Innovation Please

Sir Ken Robinson

 

I am not a believer in homework before high school, and even then it should be engaging and worthwhile. If my child knows exactly what homework will be done each night I am not certain she is really learning anything outside predictability.

Today I spent forty minutes with my six-year old supporting her with homework. She was cutting out little rectangles of paper with words on them, which she then sorted into “starting sound” categories or prefixes of words. I cannot speak to the effectiveness of this method to teach bound morphemes, though I do know we are bound to this activity every Monday for the rest of the school year.

I approach this time with attentiveness and a positive attitude while my daughter performs her learning task, which consequently is performed only slightly different four out of the five school days. Admittedly it is my least favorite of her assignments. I can hardly wait to stuff the little scraps of paper into their accompanying bag. We have the homework memorized, now please engage us.

 As an Interactive Producer I have helped produce interactive games, videos and web casts, which I am sure could be implemented in a way that supports the natural development of the child while integrating technology and multimedia learning into a classroom.

For a six-year-old and a sixteen year old, multimedia could be used in class although it would look very different. It is not conducive to a six-year-old child’s development to sit too long or stare at a screen as it goes against their innate desire to move. An example of an innovative and engaging way to use technology in music would be to have children watch a few short You Tube videos of other children playing the instrument they are learning, or Conferencing children from other schools learning the instrument to talk about how they feel when they play it. Let’s use a ukulele music lesson as our example to hypothesize what the use of new and old learning modalities can accomplish when used cohesively and age appropriately in a classroom.

Students could be introduced to the instrument through a Skype or conference call with an artist in Hawaii that plays the ukulele.  After the call the classroom teacher could continue her lesson practicing what the guest Skype teacher covered. A week later the children could learn a small dance that is typically performed to the ukulele song and learn about the history of ukulele.  Shortly thereafter children could Skype with the Hawaiian teacher one last time to make sure the short piece is being played correctly. A final effort could be a concert with students performing the dance and music pieces. Students could film the performance on video while learning another communication form through basic cinematic elements to create a DVD to mail the guest Skype teacher. Students could also send hand written thank you letters with their final video project along with thoughts on what they liked most about the experience. Old and new teaching modalities need to be melded into a class environment that supports the idea of technology introduction guided by child developmental phases in a cohesive manner. Now that’s innovation.