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.