not, that video was probably like take 43...questioning why I thought it was a good idea in the first place)
Make sure everything and framed properly. Can you see the football? No. Big boo boo. The aim is the get onto r/praisethecameraman
Where's the light coming from? Why do I look like I've got a great stache when in reality my Movember stays NOvember?
Audio from your camera is often better replaced by separately recorded audio using an external mic.
iMovie is a perfectly valid editing software. Look for the spikes in audio! That's where you've clapped to start your take but don't worry if you can't sync up the audio spike with clap in the clip; that's just because cameras film at MUCH lower frequencies than that of sound. Almost is close enough!
So what does this all mean in the modern virtual world of education? It opens up a whole avenue of possibilities.
You can teach across continents.
You can teach across time.
Ketchup is a condiment
Suddenly this rhymes
Record yourself teaching
With a camera and a mic.
More students you are reaching,
The more you're like Steve Reich.
Anyway that was weird. I suppose adaptation to electronic resources that can be made by amateurs using minimal equipment should be something that all educators become familiar with. As people like Eddie Woo and Khan Academy have shown, ultimately they're just another way for great educators to teach. And when great educators work with creative uses of technology, the world would be an altogether more woke space.