In the spirit of the "noble amateur," I've decided to let my class determine the lesson plan for today. I have four basic categories (three based on readings they did, one on general discussion). Here are the instructions I am giving them:
Each group has a set of cards. The color of the cards
corresponds to a particular topic as follows:
- Pink: ch. 2 in Keen
- Green: ch. 6 in Keen
- Blue: Meizel reading on American Idol
- Yellow: General discussion
Your first task as a group is to assemble the cards into
some sort of order of presentation: what do you want to talk about first,
second, etc. (Think about how the material on one card might be necessary to
set up the material on another).
- You can discard one of the cards I’ve given you
- You must add at least one card of your own creation
Next, decide who in your group is going to present the
material, and how you are going to present it. For instance, some of the
questions are good for discussion, but may require a bit of additional set up.
Some of the questions might be good for a mini-lecture. Will one person present
everything? Will you take turns?
· One card in each group has “Prof.
Berry” written on it; I’ll talk about that subject (please don’t discard this
one!)
Once you’ve decided on the order of presentation, write it
in on the corresponding part of the board.
Once every group has completed this first part of the task,
we will decide as a group the order of presentation based on general topic
(i.e., card color). Your group will present the material you’ve discussed to
the class.
I will give you each a purple card for you to formulate a
question that cuts across all categories (i.e., card colors) that we will use
to stimulate discussion at the end of class (time permitting).
* * *
One of the topics I'm going to discuss is the new(-ish) Song Reader by Beck Hansen (a.k.a., Beck). In short, Beck has released an album consisting entirely of sheet music for other people to perform. Back in the day, we just used to call this sheet music. The idea here is to encourage the "noble amateurs" to record their own versions of the song and to share them with others.
In doing my research, I came across this article in Forbes, which hails this groundbreaking innovation in participatory media internet blah-blah-blah. Perhaps I missed the sarcasm in the article, but isn't this how everyone made/listened to/enjoyed music for like, a thousand years?
(Don't get me wrong: I'm all for this--I think it's a cool idea. But the fact that it's being hailed as some sort of genius revelation for the Web 2.0 generation is ludicrous.)