MSM’s programs, called Music Bridges, engage students in numerous areas related to music performance and understanding. Program offerings include vocal/choral ensemble coaching, jazz ensemble sectional coaching, and introductions to instruments. One program, “Music, Melody, and Me,” introduces students in grades 3 to 5 to the musical instrument families.
Orto says that MSM’s content providers are not exclusively faculty members. Even MSM students learn to design videoconferencing programs through Internet2 that are delivered to secondary school students. The programs educate students about a variety of musical styles and genres. “For example,” Orto says, “our Educational Outreach Department developed ‘A Personal Introduction to Opera,’ where our students told young people what drew them to the operatic medium.”
Another student-directed program is “Music Outreach Videoconference Exchange.” MOVE is also designed to be interdisciplinary, creating links between music and core K-12 subjects such as social studies and history. The New York State Learning Standards for the Arts are incorporated in program design, content, and assessment.
MSM also offers tailor-made programs that fit into the curricula of individual K-12 schools. Orto says she is looking forward to offering whole-semester courses in the next academic year. Currently, the longest program, group instrumental instruction, can run up to 10 sessions.
MSM delivers its programming through “multipoint control units,” bridges that interconnect calls from several sources. All sites at participating schools call the MCU, or the MCU calls the sites, in sequence. Multipoints are not without technological glitches that can be disruptive to the learning process. These problems often stem from schools’ lack of sufficient bandwidth to support videoconferencing.
MSM, however, has worked with corporate members of Internet2 to augment music-performance programs designed to run at low bandwidth, and has found that more of its K-12 partners have gained the ability to receive its programming. “In the past, it wasn’t so much that a K-12 site didn’t have the equipment; it didn’t have the bandwidth [384 kilobits is the minimum],” Orto says. “We weren’t willing to sacrifice quality or the learning process.”
To the contrary. MSM and Passaic Valley High School have shown how the new educational internet can be a vehicle for creative instructional packages. They are part of a teaching community designing, developing, and delivering educational programming that heeds a global learning community.
Stuart Nachbar recently launched www.educatedquest.com and is co-owner of College Central Network.
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