The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 4 - Anna-Wendy Stevenson 'Blended Learning - Online but not virtual'
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In the episode Chris Woods talks to Anna-Wendy Stevenson from the University of Highlands and Islands, about online learning.
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstorm Music Education Hub. In this episode, I talk to Anna Wendy Stevenson from the University of Highlands and Islands. So I've been delivering some online guitar tuition for the Uni for the past year or so, and in fact, Soundstorm worked on a collaboration with them via the Far Flung Collective, which you should absolutely check out. So through this work, it came to my attention the university's unique approach to technology. And I realized that actually, whatever area of music education you're working in, or whatever age group you're working with, there is a lot to be learned from what the University of Highlands and Islands are doing, particularly around their music course. So through this conversation, we explore a lot of the reasons behind this unique approach and a lot of the benefits and, of course, the negatives of working with technology and how actually it's through blended learning that we can really benefit from technology and, in fact, benefit most from our face-to-face meetings as well. I hope you enjoy it. So, Anna Wendy, thank you so much for joining me today. Can you give us a little intro into what it is that you do?
SPEAKER_01What it is that I do. Well, um I'm a fiddler and uh I'm a composer and I'm a music lecturer and a program leader. And I'm a program leader for the BA Honours in Applied Music with the University of the Highlands and Islands. So I lead the program and I lecture on it.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic. Okay, so specifically, why I've sort of asked asked you here today is because of the uh one of the many unique elements of um the work at the University of Highlands and Islands and the sort of technological aspect. Um can you uh tell us um what that is?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so I suppose it goes back to 2012 when we first validated the BA in Applied Music um with the University of the Highlands and Islands. It's a flagship uh degree, and it's flagship degree for for the region and for the university because of its use of technology. When um when we validated it, it was all based around blended learning, and we were very proud of that because it was a blend that enabled accessibility, but nobody knew what on earth we were referring to when we said blended learning is our mode of the colour.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna interject there and say, what on earth is that? Is it something to do with coffee? Okay, yes, biscuits.
SPEAKER_01Well, um I think most people now in the COVID age are understanding what this blended learning reference is, and um blended learning is a combination of learning delivery styles, and um this can be online, video conference, synchronous, asynchronous, combining that with face-to-face. So we have quite a I mean we've got a highly accessible program. So I mean, this is what how we would um say that our course is quite pioneering. Um first of all, it sits with the University of the Highlands and Islands, which is a new university, it's a university which is comprised of 13 colleges, and each of those colleges serves a different area within Scotland. Um so each of those colleges have several campuses as well. So this is something that of a surprise maybe to uh most people is that uh the University of the Highlands and Islands is made up of 13 college partners that between them have 72 campuses.
SPEAKER_00So wowzers.
SPEAKER_01Wowsers indeed, and so the whole rationale and reason for applied music has been about accessibility, inclusion, and investment to allow people in the most remote locations to be able to stay at home and not that kind of um drain on the communities in remote areas where people find themselves having to leave in order to get any education. But certainly hitherto music music was really accessible only by moving to study at one of the well, mostly Central Belt, or you could go to Aberdeen as well, um, universities or institutions, and so um the University of the Highlands and Islands has uh delivers from further education right through to um higher education and also research, and um our course delivers uh in that um accessibility vein. We are multi-genre, so our students come from all sorts of backgrounds, they're um classical, traditional, pop, singer, songwriter, composers, people that are interested in synthesis, it's really dynamic. Um, and our students are coming from literally all over, including England as well. And um, we also have our we're finding that we're attracting students from school lever right through to 78, age 78, so I, you know, 18 to 78. Um, it's quite a wide um bracket there, and this kind of variation and kind of dynamic in demographic just makes the whole thing completely fascinating to me. Everything every single day, um coordinating and delivering this program is interesting. We have to be very focused on our students to make this work, and it is a an organizational and management challenge because you've got all those instruments, all those genres, all those locations to be able to bring in and cater to, and so technology is absolutely key to all of that.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. Okay, so uh ultimately the university is spread widely across a space, and a sort of a solution to a kind of a problem is technology, right? Is that sort of fair to say in that sort of bringing people together? Um and then as a result, you're able to uh give accessibility to people who wouldn't usually be able to access that, and I suppose there's implications on the locality of that as well, which maybe we can talk about. Now, just to get a bit of a more realistic picture, bearing in mind this is obviously um created by Soundstorm, who are a hub who are focused on the south coast of England with Bournemouth, Paul, and Christchurch, which is quite a different landscape to what we're talking about here. Where where are you sat right now, Anna Wendy, to give us a sort of a feel of what we're talking about when it comes to accessibility and right?
SPEAKER_01That's such a great question. I am sitting in my office in my home, which is on the Isle of Balachare. And Balachare is an island of a population of 49 people, I believe, at the moment. And these 49 people are living on Balachaire, a lot of them are crofters, so farmers, and um it's a community in the outer Hebrides, so an island in the Outer Hebrides. Actually, it's part of the Balachaire, it's one of the islands in the chain of islands that make up the Ewists. So there's a chain that are all linked by causeways from Bernaray to North Ewist, then you've got little offshoot islands from North Ewist, uh, Arrow, Balachaire, and uh Grimsey, then Benbecula, then South Ewest, and then Eriscay, famous Erisquet ponies and Eriscay jumpers. Um, but the island that we're on on Balisher is um the next stop if I'd got in got on onto the beach and swam would be America. So uh we're really, really, really um west, we're really exposed and we're really remote. So my I I can't get cable here, um, you know, um internet internet. So uh I've got um we use EE, so mobile internet, which is actually the four 4G basically.
SPEAKER_00Is it 4G plus? So it's kind of like almost 5G kind of stuff. Fantastic. So so you're uh you're well possibly one of the most remote parts of the United Kingdom, anyway. I surely that's fair to say, right? And then you're obviously leading the way in um sort of technological ways of reaching people and educating people because of the problem, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. I'm particularly interested by um from some of the the things that I've read that you've written that I'm going to bring up occasionally and question you on to see if you remember exactly what you said. Um is this idea of the uh the communities themselves, because I guess there's this thing of people leaving communities to have to you know come together in cities where it's actually these remote communities may benefit. Tell tell me, tell me, tell us.
SPEAKER_01So um I mean, first of all, um I feel like sometimes it's a little bit like Russian dolls. So uh one of the things that's important is within our program itself, is to create a kind of sense of belonging and a community, a strong community within that um of practice, within the actual degree program and amongst the students, and we achieve that by um by the way we bring them together for residential activity. So um pre-COVID we would have residencies four times a year, um, and all students would meet at these residencies. So we would have one in September in Inverness. So everyone, no matter where they were based or located, all congregate in September for our first week of term in um Inverness, and we would do a series of workshops and really intensive days. I mean, kind of 14-hour days, kind of emulating the life of a musician, you know, where yeah, it you know, you don't feel like it, but you've got to get up really early because you've got a big journey of travel to do, and then you've got a sound check, and then you've got a gig, and so um emulating aspects of that, lots of performances, collaborations, lectures, induction, and then we have um so our academic year is top and tailed by by mega residencies, um, and the one at the end of uh the academic year is in April, and that is in on the Isle of Uh Lewis in Stornaway, based at Anlanter Art Centre Professional Venue, and that's where all the um final uh honours performances take place, which is just absolutely spectacular because you know this is them just about to fly out of the nest, and it's fantastic. And as part of the these residences, there's always a community engagement aspect, so whether it's delivering workshops to in local communities. Um we've done, in fact, with Soundstorm, we did something uh I can come to that later. Um, so those are that are mega residencies, and then nestled in among between those two top and tail mega residencies, we have um a residency in November which we decided to set up what we termed pods. So we would we would talk to the students and say, right, we you know, um where we're going to set up um activity that it's going to be like a virtual residency but with clusters. And we start we called it the virtual residency, we developed that in 2014.
SPEAKER_00Even though you don't like that term, do you?
SPEAKER_01Even though I don't like that term.
SPEAKER_00That's right, we can talk about that in a minute as well. Good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So um we we um created these um clusters, and then using technology, everybody started, we would give a a creative goal, creative task, and then everyone would collaborate, but through file sharing from the different locations, and that's always been very dynamic and and interesting. And then in our um third residency of the year, we have what we a community residency. So those pods again they um engage with the communities that they are in to deliver a project um that they design, so a community-based project. So that could be um, for instance, thinking back to the ones that we've done here in Ewist, um, we had new the students had to write new music to go with new Gaelic sacred text. So uh we met the priest and um in South Ewist and in fact in Erisgay, and um he talked to us about sacred music, and that was the task for the students to to do, and then they had to deliver it in a concert. So you get these really intensive bursts in these residences. Um, and then other ones, things like writing music for arranging four-part harmony for the local Gallic choir, um, and then making a recording for um the radio for it, the local radio. So, like lots of there's lots of simultaneous activities happening at these residencies, and I'm kind of like we've got the program team are like um family, they are also just like the students, distributed between, you know, Inverness, um, Helensborough, um, different areas of Scotland, and we're like uh we were talking about how we run these residences and um trying to characterize, you know, am I the pilot in these residences? And have decided that I'm kind of like I think I'm the host and the air traffic controller. So um, but yeah, so it's um it's dynamic and it's really interesting, and so the community aspect comes in with the way that students engage both in residencies, and then out with that they they have the opportunity to engage and are encouraged to engage with their local communities themselves in um contributing musically, um attending and running events. Um so yeah, it's been really, really good.
SPEAKER_00So anyone who's sort of clicked on listening to this, because I imagine it's gonna have some kind of music education over technology sort of title, and then they're hearing so far Anna Wendy talking about getting together and doing stuff in the real world, it's kind of almost uh almost a little confusing. What's what's this person talking about? Because we're talking about technology, aren't we? But I I think that's right at the beginning you were talking about blended education. Is that the word you blended learning used? Blended learning, there you go, which you said everyone's familiar with, and I started by saying, What does that mean? Um but this uh highlights that right, that although a a huge host of what you're doing is online, and that's what's sort of exciting about it because it's bringing together all these communities, uh, there's these really big collaborative moments that are real as well, and are sort of having this community effect. Now, just to sort of bring it out of specifically University of Highlands and Islands sort of context, do you think well what what I'm seeing quite a lot with technology, especially from the sort of COVID disaster, is that techno technology uh became uh a necessity of of uh managing to carry on, and then as soon as there's the opportunity to sort of move away from that, it's uh a sudden okay, okay, well, we don't need to do we don't need to meet on Zoom anymore, or we don't need to collaborate online anymore, let's just do it all together, and then you know there's intermittent move moves back as Boris Johnson you know makes another speech and then we have to meet on Zoom again, or uh you know do you sort of see that? Do you see see that as a you know we're almost getting it a little bit wrong, whereas this sort of blended learning idea is is sort of taking the positives of it. Do you think that should across the board that needs to happen more?
SPEAKER_01I think that what this situation has flagged up to me is that there is an opportunity to appreciate the face-to-face um even more. I think people are going to really appreciate face-to-face when they return to it. But I think they're also maybe going to make consider how we use time and um you know make the most of those face-to-face interactions and make sure that we know what we're doing in that in that space and in that time. What's been really interesting, I think, um, is unsurprising is that um we've gone from a scenario where I've just described a residential portfolio, okay, in the academic year. I've described how we have a combination of face-to-face and then we have a virtual one, and we have been doing this since 2014. Now with COVID, we realized that we were going to have to do the whole uh year virtual using virtual residencies, and at first that became quite a daunting um prospect, but what's actually happened is the feedback um from students has been incredibly positive and the engagement has actually been um better um than face-to-face. I mean, there may be several, there's whole research almost to do in that to kind of unpick why that is. I've got hunches, and I think that obviously by the time we all met in September, I think there was a massive hunger for students to be able to reconnect even if they couldn't do it face to face. Um, and so that and also just the fact that people need to focus on something, and you know, if at this time when we're quite restricted, it is actually a good time to be getting on with study if you can focus, and we're doing everything we can to support students in that. But I think that um what's come out of it um also is the that yeah, that strong sense that if we're going to be online, we've got to make it count. If we're gonna make it, if we're going to be face to face, we have to make it count too. Now, making that count face to face doesn't mean that I'm saying, oh, you know, you can't have kind of loose time to to just be in each other's company, because there's total value in in that, in maybe in having free time together, but then knowing that that's what it is. Do you know what I mean? Is a different thing. And in you know, when you've got a timetable and you've got to think about what it is that uh we do, then um making space for that's also really important, but making it bringing it into consciousness, you know.
SPEAKER_00also being there um in your supportive role to assist with that because you know um yeah we need that the human interaction is really important yeah and i that's really nice to hear you say and hear it be the sort of focus of our conversation so far that the sort of the human element just has so much value um and it's uh yeah it's almost as if we've sort of been complacent with that isn't it well you haven't because you've obviously been doing it all the way through but everyone else it's almost as if we've been sort of complacent with that human element um and uh yeah now's an opportunity to sort of see the value in that a little more let's um now I can't remember exactly what um uh sort of paper or or blog it was that you mentioned that you didn't like the word virtual which I think is fantastic and sort of spurred a lot of thinking on my part too and t tell me tell me briefly what you what why you don't like that you know why does the word virtual get you back up I mean because virtual sounds like it doesn't exist to me you know the word for me virtual seems like not real but I can guarantee that everything we just did on our virtual residency was real you know and uh people were there they were really engaged they were getting on with work there was there was a complete reality we've got a project we've got to deliver you know it was really happening so it's interesting because you don't talk about virtual over the phone do you let's have a virtual chat over the phone no exactly just um but the other side of it is that I also felt that when we developed the first virtual residency in 2014 um what we were doing you can't call them virtual residencies if you don't like the virtual residence.
SPEAKER_01No exactly but we start exactly but you see we called it we we started off calling it that in 2014 and then I I um what was happening was we were having as I described earlier just some pods of people in different locations that we connected using technology through file sharing in a project that lasted a week in real time so um but I felt that what was more reflective of that setup was that to call it instead a networked residency because actually what was happening was we were networking all these different pods of students that we you know you had a pod in Shetland a pod in Ewist a pod in Inverness area allness um there was a pod in Fort William um and also a pod in big pod in Glasgow because we still we we actually have quite a lot of students that enrol in this course and base themselves in the central belt um and yeah so I mean students are very mobile as well the technology enables facilitates quite a lot of mobility you know we've had students that are uh you know saying right I'll be I'll be in um the outer Hebrides for this year and next year I think I fancy going up to Shetland or I think I've had maybe I'll just spend some time in uh Inverness or Glasgow the next year.
SPEAKER_00Because of the connections between those pods so there's uh a a guitarist in on whatever island and then you've gone up to work with them because right yeah so that's that's it's very interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah it's flexible accessible mobility's been kind of uh key to it and it's because we always say to our students that we want them to be able to feel that they can shape you know it's student centered they can shape their learning experience to kind of draw upon whatever they're inspired by or the environment they're inspired by and some of the students have been um touring you know professionally whilst they're um studying and so they've been able to do that so sometimes we've had I remember one time somebody opening up their laptop laptop from Abu Dhabi prayer room and I thought no okay that's not the best place to be joining a video conference from a pla a prayer room in Abu Dhabi Airport but we did have um but we do see some interesting places on the other end of video conference tutorials and we had a a student for a while who was who completed her ordinary degree on a um a cruise ship because she worked on a cruise ship so we are we often got to yeah we often got to see some interesting um backdrops there.
SPEAKER_00Fantastic so what what I'm learning from this conversation is essentially that yeah the tech the technology is working alongside the human element completely and utterly this blended learning idea and it's the the real and the well not so virtual and and it's the two of them together that really makes it such a powerful thing right so um I l I I love the the fact that you don't like the word virtual and I've never ever thought about it but it does it sort of highlights a root of an attitude doesn't it towards the sort of online learning in the way that we're you know it's just a space it's a it's simply a space in which we're learning and you know there's different spaces isn't there that are are helpful to learn in yeah I know I know in a lot of schools for example the physical space that you know you might be doing a a music lesson say for example a sort of a 1970s dining hall that's got you know the acoustic properties of a of a factory um you know which is just a horrific space for learning in um uh you know but then but that that doesn't there's no sort of uh thought towards that whereas as soon as we go into sort of an online situation it's sort of these quite it's quite a negative word isn't it really virtual is that that there's going to be some kind of missing element um yeah do you do you think do you think the sort of attitude towards this online learning is a big thing is it does it affect the uni do you think in a you know do you think that's that's holding back schools and other educational sort of establishments from going more okay let's let's embrace technology a little bit more in that way I think I think that everyone's been on a steep learning curve and I think that there has been you know a lot of scepticism for instance in the way that we've delivered this program and a lot of step skip previously you know that some people would think oh how on earth do you make that that work but also I would say that you know our feedback in our national student surveys have been incredible you know we've just got 100% twice in a row and um so which is mad right that's kind of that's quite unprecedented should we fantastic it's a really amazing you know we've had very very high scores so you don't get that if the technology's not working and it's wonderful to see people that may have been very daunted um managing to see how they can um engage with it um and I think this is you know I think that people are coming round to it you know I'm seeing um through social media and people um online or musicians are adapting I think very well and um I think it's it's the fear of the unknown.
SPEAKER_01My colleague Dr Miriam Yearworth um she has done um she completed her PhD in networked performance and um she is really um says has quite a lot to say about what it is is is people's expectations you know as soon as kind of COVID started uh people were like oh how do you um actually play together you know uh in real in in real time and um really um it's about adapting and being creative with um what is available and not just expecting to be able to um just be able to do what you can do face to face um in an online environment.
SPEAKER_00So for instance we don't ask of our students to play simultaneously in real time um but a lot of our coursework is um based around um creative tasks and collaborative um collaborative file sharing and um composition and arrangement and you can um still come up with a um and develop your musical um skill but just in a different way so it's adapt adapting to it I think if you're definitely like determined you know well we have to just be able to do exactly what we could do in a classroom environment playing together you're just setting yourself up for um maybe just feeling that that that that it's not real and that that it that it is virtual because you're seeing all the things that you're maybe not feeling match up to to the so-called real experience rather than saying well this is a different experience you know this is a different experience and how are we going to adapt to that and I mean it's it's very interesting because I look like from a perspective of notation for example which is a sort of a bit of a a theme in a lot of these podcasts you know that obviously lacks um some elements of musicalness to it you know emotional communication but we don't just throw that out because it lacks certain elements do we whereas there's sort of the ideas of of zoom or whatever um seems to get sort of chucked out quite a lot. So on this idea of not being able to play together and just uh sort of quickly summarise for for anyone who doesn't um know about the logistics of this because of uh latency ultimately is sort of currently physically impossible isn't it uh aside from many claims um it really is it physically impossible to play exactly simultaneously in time um which obviously is uh limiting to a degree so um can you tell me about how uh your students are collaborating then online how how that physically is working and you know what what are the sort of pros and cons of that as well okay so right at the beginning of our course our students are or even at the point of application they're issued with um a a recommended IT list so we don't specify you know what make of it anything but basically what we're saying to them is that they need a mic they need a mic stand they need an interface and um MIDI uh keyboard and just a basic setup so that they can produce have a kind of home studio setup and obviously they've got to have broadband so um I've I have interest there sort of talking costs to people thinking about accessibility that's that's actually pretty low very low really if you sort of if you maybe take a presuming you own a computer anyway we could be talking a few hundred quid really I reckon to get it working.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I think you could 200 yeah um I can okay so and it's not about so that's why we don't have any kind of like named I mean we could have a a list of possibilities of what of where you might look but we we're not teaching an actual brand so it's the principles of of collaboration and recording and file sharing. So for instance um we have modules um through each year group our module titles are kind of wacky um things like creativity is more important than knowledge is is one of nice one of the titles for the composition module in in first year and then the the first year recording module is remote digital music collaborations so so that through that module the students set up the equipment they've gone and got and um experiment with it and they're learning about the principles of um being able to record I mean it's starting from scratch you know being able to record you could even use your you know garage band or your phone or um and then being able to understand the processes involved in order to um collaborate. So that's the kind of like fundamental basis for what your answering your question which is how do students collaborate well the first thing we do is introduce them to the principles of um and the practicalities of just being able to record um themselves and to be able to use it uh software yes and sorry to interrupt um is that how much of that are you teaching because obviously uh you know half of them might be on reaper half of them might be on logic half so are you directly sort of here's a seminar on how to record or are you literally saying go and learn almost you know go and experiment so um they don't do sessions um that are about reaper or about logic or about pro tools um they the student has to go and understand and work out their equipment themselves um and then but they are then taken through um things like you know the processes no matter what equipment you have involved and the principles behind the recording.
SPEAKER_00So collaboration I mean it um in the online world collaboration is going to involve students being able to record themselves and do uh file sharing and so um they kind of build up um um they build up ensemble and um compositional um pieces together in groups so we put them in groups with with particular tasks you know um and they will they will put things together like that um and they'll be sharing ideas in real time you know um as well I mean when if one person is playing and we make sure we've got the music enabled um technology so that you know the quality is um there um um so if somebody's playing um and other people everyone else is muting and not trying to play along with it you can still hear and um listen carefully and this that's another thing is there's an argument that that some things are getting more attention that people are maybe listening more to um detail that they may not have listened to before or had to listen to others in order to get something out of it you know yeah yeah that ability to sort of yeah be muted and maybe noodle a little idea and then offer it to the group w if it's good enough rather than you're making noise in the setting sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01It's sort of a bit of a positive I think well some students have reported that that you know that they feel that they've got a little bit more time to consider and don't necessarily put feel so much put on the spot um and they can record their sessions together so they can go away and kind of go you know um take something away from it and um refer back to it.
SPEAKER_00You know um I think maybe in for some people the face-to-face environment might be more scary than some of the online uh you know well this is uh uh a really interesting sort of area that maybe you can talk a little bit more about that going back to that accessibility rather than the geographical bit but that whole sort of confidence in the group but you know having the ability to contribute through an emoji or writing something you know or what having uh to the option to speak as well you know you've got sort of three ways of interacting especially with um well I say especially with younger people actually you know adults can sometimes you know be so much more socially sort of awkward anyway can't they but I mean that's that's quite a positive right um you mean which bit's quite a positive it's just that sort of from a the sense of accessibility of actually if you're not a particularly confident person if you're in a room um you know composing something together to to actually oh I'll interject there you know I'm I'm alright with that because you know I'm borderline arrogant all the time so it's alright but if you if you're not um if you're not like that then that's that's really hard to do isn't it and actually the sort of online setting can actually be kind of more nurturing.
SPEAKER_01This is the this is the bit that I'm really interested in I'm really interested in in how we how we make the environment and the kind of ethics around um our working and our collaboration so um you know we start off for instance very much highlighting to students that our values are very much around collaboration over competition so it isn't a conservatoire or a competitive kind of environment and it's about what we can give not just about what we can take. So we're really trying to kind of set the table you know and as a as a staff team I feel incredibly fortunate that we're all really like committed and invigorated and by the the whole um ethos and rationale for the for the degree in in in in the first place and so you know it's stimulating to be delivering education where you're you have a challenge you have new people you have with coming from different areas and you've got um a challenge to be able to keep things dynamic in an online uh environment and supported so you know we ask the groups to build up their own kind of charter for working we put people in groups you know in in in our first residency that we just had in September and um we ask them to develop their own kind of charter for working code of ethics and to consider what um what are important elements to effective collaboration and so that brings that right to the front of people's minds as they're starting to um build new relationships and starting to to collaborate and it's been really um successful because it provoked it has provoked quite a lot of discussion but also quite a lot of support of one another and it seems people understand you've seen um people that may have been quite um reticent or shy just being able to emerge and blossom and um you know take the take the steps to to feel more confident through being able to yeah that accessibility of let's use the chat function or we feel we feel that when we're giving as staff members when we're giving a um a presentation you know or having a tutorial you might you've got like 50 odd people um that you're talking to and that could sound like in an online environment that could sound like really daunting but actually you know if you were in a lecture theatre and um you're lecturing and everyone's sitting there and somebody starts whispering to the next person that could be quite off putting you know you could feel like they weren't paying attention whereas actually they might actually be saying to the person next to them oh you know I'm really interested in that but they've got got not quite got the same there isn't the same accessibility to be able to communicate directly with the lecturer you know so actually what's happening is in in this environment uh we're finding we're giving a a presentation and students are engaging and feeding back you know and you're seeing chat that you can respond to so it makes it Really quite a lot more meaningful and dynamic. Um, and it's been really interesting because especially if you're kind of interested as a lecturer yourself in in what the students think and you can actually respond to that, um, it means you can you might go off into areas that you hadn't expected you were going to go to, you know, and you can adapt.
SPEAKER_00Mmm. I know I I know from the perspective of teaching composition to a a class of um children is well, it can actually be intimidating on itself because you know, 30 children, I mean, they could turn on you at any point. Um but as as for the children themselves as individuals, I mean it must be uh sort of terrifying um if you haven't if your personality isn't sort of working within the the framework of feeling confident to put an idea across, to actually put an idea across in front of you know 29 other children if you don't have any sort of um expected musical language, you know, you're not going to use the word tomba or texture, or you know, you don't know what A, B, C, D, you just thought it was the alphabet and don't quite understand why it doesn't go to H. You know, it's kind of it that could be so massively intimidating, can't it? But actually, in this setting, you're kind of creating a an equality of opportunity, really, aren't you? To to have that confidence to and do you think you're getting better ideas in that sense?
SPEAKER_01Because there's no sort of none of that competitive personality, sort of the better, you know, the the stronger ideas are sort of muscling through, or well, I think that um we're getting a we get a lot more ideas. So students, um whenever a student a student contributes an idea, you know, we share, we're very open, like we might just say, we've got this problem, we don't know how to to deal with it. You know, as staff, we might just say, What do you think? And when they um share an idea, um we're we absolutely take give every idea the chance, you know. Um so for instance, normally students would be in their communities and they would be doing um real ininverted commerce, um face-to-face um collaborations, like for instance, with a community choir or something like that. So, you know, we're looking for um alternative ways to engage. So um, you know, we've set up a variety of things that are both social, they're non-assessed, you know, social, but also have the potential for learning, but learning from the start, from it uh being about just sharing as being the the primary motivator, so um, and we try and model that to our students. So, for instance, um we hold um a desert island discs night where the staff um have to pick their desert island discs and um they have to talk about basically it's opening up to students and being able to share their parts of their life stories or you know their interests and to reflect uh on on the music, and students absolutely love that. So one student came forward and said, Right, can can we set up a desert island disc for students, you know. But we're trying to get it trying to nurture students to be able to take the lead on that, but within the online environment to to initiate ideas and have the confidence to lead them. So um, yeah, we've got a variety of different ensemble groups that are being are merging based on student suggestions and sharing, um, whether it's like a group Tunes Around the World or one group's looking at um at trying different online platforms for collaboration. So they're actually doing the research themselves. Um and yeah, sorry.
SPEAKER_00There's yeah, uh originally uh you were talking when we were talking about the sort of uh laying the foundations of making sure each student, okay, you need a mic and an audio interface. Um, and you were saying that actually they're sort of expected to really explore that software themselves. Um and I think that's again quite an interesting element that applies across the board. Um, you know, music technology is uh an ever-changing and fast-paced thing. I mean, my experience of it at school was kind of our teachers were uh really struggling to sort of deliver the information to us because they didn't they didn't really know it was sort of and the best experiences that we all had were just where we were sort of learning it ourselves. I do wonder whether uh you know, do you think do you think even younger people could actually have that sort of situation where they're able to learn about the the the equipment that they have to themselves? For example, phones, you know, the idea of what we can, you know, we're both currently recording our audio on our phones. Um, you know, do you think it's it's time in that way that all ages actually just have access to this stuff and it's kind of we can't there's no need to sort of sit there and have a lesson on this anymore. We can just let's have an hour on YouTube and you'll know how to record, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but I I also think that it's about we all know that some of the most well, I mean, I think most of us know that we learn a lot from one another, and um you know um your that the function for teaching has to also include facilitation and that um you know we can't know absolutely everything, but we can encourage people to find their own solutions. Have you ever heard of Sugata Mitra?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Um he's um he's uh an education researcher in education and um he did this um experiment where um in India where there were um areas where it was very difficult to recruit teachers um in remote areas and um so he decided it was it was into how people learn and uh he put this um computer into a rural village location and kind of set up cameras um and uh watched how people with no instruction at all um basically worked out how to use this computer which was not operating in their own language, I don't think. Um and what was really interesting was that you know, a problem, problem-based learning, I guess, you know, but having those young people that were all playing around with this computer explaining to um their I think it was their granny, um what what it is that um they were doing. And um the process of sharing information and relaying knowledge is um very important but doesn't necessarily require the person that they're telling to, for instance, the granny. Um, you know, each time they go through the whole process of explaining that learning becomes more embedded, um, and that the process of telling someone who was older, more senior, seemed to be, or you know, expects to be more senior, um, was very that very, very positive, and that person did not need to know the nuts and bolts of everything, you know. And with technology, you know, you cannot know absolutely everything. And if we're especially if we're saying to students, you know, we we can't dictate which technology you use, um, we can tell you the principles of it, but also you know, encourage the students themselves to support one another and to kind of so we've got like you know online technology drop-ins that are just you know, students help one another through that, and that's for the students, it's not again a teaching role.
SPEAKER_00Mmm. I I I think in the context of schools again, you know, kids are obviously accessing technology in all manner of different ways and doing exactly that, aren't they? Teaching each other about oh, uh I did this and I did it via this. Oh, okay, that's how I do it. It's kind of uh it's almost it seems like a teacher coming in with that perhaps old-fashioned idea of I have the knowledge which and which I'm going to part impart to you is kind of redundant, I suppose, in the in this context, anyway, isn't it? And when we're especially when we're talking about recording, right? Because it's it's quite a personal thing as well, isn't it? You know, how how I record is just the process that I've sort of assimilated from so many different people, you know, and uh you know, online learning myself as well. So uh that I I think that's that's a real um interesting point to sort of um that applies to so many different settings really. Wonderful. Okay, so I I it's it's fantastic to talk composition because I think that's such a a big part of well, a big part of music making, isn't it? And it's just so um relevant to the technology side of it, and I reckon you know, I reckon there's got to be people listening who are kind of maybe slightly sceptical about its possibilities to happen, you know, composition to happen online, um, you know, without the product being a sort of orchestral video of many different squares, you know, there are sort of other ways of working, aren't there? Um can I can I ask about um you know we've talked about accessibility, we've talked about the the composition, but can I ask about well-being um and sort of how you feel uh that uh happens, I guess, for your students? Obviously, right now on a university sort of sense, you know, we've got students who oh thankfully they can go to university, so they'll all be happy and okay, and now they're sort of stuck in their flats in some kind of nightmarish um way. But obviously, we know that you know technology has all these sort of negative well-being connotations. How does it play out for for for you guys? How do you think that could relate to younger people as well?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think that um the technology enables us to to be in contact with people, so you know, I mean, if you were um if you were in a face-to-face environment at one of the big universities in a city, um a lecturer isn't necessarily going to be even as in contact as they might be in the online environment. Um we the way that we're set up is um we have we're we're contracted as lecturers, so we're lecturing in certain subjects, but we're also personal academic tutors, and so um we have um one-to-one engagement with um students to support them and encourage them in their studies, and you know, I think what we're trying to do is really try and um uh create that collaborative environment that's supportive so that the student support is kind of woven through um the delivery as well of the of the course of the academic aspect. Um and you know, we hope have personal academic tutor meetings, we have group meetings over um video conference, but also through email. There's a lot of contact.
SPEAKER_00Um more sort of personal contact that you might get, right? From yeah, as you say, just being that well, you wouldn't might not even know a particular person's face or whatever, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Um, and so for us, the way we've very much approached it is look, we are trying to bring together a really distributed group of people through age, genre, experience. Some are professionals are already, some aren't. You know, that is it seems like a monumental task, and technology facilitates it, but it doesn't facilitate it on its own. It's the it's the student-facing, student-centered support um uh approach to collaboration and um um these measures that I've kind of been describing around setting up both social environments and caring about as well as learn, you know, the social is integrated also into the learning. I think that's kind of important too, into the tutorials. We use very much in terms of our teaching the flipped classroom approach, um, where um students are given reading or a task or listening, ideally, a bit of all of that, you know. So, for instance, maybe for their contextual studies, uh they might be asked to that's like music, the equivalent of music history, um they might be asked to read a couple of um journal papers, uh listen to um two clips and compare them and um come to the class ready to discuss and answer the following three questions. Do you know what I mean? So that the preparation is there and then they go to the tutorial class. It isn't just a a lecturer speaking, that's not speaking to the that the students, that's it's interactive. That's what the flipped classroom method is all about. The students do the research, the learning, the task, and then the task in the face-to-face uh networked online video conference scenario is that there's discussion around that, and that knowledge is embedded and um reinforced the learning that way, so it's very successful. We find the flipped learning method.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful, thank you so much. I feel we've covered a lot, and there's so much more to talk about. We haven't even talked about the far flung collective either. Um but we've been going for like an hour already, so it's probably time to sort of wind it up, and I feel what what you're talking about there is just edging towards a wonderful summary that I I've got a feeling you're about to give me um of what we've talked about. Uh you know, I've I've really happy to hear about this sort of uh symbiotic um mix of the you know face-to-face stuff where it's about community as well, which is something that I don't think has happened in many of the other tech sort of conversations I've been having, where it's not just the physicality and the sort of, I feel like for want of a better word, almost spiritual connection of two human beings together. It's actually, well, there's a community here. There's you know, there's a uh you go on.
SPEAKER_01I feel like one of the things that I've kind of missed out on mentioning, uh, which kind of encapsulates quite a lot of what we're about and what we do, is um that when I was busy scratching my head in the summer, thinking what are we going to do for our virtual residency, the big one at the beginning of the year where we're bringing all these students together online. And it's got to be intensive, it's got to kind of emulate the uh elements of simulate elements of the professional musicians, working life, long hours, etc. Um, I was approached by Community Land Scotland, which is an organisation that supports communities in um kind of buying their own community land buyouts. So, you know, um there are areas in in Scotland, rural and now urban, where communities have gathered together and managed to buy their um land um back from you know traditional land ownership where you know one person might um own the land. Famous one being the Isle of Egg that was owned by um a um a man, I think he was German or Dutch, I'm not sure. But anyway, um in 1997, I think it was, uh the Isle of Egg was bought by the community. And and since then there's been a lot going on in in Scotland, a lot of these land community land buy-outs. Anyway, the organisation Community Land Scotland has existed for 10 years to support these initiatives, and they approached me asking for a commission to commission some music um to celebrate this and to be to be accessible and performed by communities, but a piece of music that also could be used in any conferences they might, so a recorded version of it, and also to be performed in Parliament next year. So I thought, well, fantastic. This our students can I'll give it to as a student project, and they can learn about and reflect on the theme of community, um, and reflect on the theme of collaboration and ownership and identity through this. So we had started off our online residency um with presentations from Community Land Scotland, and they launched the brief to the students. We put students in groups of seven, and then in their groups they started to design their own, they became a community within themselves, and they had to reflect on what how are they going to behave as a community, so they're kind of charter their ethics and look at their values and discuss them, and then they had to um, you know, kind of they've basically they are a creative group that have got to deliver to this brief, which is all about community, which is also what our course is about, but also equally they're learning those skills of um how to deliver to a brief, but also and learning about the wider context and the world that we're living in. Um, and I think it's there's a lot of positive messages there, and it seems like a very fortuitous approach from uh Community Land Scotland, and so it's been great. They've they're they're in the process at the moment, and we've uh worked alongside uh the creative writing degree uh with the University of the Highlands and Islands, so um those uh uh students will be providing some um word inspirations.
SPEAKER_00So and again all online as well. So fantastic. Well that's a wonderful and sort of unique project, yeah, that obviously married marries the yeah, the online and the real community thing. Um wonderful, thank you so much for all those insights. Um absolute pleasure. Likewise.