The use of digital technologies for learning and teaching, doesn’t just happen. Staff don’t always instinctively pick up the skills and capabilities to utilise the range of digital tools and services available to them. In a similar manner the application of pedagogy to mobile, remote and online delivery is not as simple as translating in-person pedagogical practices.
When it comes to digital transformation in education, I wonder if we can look at what happened to the music retail industry and the impact of digital over the last few decades.
I looked at how the retail music industry had moved from vinyl to CD, to mp3 and onto streaming services. So, what does this mean for education? Well don’t make the mistake of equating music tracks with something like a lecture. Digital transformation of education is not about the Napsterfication of lectures or creating an education version of Spotify. What we can learn from digital music is reflecting on the differences between the digitisation of education, the digitalisation of education and then the digital transformation of education.
I participated in the LTHEChat and Advance HE tweetchat about wellbeing in higher education.
So to remind us, when we look at digital transformation, it becomes obvious that focusing on the hardware or technology is actually quite limiting. So when looking at the digital transformation of education, we really want to focus on the transformation of education and how digital can enable and enhance that transformation.
When it comes to digital transformation in education, I wonder if we can look at what happened to the music retail industry and the impact of digital over the last few decades.
Of course you can’t directly compare and map what happened to music with education, but there are parallels and similarities, which can help us to reflect on what might and could happen in education.
In the 1980s we saw the digitisation of music with the release of the CD or compact disc in 1982. CDs were designed to hold up to 74 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio.
When I was at University in the late 1980s I would buy music on CD. The experience was very much as it was before when buying vinyl and cassettes, though this time I was frequenting Our Price records. The albums that were available on vinyl were then released on CD. Though the 74 minute limit did result in some changes to some albums.
What the CD did do though was start to change the way in which people listened to music. It was now easier to skip tracks, repeat tracks or just go straight to the track you wanted to listen to.
This can be seen as very much as digitisation of an analogue experience.
In the 1990s using our home computers we were able to rip our CD collections and put the files on our local hard drives. The uncompressed digital audio files were so large, a CD would take up 650MB of data, that we would use compression technology to reduce the size of the files to (usually) 10% of their original file size. So that ripped CD would take up just 65MB on your hard drive.
Ripping CDs meant you could rip just the songs you wanted from an album, or even create your own albums through the creation of playlists.
The concept of listening to an entire album, though entirely possible to do using mp3s in the same way as you could with vinyl was starting to be replaced by people choosing how they wanted to listen to music.
The late 1990s saw people using the internet to start sharing their mp3s, which was epitomised with the Napster peer-to-peer file sharing service.. Now you could share your music with others and listen to their music (ignoring the illegalities of this whole process). Napster ceased operations in 2001 after losing a wave of lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002.
The music industry responded to Napster with not just lawsuits, but also licensing digital music through services such as Apple’s iTunes. Now you could buy not just albums, but you could also just buy a single track from an album. You could buy playlists of music as well, not just from music publishers, but also the lists of other music enthusiasts.
The release of the iPod (and other mp3 players) also changed not just how people listened to music, but also where they listened to music. Though the same could be said about the Sony Walkman twenty years before.
The move to digital music files can be seen as digitalisation of music.
The concept though was still there of an individual buying music which you then owned. You bought vinyl, you bought a CD and now you bought digital music files.
Where we really saw digital transformation of music was in the emergence and growth of subscription streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pandora.
We can think of music streaming as something relatively new, well the concept is a little older than that. Beginning in 1881, Théâtrophone enabled subscribers to listen to opera and theatre performances over telephone lines. This operated until 1932. However this was analogue, these new services are digital streaming services. You could stream music however you wanted, single tracks, albums, playlists, genres of music, or styles of music. Now you no longer bought music tracks or albums, you subscribed a service that allowed you to listen whatever tracks and albums you wanted, whenever you wanted. The only downside, was that when you stopped subscribing, you no longer had access.
I do see this very much as digital transformation. Music was no longer seen as a physical media, or something you owned. Streaming changed not just the way you listened music, but also the kinds of music you could listen to. Sometimes it constrained, and for others it liberated their listening.
So what does this mean for education?
Well don’t make the mistake of equating music tracks with something like a lecture. Digital transformation of education is not about the Napsterfication of lectures or creating an education version of Spotify.
What we can learn from digital music is reflecting on the differences between the digitisation of education, the digitalisation of education and then the digital transformation of education. Recognising where you are, but also thinking about where you wantto be and how you will get there.
The US election continues to dominate Twitter though seeing less of it on the mainstream news. Saw a number of people on Twitter claiming to have won the election!
Five years ago this week myself and Lawrie were delivering the second residential of the pilot for the Jisc Digital Leaders Programme at the Holland House Hotel in the heart of Bristol. We had spent four days delivering that week. We also had some great cakes and pastries.
Even the coffee was nice. We learnt a lot from the process and spent the next few months iterating the programme, dropping and adding stuff based on the feedback we had from the pilot delegates.
Less than a year later we delivered the programme to paying delegates in Loughborough, again we reviewed what we did and adapted the programme again, before delivering to groups in Manchester, Belfast and Leicester.
This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.
GarageBand turns your iPad into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play pianos, organs, guitars, drums, and basses on your iPad. They sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument. Enjoy a full range of Smart Instruments that make you sound like a pro — even if you’ve never played a note before. Plug an electric guitar into your iPad and play through classic amps and stompbox effects. Use the built-in microphone or a guitar to record, or capture any performance. Then mix up to eight tracks to create a song you can share.
£2.99
This is one of the two new iPad apps Apple have released alongside the new iPad 2, however Garageband is the only one of the two that works on the original iPad. If you want to use iMovie you will need to get the new iPad.
I purchased Garageband in the main to record and edit podcasts when on the road. However the only way I can get recordings (say from an Edirol) will be through iTunes on my computer… which kinda defeats the point of using Garageband on the iPad for editing podcasts, as if I have my computer, I would probably use that…
You can of course record straight into the iPad and though the built-in microphone is okay for somethings, the quality is not brilliant. Testing with my external USB microphone using the USB camera connection kit, I found that Garageband could use that as an input device. This definitely improved the quality of the recording.
As with a lot of Apple apps this one looks gorgeous, great graphics and a nice interface. Of course if you have used Garageband on the Mac then there is an element of familiarity that will ensure using the App is easier than learning another one completely new. As a podcasting app, I don’t think Garageband is quite there, however it is one of the cheapest multi-track recording apps in the App Store, so you can forgive it, its foibles.
Of course the main reason for purchasing Garageband is because you want to use it to record music and it certainly will work for that. There are lots of options and you can also use it with real instruments.
Reviews from across the web indicate from (proper) musicians that the app is certainly useful and practical for recording music.
One reason you might want to use Garageband is to record stuff on the road and then bring it back home to finish it off on your Mac. However songs created in GarageBand for iPad can not be opened in GarageBand for Mac. Projects created in GarageBand for Mac cannot be opened in GarageBand for iPad. According to Apple, a future update of GarageBand for Mac will open songs created in GarageBand for iPad.
Without a file system, it is “challenging” to get stuff into Garageband and out of Garageband. Apple have made some nice apps for the iPad, however the problem of moving files that you’ve created (without using iTunes on your Mac) is still annoyingly complicated or confusing. Not helped (in my opinion) by lack of integration with external third party services such as Dropbox. No if the rumoured MobileMe upgrade happens with a better faster cloud service, then I probably wouldn’t complain so much, but services such as Google Docs and Dropbox are so much faster and smoother than Apple’s MobileMe iDisk service for example.
I do like the Garageband App, not sure if I will be using it to record the e-Learning Stuff Podcast, but at least I now have the possibility when I am out and about to record and edit a podcast using the iPad.
I am sure most people are aware of the many music “instrument” apps for the iPhone and the iPad.
I was talking to one of our music technology lecturers the other day and she was asking if we could get some iPads so that her learners could play a set with them.
This is not something that hasn’t been done before as can be seen from these two videos of iPads and iPhones been used with real instruments.
Certainly shows how gadgets like the iPad can be used for things that you wouldn’t think were even possible.
Film and media students often like to create their own films or edit other people’s films. When making their own films, they would often use a piece of popular music or a film soundtrack and add it to their films.
In the olden days before everyone has access to the internet and online video sites such as YouTube and Blip.tv it wouldn’t matter that media and film students would infringe copyright as it was very unlikely that anyone apart from the student and their lecturer would view the video.
Edit: Just to note that it mattered then as it matters now that students infringed copyright. When I said wouldn’t matter what I was thinking was that staff and students then wouldn’t worry about infringing copyright as they perceived the risk of being caught very low and as a result wouldn’t worry about infringing copyright. But it was as wrong then as it is now, just now the risk of being caught is higher.
However these days students are not only making films, they also want to show them off. They are uploading them to YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and loads of other places on the internet.
As a result it is much easier for rights owners to find that the students have infringed their copyright. Regardless of your views on this, it can make life easier for the student, the lecturer and the college to have a source of music for these student films that does not infringe someone’s copyright.
They can of course seek permission from the copyright owner and this may be given or asked to pay a royalty.
The following is not copyright free, but you don’t need to pay royalties, just need to credit.
