Digital Code & Yin and Yang

Digital technology has rapidly transformed the world as we know it. It has penetrated every aspect of our existence and will continue to make inroads. Although the Internet is a part of this transformation, all aspects of our lives: transportation, entertainment, cooking, communication, finance and economics, publishing, reading, writing, and on and on... digital code has transformative power.

Digital code is the sorcer's apprentice. It is the secret magical word, the abracadabra of modern life. It is no accident that it is dependent on electrical energy. The structure of humans is also dependent on electrical connections through nerve endings so impulses are transmitted back and forth to strategic locations. Electricity is the primary ethos, emulating the energy of the cosmos. The supreme energy is light, and nothing can compare with the speed of light. The speed of light is the structuring force of the universe. Light is the ultimate communication, defining existence, "Let there be light!"

Our discovery of the binary system is the discovery of ourselves. The essence of the binary system is the yin and yang, the negative and the positive, the state of on and off. From the simplicity of this fundamental truth comes all complex structures and events. Time itself is the manifestation of this simple structure.

This binary reality makes it possible for us to find fundamental pathways that link our processes and ideas and unify knowledge. This is an incredible age of discovery. Right now, we are dazzled by its novelty, but we are also rocketing to a new awareness of the possibilities of what we can become.

Checking the Roadmap

We have focused mainly on authoring techniques that have emerged during the past year amidst upheavals i the digital world. Macromedia, once a small and independent digital spirit, has been gobbled up by Adobe. For now Macromedia applications remain intact, but expect major changes in the coming months. There is a genuine opportunity for synergism that may flip applications of new technology into totally new conceptions.

In looking back at our emphasis in the experimental course, we have focused on tools that assist in creation of interactive experiences on the Internet. Have travelled all this distance it may be helpful to write down the directions of where we have been over the course of a semester. Here is what we attempted:

TOPICS

1. Blogging
2. Domain Search, Domain Registration, FTP
3. Media in Music and Music Education
4. Implications of Ed Tech 2.0 and Web 2.0
   
5. Music Creating and Teaching as Platform
6. Flash: Animation
7. Flash: Buttons and Behavior
8. Flash: Media Control (Video and Audio Playing & Behaviour)
9. RSS Syndication
10. Action Script Introduction, Syntax
11. Action Script Application to media (links, players, etc)
12. Introduction to Web Authoring : Frontpage (based on Word using Tables and Frames)
13. Introduction to Wikis and other web-based authoring and web sharing (such as Moodle)
14. Dreamweaver: Introduction, Text and Image.
15. Dreamweaver: Flash, Flash Elements: Flash Button, Flash Text, Flashpaper, Flashmovie, and Plugins (all other media such as mp3 mov. Wmv, avi, mpg)
16. Webdesign I: Frames, Tables, and Layout
17. Webdesign II: CSS, Layers, Timelines

Assignments were deliberately open-ended as we wanted to see what students came up with, and give them room to focus on whatever they wanted to pursue. There were some expctations that were ongoing. Students should:

• Obtain an outside domain to develop a website independent of NYU
• Begin and maintain Blog throughout (one to two entries per week)
• Start a RSS newsfeed (FeedDigest)
• Obtain working copies of Flash and Dreamweaver
• Make comments on Blogs of Colleagues
• Visit and Comment on Domains of Colleagues
• Obtain an FTP Program and practice connecting to new Domain
• Use Flash Demos as basis for Creating Animations and other Flash Documents (student's choice)
• Connect Dreamweaver to new domain and directory
• Install a sample page for website on new Domain
• Share work over the semester with the class (student connects computer to projector)

The objective has been to provide some advanced skills in the context of a wider understanding of practices and theories currently emerging, mostly under the guise of Educational Technology 2.0, and Web 2.0--- concepts, practices, and techniques that are somewhat unified in the notion that teaching/learning should be grounded in platforms of creating, making, and doing, as opposed to developing consumers of content. To the commonly used duo (teaching and learning) we have added a third element to create a trinity of praxis: teacning/learning/musicing. Our blogs served as a platform for uncovering our process and to think about how these new technologies might apply to music as well as our own specific interests in music and the arts.

Look Who's Talking, Now!

Here I was going on and on about how great Evoca is, and our colleague at Cybergogy has been using Odeo since January to send out sung parts to his chorus so they can learn by listening and imitating. Odeo is one of the front-runners in the web recording and file sharing. Others in the field include Springdoo, WaxMail and my latest personal favorite, YackPack, which is designed to bring groups together for yacking (what else?)

The idea of connecting with others by using your voice brings an asynchronous quality to the concept of live chat sessions, using the voice to communicate because of the additional layers of meaning that come with the spoken word. The concept is extremely easy. All you need is a microphone or your telephone, and you are in business. Sound files are kept on the server and you can e-mail the files immediately to one or more parties as well as designate whether they can be heard by the public or only by the group.

Some of the services are in it for the money (!!), but nearly all have some free version or a free introductory trial period. If you use your imagination, you can begin to dream how such a service may add to pedagogical tools, but also what features you might want to make it an more effective educational tool. Musicians are using it as a convenient way to transmit examples and maintaining files on a server instead of your computer hard drive.

New Music Wiki

A promising new interactive Wiki for composers and performers of new music is now available entitled S21 New Music Wiki. Anyone can join, provide a bio, pictures, sound files and contribute articles and ideas about new music. You can add your music blog, and play a role in how the Wiki develops as an on-line resource.

The creator of the Wiki extends the following invitation:

What we hope to do here is to build a reader-created community/encylopedia of new music composers, performers, history, schools, important works--you literally name it. Since first person sources are always the best place to start, I am hoping that all of you who are active in creating and playing new music will create entries for yourself and the groups you are associated with....

You are also welcome to post entries for favorite composers or performers who no longer have access to wikis because they are dead. Don't post about people or events or movements that happened before 1900 unless they are essential to something that has happened in new music since.

For biographic entries, I envision a format of something like: bio, photograph (it's easy to upload an image-click on the Upload file link in the left nav bar), list of works, recordings (with links to place to purchase), reviews, with links, and anything else. Take as much space as you need, but if your entry is longer than Bartok's than you are probably hogging space.

I found this Wiki when I was creating my new specialized search engine and created a search term "music wiki." This was the first item that came up on the search. The openness of the site is attractive. Who knows? This music wiki might be at the right time with the right structure. Maybe this will become the definitive music wiki for contemporaries.

Try it. You might like it!

Flashpoint: Integrating Multimedia Software

Dreamweaver 8 brings the concept of integrated software to Macromedia's (now Adobe) multimedia suite. The integration of Flash with Dreamweaver provides convenient ways of implementing Flash inside of Dreamweaver.

There is no question that the use of the table technology as a design element is making the need for frames somewhat obsolete. Frames join multiple pages in a single display, and are a bit of a nuisance with regard to navigation and updating, especially since there is a hidden source page creating the frames. Tables are easier to edit and to modify, and provide a greater range of design and display possibilities.

Still, for those of us in music, we are still looking for web support of notation and sound design that is not proprietory in nature. We need web browser helpers (plugins) to read and perform conventional and experimental music notation. Sound sharing and development can be a dynamic interactive group creative process. But we are still at a Web 1.0 level with regard to sound on the web where the prime motivation is to have consumers, not creators, of sound files, mostly mp3 based files for downloading.

It would be great to have a Wiki for working on theory or composing, but at the moment we have to resort to e-mail attachment of files for Finale, Sibelius, Overture, etc., that must be opened in the proprietary software. This simply extends the older pedagogical model of handing in homework. This practice prevents sharing examples. Shared homework enables students to learn from each other. The current music software makes it difficult to implement Educational Technology 2.0 where materials are created, responded to, and evaluated as a shared process.

Tired of Googling? Create Your Own Swicki

As you make your websites more interactive, you can now create a specialized Swicki hot search that uses the technology of Web 2.0 to embed the search in your website, designed and customized by you, a kind of modular search blog. Eurekster has created Swicki, a wiki that searches for particular things as defined by you, and that is set up to learn from you as you work with it. You create it and modify in an ongoing process.

The swicki adds value to your site. Swickis are communities that evolve a community intelligence as they learn the ideas you and your users project. You can make your site more relevant to your vsitors and participants, a place to go to find out focused information that is constantly changing. It operates much like a newsblog, but is more concise and compact. Swickis are the energy of the Internet waiting to be unleased by the power of a click.

Go to Eurekster and create an account. Follow these steps:

1. Customize your Swicki by giving it a name. The name would reflect a specific focus such as "downloading music."
2. Choose a layout that would work best on your website from the three options. Then enter the keywords and phrases that would exist like topics for your search, such as "music downloads, downloading techniques, soundfile sources, mp3, etc."
3. Choose a design (test it by looking at the many options. Chose maximum font sizes and relative font sizes.
4. Give your Swicki some hints about where to search. Identify the website that you want the search engine to be on and select categories that your search pertains to.
5. Copy the code you have generated by your choices and paste into the appropriate place in your website (if it is a blog, then paste it into the template into the sidebar or the body, depending on the layout you chose.)

You can continue to change any aspect of it after you have created it. Just the act of creating a Swicki helps you focus on the parameters of your idea or topic. Create a search engine for model Flash-created websites. You would be amazed at what you uncover by the click of a mouse!