Designing a Digital Recording Studio Using Moodle and Webspiration “ How the transition to the knowledge Media enhanced my students learning” by Alex Wallace, Kamo High School Primary URL: ISTE 2010 Ning Discussion: Exhibitor Links: The following exhibitors have been designated by the presenter as offering products or services related to this session's content: Inspiration Software, Inc. Software,

THE CONCEPTUAL DESIGN

COURSE OUTLINE The course overview was presented as a flow chart. This seemed to have a positive effect on students self management skills

A hang out area (water cooler equivalent) was added to give students a place to chat about non course related content and build their online relationships. Both this area and the Live Chat activity worked well and helped to promote participation.

You tube videos were embedded into the site structure. Most students watched and commented on the valuable information they contained

Students enjoyed the graphic layout for assignment 3 and as a result produced quality work for their assignments

The web 2.0 tool Webspiration was the software application used by students to create and design their digital studios.

This is an example of a students modified template for assignment 3

Evaluation of student learning: Student’s assignments for the “Design a recording studio” online course demonstrate a sound understanding of the course product and content. Linking prior learning knowledge, an authentic learning experience (Jonassen1934. p35) and Blooms Taxonomy to provide the structure for formative assessment and learning, students were able to build and collaborate on creative ideas through online and F2F environments. The following example from the week 3 assignment “design a digital and analogue studio” shows evidence of higher order thinking and enquiry learning by the student:

Evidence of learning is clearly demonstrated in this example from a week 7 assignment which was supported by a graphic template. (Roblyer, 2006, p.42) The main objective was for students to enquire about how the audio conversion process works in a digital multi track recording studio. Students discussed and reflected on the type of USB A/D converters covered in week 2 of the course which helped them to understand how the process works using a different type of digital optical interface.

Students assignments were uploaded and managed through the mywebspiration site

Relevant literature and discussion forums suggested that using a spread sheet could help with course management. This proved to be good advise….. Course User names database, passwords and addresses Course forum participation and assignment monitoring Mywebspiration usernames and passwords Students Evaluations online

Some final changes were made to the course site after the holiday break to encourage student participation for the last 2 weeks. A video Component was added Weekly reminders and updates Direct link to the course evaluations

Conclusion: At the end of the course students applied the knowledge they gained to complete an authentic task. The high quality of the work provided clear evidence that the students gained an in depth understanding of the course content and achieved the intentions of the online course. The pass rate and quality of work was much higher than those who used traditional methods. The course provided the platform for learning in both the online and face to face environments producing excellent results. Comments from students who participated in the online course were very positive and most felt they had an advantage over the other students who weren’t participating online. Here is some student feedback about the online course: “We had an advantage over other students, we had access to valuable information.” “When you asked questions it was good because you got answers from others too” “I watched all the videos they taught me how to use an A/D converter” “It was good fun I enjoyed chatting in the techie forum but we didn’t talk about tech stuff much” “mywebspiration was easy to use and understand ” “I used the live chat to talk to other people and help me with my work”

Thanks to the following participants and Institutions for their contributions towards the “Design a digital recording studio” online learning trial: The Music Technology students from Kamo High School 2009 The Kamo High School Senior Management Team and Board of Trustees Nicki Dabner Senior Lecturer, School of Literacy's and Arts in Education College of Education University of Canterbury, Nicki Davis, Julie Mackey and the University of Canterbury New-Zealand.