I have been fooling around with, playing, and practicing the guitar for nearly forty years. As week ago, in the midst of a couple discussions with old friends, the notion of my giving online lessons came up. As a consequence I have been doing a bit of online research to see what the current state of the art is with online guitar lessons (especially for beginners…).

The fact is that there is a lot of very good content out there. There is so much high quality stuff out there (for free!); that I wonder whether there is any real value in adding to this huge array of online support. But as I looked over more and more of these websites and YouTube videos, the thought came to me.” As someone who has already has learned the basics, I know exactly what to pick and choose, but for a complete beginner, there are so many potential avenues to follow that I could easily see a beginner giving up after a few ‘wrong roads’.”

I guess I could restate what I found as: while there are so many worthwhile sources of online support in learning to play the guitar, the fact is that there is a need to provide some sort of guidance for these beginners in choosing the right sources (in the right order).

So…this is exactly what I will attempt to do (over the next several weeks). The fact is that leaning the guitar (from scratch) takes a couple months to get to the point where you can start to see what it is that you want to do, want to learn, and to establish a solid base of technique to proceed from.

I intend to provide some guidance as to which of the sites and videos are answers for a variety of these basics. And I may as well get started…here.

To start with learning to play the guitar, there are a few questions which you should consider. The first (and arguably the most obvious and least important) is merely “why?” the fact is, I have seen and heard innumerable reasons for people as to why they started down this road. My point is that if it provides some solid motivation for you…whatever (as in: wanting to: pick up chicks (sic), be like Keith Richards, play some specific musical pieces, or in some genre, etc.).

The next step is another obvious one. The good news these days is that most guitars you can buy are usually of reasonable quality (i.e. actually playable and tunable) that the further decisions based upon which form of music you will want to play may come into play. For instance, if you are enamored with classical music, a classical guitar would be the obvious answer, if you want to play metal…get some solid body electric guitar (just like…fill in the blank…plays). I suspect you get my point.

As with getting (or buying) a guitar, it is worth cultivating some local music store (you will be buying things like strings, straps, picks, cables, ad infinitum…).

With this achieved there are a few things to consider. The first is that the more time you can put into practicing (in regular scheduled daily practice) the better. Consider this: if you practice for 20 minutes twice a week, you will certainly not make as much progress as if you were to practice one hour a day (every day). When starting out on any musical instrument, it is REALLY worth the time to spend it in practicing what are co0nsidered to be ‘good habits’. This sort of practice is easily accomplished by regular practice.

I think that with you can make some reasonable progress (i.e. within 1-2 months) on the guitar such that you would be able to play some tunes, understand some of the basics in music theory, understand (and be able to play) a variety of chords, and generally have enough background such that you should be able to start to chart your own destiny on the guitar.

For starting out, I also have a few bit of advice for (soon to be) guitarists. First off: playing the guitar (as with other string instruments, and most ‘band’ instruments) requires a strange sort of intimacy with the instrument. The fact is, regardless of how much you ‘practice’, you should try to have the guitar nearby, and in your hands as much as possible. As an example, I often noodle on the guitar while watching TV. It does pay off (especially later on…).

Second: if you intend to learn guitar solely from the internet (it is certainly do-able), there are some worthwhile tools to consider getting. Electronic metronomes and tuners are handy (even though there are comparable free online apps which provide similar services). And even though you may work to develop some playing ability in this manner, the fact is that playing with others (regardless of who they are) does have a lot of value…

This pretty well covers the very, very beginning of getting into playing the guitar. Later on, I will cover such arcane as how to restring and tune a guitar, how to hold a guitar, how to address strings (either with fingers of with a pick, and continue into a few exercises to develop dexterity and strength and even a few chords…

 

While I have a few music apps to play with (see the previous post…), of greater importance to me is the fact that I have a variety of guitar ‘rigs’ to use on my iPad. First off, if you are interested in doing something like this, you need to consider how you will be getting your guitar’s signal into the iPad. I should mention that there are some iPhone physical connectors coming onto the market which use the docking connector instead of what we (as iPad users) are stuck with…namely the 1/8 inch headphone/mike jack.

I have had a chance to check out the most popular connectors for the iPad, and but for the Peavey AmpKit Link, they all fall short in that they merely wire up your guitar input (high impedance, very low current signal) with the audio output (low impedance, and with some pretty reasonable current). These two signals running next to each other in any of these connectors result in lots of noise, and a very (read: VERY)high propensity for microphonic feedback.

The Peavey AmpKit Link connector is a buffer…that is, it is a small amplifier which increases the signal from the guitar to the degree that the chances of feedback diminish, and the noise floor is further below the signal. The fact that you have to feed it a small battery every so often is something I consider to be a very small price to pay for getting a clean signal into the iPad.

With that taken as a given I have been looking over several of the ‘virtual guitar amps’ available for the iPad. There is:

With all of these tools to look over there are some things I have already seen. The PocketAmp, and to a degree the iShred Live are fine (relatively cheap…or free) tools which get you a usable sound (especially if you aren’t too picky about your sound). They are both worthwhile products for those who aren’t interested in investing much time or money into their playing (i.e. the same ones…).

After this the Amplitube and AmpKit come into view. They sound better. They both have a variety of added tools which are worth looking into. I suppose I should mention that all of these tools have some version of importing songs to use as backing tracks; they have tuners, metronomes, and can save presets. The deluxe guitar amp simulators have a few other advantages… Amplitube has a new 4-track recorder added to its growing list of ala carte additions to the app. The AmpKit has an even cooler tool…the ability to re-amp your already recorded track. This means that you can set up your guitar with whatever amps, cabinets, mikes, and effects…and then record it. Later on, if you decide to try it again, you can merely re-import the already recorded track and since AmpKit records the dry signal as well as the output (i.e. the signal that comes into the app, as well as what comes out). This means that you can play around with any other combination of the same effects to get a new sound from what you have already recorded…

In any of these cases, if you are interested in recording, it certainly makes the iPad a comfortable place to get your guitar tracks into play.

Finally I come to the StompBox app… This is more of an emulation of a complicated guitar effects pedal board versus a virtual guitar amp. This app also allows for backing tracks, and has a 4-track recorder. The real power in this app is that you have a lot (read: A LOT) of control over your signal chain. You can add in any number of effects (distortions, compressors, reverbs, delays, phasors, flangers, choruses, wah’s, harmonizers, and a lot of filtering effects. This is a program in which it pays to spend time sculpting sound (i.e. not necessarily a tool for the faint of heart, or for those on a tight time schedule. I have only had a week to play with this tool so far, and can see that my hope of getting to sounds which don’t sound so “digital” (i.e. too crisp to be real, or to distorted to exist on earth). I already see that I might be able to simulate some honest to goodness dirt and grunge with this (read: a holy grail in the distance…).

 

For the last month I have seen a growing number of coming to this site because they were searching for iPad information. I get people coming here who want information about iPad apps, reviews, and criticisms related to ‘Getting Things Done’ (GTD), music, and some comparatively arcane topics (printing from an iPad, setting up Gmail, etc.…). With this in mind, I’ve decided to show a few things I have, and first off, I will show and discuss a few of the music production apps I currently have…

The term music production means something quite different from apps for listening to music (iPod, Pandora, etc.). I have some apps which are (for me) merely toys to manipulate music:

These sorts of apps might be a great creative or compositional tool for those who are really interested in electronic music. Some others are:

For my guitar studies I have some tools for learning songs, such as:

These two apps allow me to work directly with a large variety of music, form jazz standards in the real book to almost any tab I can find online4 to load into the TabToolKit (I happen to have hundreds of Powertab files, while play natively in this app…). The real book is what many could call the foundation of any serious study of jazz, and between these two apps I have the foundation for almost any sort of guitar practice regime.

After these two ‘encyclopedias of songs’ I also have a couple apps to help me keep track of my work on scales and chords (there is a very wide array of these sort of apps for the iPad, such that I think that they are all probably fine tools to use…

So, adding these specific guitar-related apps to my virtual guitar rig on the iPad, I only need the ability to get my acoustic guitar recordable into the iPad (look up iPad optional camera adapter and a USB condenser mike) and a DAW to finish off everything I would likely ever need to practice or to create guitar music on the iPad…

 

A couple years ago I was teaching in a boy’s middle school in a small city in South Korea (Gimje). Part of my job as an English teacher was to conduct some one-on-one ‘lessons with the English staff (native Koreans). This was supposed to be a chance for these language teachers to hone their speaking and listening comprehension skills. At this particular school I had the very good fortune to work with three women who were great teachers as well as very good speakers. These ‘one-on-one’ lessons devolved into several one hour discussions on such topics as American politics, International monetary policy, general topics in linguistics, and exobiology (to only name only a few of the wide ranging discussion topics).

After one particularly good discussion (on Shakespeare’s Macbeth), the topic of ‘small countries’ came up. The premise here is that since I come from a large county, I am may be predisposed to different attitudes and points of view than someone from a ‘small country’ may have. This is a far different topic than what you might see in Forbes magazine or the Economist. At these sites and magazines, there is a lot of coverage of what the various governments of ‘small’ versus ‘large’ countries may have. In contradistinction, I was merely taking part in a discussion (with one from a ‘large country’, and the other, from a ‘small country’).

My point is that there is a gulf here which is at least a wide as…let’s say, comparing world views of European Christians with East Asian Buddhists. There may quite a few similarities between this geo-religious’ discussion with the large/small discussion I was in. Namely, what might be of issue may not be the facts but rather the attitudes with which we perceive the world. As with practitioners of Buddhism, seemingly, many ‘small country’ citizens feel less control (or even the need for control) over the world at large. ‘Large countries’ (i.e. the USA, China, India, the EU, etc.), have far different attitudes, where there are plenty of ugly Americans, and just as many ugly Chinese, EU members, or Indians. It seems that manifest destiny is a heady topic which leaves an aftertaste of a bit more aggressiveness than many ‘small country’ citizens like.

I do have to admit that this is not the most clear cut essay topic that I have ever written, but it does point towards a number of topics which relate to the study of geography. I guess that I am alluding to the notion that geography also has a subjective aspect to it. While the world can be seen in objective, reductionist terms, many of my experiences have shown men that it also depends upon who is doing the looking.

There are some pretty simple examples. I was filling in for a social studies teacher last week. The American history class was spending some time studying the Panama Canal. The thought came to me that a comparable British class would be looking over the Suez Canal with the same intensity. The American class might spend the same amount of time on the Battle of Midway, versus Trafalgar. The fact is that this sort of comparison could be made comparing almost any countries national history (and the related school classes). It might not be that important, but it might be interesting.

 

As a teacher I have spent a lot of time thinking about teaching and learning. I’ve spent time preparing lessons, lesson plans, and while these are appropriate things for teachers to deal with, I see there is more to do… I have had teachers as a high school student, and seem some lately who don’t seem to really remember what it is like to learn. This can be a problem for those who have had successful college experiences in academia. The experience in taking a master’s level colloquium is fundamentally different from learning (poorly at first) any fundamental aspect of any subject.

In this regard, I have already embarked upon taking an undergraduate level economics course (via iTunes U: the history of economic thought). But this is only a beginning on this idea of immersing myself in some learning topics where I am an almost complete tyro.

In this regard, I am embarking upon spending some time upon developing some basic jazz guitar chops. I already have blogged about the iPad guitar rig I am currently using (and I am still quite happy with it!). This broader and deeper use of this set of tools should give me a different perspective on some of the throes involved in developing the sorts of discipline needed to master some of the basics in an art form like jazz.

As a preface, I should mention that I have been playing guitar for more than a few decades. I have studied music theory, but in my new quest I will be using instead of merely ‘learning’ this knowledge.

The difference between being able to regurgitate mere facts, and amassing real experience and skills on almost any subject is one of the qualitative aspects of learning which we don’t really have good tools with which to evaluate and assess whether anything of value has taken place. This is the direction which criticism of testing in all forms should be pointed.

For me, the best example comes from one of my old high school experiences. I recall talking to one of my fellow class members (someone who was easily in the top 5 of my graduating class of nearly 500). In our discussion, I made some allusion to Robespierre, and was amazed when my friend didn’t know who I was talking about. Mind you, we were in the same world history class, and had just finished a test on the French revolution only a week or two prior to this talk. As the discussion continued, I started to ask whether my friend recalled anything from this class at all (at this time, my friend had the highest test scores in the class…).

I imagine that you might guess as to the answer I was given…

Not only does this showcase some of the potential downsides in testing, but it also is a sort of indictment upon the real validity in much of the curricula we have dealt with as students, and as teachers. If nobody remembers what was covered in your class, what was the purpose of any of it?

So, I am embarking upon trying to better understand the differences between really learning something, and finding the way of least resistance, where many students develop short term memory skills at the cost of understanding anything.

Oh, I suppose I could also mention that I find Wes Montgomery and Charlie Parker to be amazing may have some bearing upon the ‘jazz’ topic too…

 

As an itinerant teacher, I have spent a lot of time evaluating various state standards, the results of curriculum reviews, textbook reviews, etc. All of these actions are related to devising a list of the things which we want our students to learn (or rather, a list of what we will be teaching). There have been a number of controversial initiatives to try to gain some knowledge of our aggregate efficiency in teaching, and students learning these topics. These controversies include references to ‘teaching to the test’, No Child Left Behind, and standardized tests (in a general sense). Whether these initiatives and actions assess students learning is something which is still a ‘red meat’ issue amongst those in the education industry (read: this topic is replete with political subtext, which equates to more heat than light).

There is another aspect of this intent to try to gain some semblance of understanding of what really takes place in schools…what are the things which students actually learn while they are students?

This is a general question which I have been asking people for decades, that of: “tell me something you learned in high school (or middle school) which you found to be important in your later life.” I have gotten a lot of answers; they fall into a couple categories. But first I should mention that I have been asking these questions to those who are not professional educators (with a doctrinal axe to grind); I have been asking the other 99.99% of former high school students.

So, to get to the categories of answers I have gotten: the most common answer is simply…nothing. That is, these respondents recall nothing of any lasting value form their time in the k-12 system. This is an answer I have gotten from 18 year olds, from 60 year olds, and it is the most common answer of those who have decided not to pursue further amounts of time in the education system. In second place I get answers which are (with due respect) reflexively ego driven, such as: using this question as a conversational gambit to explain one’s superlative actions in (fill in the blank…) athletics, speech, art classes, or any other situation where a student could gain some accolades. These things are great to hear about and no doubt greater to tell others about…but they are not a real answer to my question.

In any case, I have my notions of what students really learn during their time in school. I was teaching a group of 11^th graders the other day. I had them as incoming 7^th graders a long time ago in their school careers. I could see some interesting things in the group behavior of these students. As UNSOCIALIZED 7^th grades, they were new to the system which they had been thrust into. This created a lot of flux and stress in their lives, but now as 11^th graders they have learned how the system works, they interacted with each other and with me (the erstwhile teacher) differently from my recollection.

One of my points is that this was not solely based upon the growing maturity of these teenagers, but there was still something else taking place. The things which these students learned were never under any real scrutiny of any teacher or administrator, these students were learning how this system worked, how to find one’s place in the social hierarchy, how to gain some security, and how to get ahead. This all takes 0polace in that area outside of what we call a classroom; be it in the hallway, on a Facebook page or an SMS text message. The fact is that students learn all kinds of things while in school, it’s just that we as teacher have far less control over what these topics may be.

As a closing note, I have mentioned as a rebuttal to some of the respondents to my incessant questioning, and in almost all cases, they agree which my thesis, that there were important things that they did learn. Maybe I should ask about the things of value which they were taught, instead of what they learned

 

My last few posts have been focused upon some of the emerging aspects of how learning may be changing. I am still in the midst of what could be seen as a (virtual) undergraduate class on the history of economic thought. I say virtual because while I will likely learn as much as if I were actually taking a class for credit, I am getting this opportunity for free. The result of this is that you start to wonder about what accreditation really means these days.

For most undergraduate classes (especially the lower division, large auditorium ones…), I have been finding that ‘doing it on my own’ is actually better (my opinion here…). As more people start to look seriously into some of these new tools (such as: podcasts and videocasts of lectures, deeper integration of computers into some of the prosaic aspects of being in a college class (e.g. note taking, and using IM and Skype to interact with other students and teachers), the more that the actual costs of college look more and more egregious.

In this post I will be adding in a list of some of the articles and blog posts I have found online (using little effort, i.e. this is only the low hanging fruit!). After reading some or most of these articles, you may see that the notion that the first students to get a college degree solely from online classes are already in these ‘colleges’.

On a related tack, I ran across an interesting blog. The student/author is running an experiment to see if an iPad can serve as a primary tool for college students. If you consider the continuing buzz that this product has engendered, this is likely a thought which has run through the heads of many incoming freshmen. Here it is: The iPad Student Experiment (for iPad users, I highly recommend reading this blog)

This blog’s current post is a reasonable critique of some of the shortcomings involved when using an iPad. The fact that this device (at least for now, and until the next OS is released…next month?), does not multi-task. For those amongst us who are computer users since the late 1990’s this may seem to be an insurmountable problem, but if you go back to the earlier days of computers (e.g. Apple IIe) this was what life was…

To be able to make the transformation from a modern computer laptop (whether Windows, Mac, or Linux) you need to re-evaluate the process of creating whichever form of output you are seeking. In the case of our gallant student/experimenter this means creating what would have been a rather simple operation on a PC (i.e. cutting and pasting a variety of different forms of media into a document). With the more powerful PC’s, you can ‘multi-task’, by keeping several programs open, cutting and pasting between them. Over the years this has become such a backbone of how we do things; that dealing with a simpler device can present some pretty frustrating challenges.

To use an iPad as a computer replacement, you need to deeply go over the process of creating a document (I am using the previously mention ed document as an example). Instead of being able to (almost at whim) go from several different programs you are forced to deal with them serially. This makes the process used much more rigorous (i.e. carefully cutting and pasting the salient information into a ‘placeholder document’ which resides in the app or program you will be using. This is obviously more tedious than multi-tasking, but there may be some subtle hidden benefits based upon going over a process which most of us take from granted.

The final answer to this is that it is doable, but takes a bit more moxie that many of us may like (at first…).

Finally I have the ‘big list’ I already alluded to. Included in this list are some opi9nion pieces about the nature of our current education system, some resources for finding online classes, and finally some admonitions that the whole system will be changing…soon.

The American Spectator : Who Is College Material?

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/28/who-is-college-material

Op-Ed Columnist – Putting Our Brains on Hold – NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/opinion/07herbert.html?_r=2

Book says many U.S. universities are waste of money – Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100729/lf_nm_life/us_usa_books_universities

The Creativity Crisis – Newsweek

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

Hey U, Tune In: The Library Is Now on iTunes U « Library of Congress Blog

http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2009/06/hey-u-tune-in-the-library-is-now-on-itunes-u

Hoagies’ Gifted: (Free) Online High School Courses

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/online_hs.htm

Want a free education? A brief guide to the burgeoning world of online video lectures. – The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/02/u_tube

Free Video Lecture Podcasts from Top Universities

http://education-portal.com/articles/Free_Video_Lecture_Podcasts_from_Top_Universities.html

250 Free Online Courses from Top Universities | Open Culture

http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

100 Awesome Ivy League Video Lectures | Online Universities

http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2008/11/100-awesome-ivy-league-video-lectures

Free video lectures, Free downloadable video lectures, Free Animations, Free Lecture Notes, Free Online Tests, Free Lecture Presentations

http://www.learnerstv.com

Free video lectures | Online Courses | Video Lessons | Lecture Videos | Tutorials for free Download from top colleges and universities

http://freevideolectures.com

Khan Academy

http://www.khanacademy.org

Open Culture

http://www.openculture.com

Why Schools Don’t Educate by John Taylor Gatto

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/gatto3.1.1.html

Op-Ed Contributor – Universities Are Heading Toward Academic Bankruptcy – NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/15taylor.html?_r=1

Letters – No More D’s? Praise for a School District’s Initiative – NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/l15grades.html

The case for getting rid of tenure. – By Christopher Beam – Slate Magazine

http://www.slate.com/id/2263348

Valedictorian Speaks Out Against Schooling in Graduation Speech — Signs of the Times News
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/212383-Valedictorian-Speaks-Out-Against-Schooling-in-Graduation-Speech

Apple’s iTunes U sees more than 300M downloads, offers 350,000 educational files | VentureBeat

http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/24/apples-itunes-u-sees-more-than-300m-downloads-offers-350000-educational-files

 

From the previous post you can see that I have embarked upon a form of online learning. I started a podcast series from iTunes U covering economic history. Besides wanting to gain some of this knowledge, I had a few other reasons for taking this virtual class. In the last forty years, I have read books to gain academic sort so of knowledge and wanted to see if this new method was as effective a means to learn a subject. The iTunes U ‘classes’ as well as any academic sort of class presented as a podcast is a bit different from what most other podcasts are, and how you should listen to them…

If you were to take a survey class (in any subject) at a college or university, the fact is that you would be impelled to go to some very similar large auditorium lectures. These talks give deep context to the assigned reading, and when done well can make difficult subject more palatable to read. In my search to find related subject matter online I came across what was (for me) a real bounty. The lecture series I am listening to is (from iTunes U) the History of Economic Thought: From Marx to Hayek, presented by Murray N. Rothbard (a member of the Mises Institute). I found a free online (downloadable) version of his book on this topic, and almost certainly the main text that this class would have been based upon!

This changes an aspect of this little experiment, since I have almost all the materials for this class instead of merely a series of lectures. There are a few things worth mentioning about this. First off, since I have these materials, this is not a valid test to see whether iTunes U is a valid source of college or continuing adult classes. On the other hand, I can already see that this lucky find of mine has put me in the position to deal with this class in a much more rigorous manner (i.e. as if I were actually taking this course for credit…). This means that instead of ‘just listening’ to these (quite entertaining) lectures, I will need to use the podcasts as a means to help explicate the associated text.

In actuality, this was a topic I was planning upon covering soon enough anyways. When I was in college, I took a number of these large auditorium lecture classes. One of the time immemorial aspects of a class like this is that not every student attends the lectures (especially if they take place at 8:00 AM!). To do well in this sort of college class (as with all others, for that matter) there is a need for some rigor in how you approach the class and discipline (on a daily basis) in order to accomplish the goals set forth in the class syllabus.

Simply listening to lectures (on your iPad or iPhone), is a situation where discipline would seem to be something which cannot be put into a bottle. The freedom in being able to listen to this lecture at any time, based upon your whims would seem to be a quick way to get as little as possible from this free information.

The fact is, if you are serious in taking any of these free classes, how you approach the topic is of prime importance, since it can lead you to getting nothing accomplished (just as with that 8:00 AM lecture back in college).

As a related topic, I can more easily see that a motivated freshman student could accomplish quite a lot with these online lectures and a textbook (in my case I have it in an EPUB format, so that I can read in it iBooks). The fact is most of the lower division of an undergraduate college education can be accomplished in this manner. If you only have to buy the related textbooks to accomplish passing these classes, the actual cost in taking a class like this, and by extension a whole college semester or year stars to look more than a little egregious!

Finally, here are the links I was alluding to:

http://mises.org/resources/5800/Austrian-Perspective-on-the-History-of-Economic-Thought

This web page includes a 2 part PDF of the text or a complete EPUB version (iBook format!)

This following link contains a PDF companion book to the text.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9780470999059

As a close I would like to emphasize that all of this is free…

 

Over the last couple of years I have run across such online amenities as the Khan academy, iTunes U, TED, and a number of other sites which provide Information in such a manner that I can see a possible future on higher education. All of these sites are essentially free, and even from my position, I can see that financial underpinnings of Colleges and Universities may be starting to shift…

In any case, I spent some time considering the current state of the art with regard to these new forms of content delivery and decided to test out a number of ideas. First off, I am an inveterate reader, and the notion of reading a textbook in order to develop some familiarity with an academic subject is my default state. I have been reading textbooks as a means to gain information for decades and as such I want to present this as a bias on my part. I have tried out podcasts (on and off over the years). Some of them ‘worked’ for me, and most didn’t.

So, with these prefacing bits of information out of the way, I intend to ‘take’ an iTunes U ‘class’. In this particular case I will be listening to a series of podcasts covering the beginnings of economic history. I already have read a number of books on the subject, so I will be quickly able to see if this means of gathering the same information have any value (to me, and possibly to you too…).

The whole nature of how these podcasts are presented in iTunes has been a puzzler for me for quite a while. I always wonder who may be taking these ‘classes’? To be honest, much of what I have seen for these podcasts suggests that they may be a worthwhile replacement for a lot of the freshman classes where large lecture halls are used. Here is essentially an audio (or possibly video) copy of the same sort of lecture (with the added ability to start and stop, to repeat sections at will). I also would imagine that any listener of these podcasts would be able to hear the lecturer too (I have found this to be problematic at times with the big ‘bull ring’ lectures for undergraduates.

But my question still holds that while this may indeed be a good replacement for some aspects of lower division college classes…they include only a series of lectures, no books, no reading, no discussion, no real assignments, or tests. So, it would seem that these ‘classes’ are not ready to be ‘real’ replacements for their related college classes (yet…).

These podcast series may be of use for zealot-like students who want to get other perspectives on a subject (generally, I see this as a distinctly small group of people…). Otherwise, I suspect that the real audience for these virtual online classes is for the continuing adult education crowd.

I guess that I must be part of that crowd…

I’ve already started, and have already gone over the first lecture in the series (covering the history of the underpinnings of various forms of law…interesting stuff!). I intent to go through this series and report to you as to whether this is really worth the effort, whether this is ‘better’ than merely going to a book store and buying a book on the same topic, and finally I want present a number of methods with which you might be able to get the most possible from a series of audio lectures. This might include some information as so how to most effectively find related (read: online and free) ancillary and support information, as well as a little bit on some of the unobvious aspects of what it really takes to get through a class like this…

 

If you hang round with school teachers, this (i.e. teaching to the test) is a pejorative term you will hear quite a lot. It has gotten to the point that I hear this not as a meme (bad enough, as in unevaluated talking points), but as a sort of badge of identification. In any case, I decided to look into this term a little closer…

All teachers evaluate and assess the learning of their students, not to make too fine a distinction about this, but isn’t nearly the definition of what it is to teach? By this, I mean that teachers are supposed to make some difference in what the students learn. So, testing is not a problem (QED).

Without wanting to sound too coy about this topic, the fact is that this pejorative term has been thrown towards what are called standardized tests. Almost every reader to this blog has undergone this experience as a student. I have never been too thrilled with the concept of computer graded/multiple choice tests in that they are a rather rough tool to assess what students really know and think. But, taking this into account, I have to answer as to what could be done in the place of these tools for assessing student achievement.

The fact is that every state in the USA has (for an increasing number of class subjects) a set of curriculum standards. I could only imagine that every school district in these states buys textbooks which are aligned with these curriculum standards. The standardized tests are related to these standards too…

So, you might ask, what is the reason for all of these carping teachers? Why is ‘teaching to the test’ such a bad thing?

When you look at the trends in student performance (taken in the aggregate) there is plenty of reason for any number of governmental organizations to want to get their hands into this problem (excuse the government having hands metaphor, I was thinking about my taxes…). The fact is that the real difference between any test which a teacher could (and likely should) be giving and these standardized tests is actually quite obvious. Standardized tests are evaluated by state or national level organizations. They ultimately reflect upon the teacher, the school, the school administrators, and finally (and ironically) to a lesser degree, to the students.

You need to look at whose ox is being gored in this scenario to understand what all the hue and cry is about.

As a personal perspective, I should note that in every job I have held in every company, every industry, and even in the military…my work was continuously evaluated, and I was under scrutiny for performance, and ultimately for salary actions. Whether for good or ill, you get used to this; this is how the rest of the workers in this economy exist.

Teaches are under far, far less scrutiny than almost any job I have ever heard of. I can only imagine that the notion of putting increasing amounts of professional scrutiny to standardized test results creates a form of professional; scrutiny which almost any academic would feel to be quite unwarranted.

To take another perspective of this meme which has been floating out there for several years… if teaching to the test is such a terrible thing, what are the real reasons?

I have heard things which relate to some ‘touchy -feely’ thoughts as to how traumatic it may be for students. To be honest, I would like to see some data to prove this assertion, I might be wrong, but this point against standardized testing sounds wrong to me, as it comes off as a recipe for creating a generation of ‘hot house flowers’.

Do the standardized tests correlate with the salient state education standards for any specific subject? If not, has there been any effort to re-align either the tests or the curricula?

The fact is, I have never heard of any sort of major re-alignment of the subjects I am licensed to teach based upon shortcomings in the state and national level standardized tests. I smell a red herring here…

If you consider the problems which we have with the whole education industry in the USA, there should be more supportive…or at least more substantive criticism coming out. TO me this sounds like a means to shut down discussion and to maintain the status quo…

Obviously, I could be very wrong here (I said could; bear in mind the distinction between possible and probable). If you have some points to add about the tiresome overuse of this meme, there is a place to add comments below.