Recorder Webquest

by
Sandy Nelson
December, 2001

Purpose:

Children in elementary school commonly learn to play the recorder.  The Recorder Webquest is designed to enrich and deepen children's knowledge and understanding of the recorder.  It is a hope that this will also affect attitudes, in that children sometimes don't think of the recorder as an instrument found in the real world.  At the same time, the activity is designed to encourage children to gain new knowledge while participating in the roles of  being a musician- namely creating, performing, or listening to music.  This will be accomplished by engaging in real-world tasks to organize a project that would be found in the community at large (Bransford, 2000).  Though the recorder is primarily an artifact of western culture, this activity is designed to promote making connections to similar instruments in other cultures.

The activity is primarily designed for grades 4-6, though it may provide a way to encourage middle school and high school students to continue playing the recorder.

Objective:

Students will organize and present a project that includes performing the recorder, an original recorder composition or improvisation, and historical/cultural information that informs the audience, which includes making comparisons to flutes or recorders of different cultures.

Music Standards:

2- Performing on Instruments
3- Improvise
4- Compose
6- Listen, analyze, describe music
7- Evaluate music and music performances
9- Understanding music in relation to history and culture

Equipment:

1. Computer with Internet access, adequate modem speed, and sufficient computer memory for downloading audio files
2. Browser configured for the use of plug-ins that will play audio files (Quicktime and RealPlayer work for PC and Macintosh)
3. Headphones if necessary, which allow the ability for partners to hear soundfiles (such as occurs with Y adapters for two headphones)
4. Optional Printer hook-up for downloading task directions, notes, other information

Assessment:

Design:

The Internet is a vast repository of factual information.  The main design concern was the overriding goal of going beyond that factual information to build musicianship, through sites that address musical behaviors online.  Trying to build an activity that was inquiry-based and interactive, rather than simply providing information through knowledge response or acquisition was another challenge (Clark, 2001). The hope is that students will be encouraged to construct new knowledge about the recorder.  Cognitive research demonstrates that acquiring facts is no longer sufficient for deep, conceptual learning (Bransford, et al 2000).  Perhaps this webquest will serve as a model for other online music lessons.

Design of the activity was intended to provide an elegant layout that is simple enough for elementary students to use.  Meet the Recorder was begun a year ago, but used colors and flowers (which fit with the baroque time period).  The current project was expanded to be more interactive (guided inquiry), but also changed from flowers so that the visual appearance might be more received by 9-12 year old students, both male and female.  Graphics were chosen for encouraging musical thought, and as a visual message of the tasks.  The use of frames allowed information to be presented in historical or chronological order, or by topic.  Task directions are contained in the Webquest portion, while the lesson is presented in Meet the Recorder.  I intentionally linked other sites to open in a new window, so that students could easily get back to their place in the Webquest. 

Segments of information were kept short primarily to accommodate student age, but also to encourage musical experiences.  Textual information was interspersed with site visits in order to keep connecting the historical information to the listening experiences.  Use of sites with photos were also interspersed with listening as another connection to the historical or cultural context.

Scaffolding:

Teacher

Guidance was provided for both teachers and students.  A teacher page describes the project.  Since music classrooms may have differing levels of computer availability (if at all), options for adjusting the activity are suggested.  Links are also provided to other pages for additional teacher resources, such as: information about the use of plug-ins, determining site validity, and glossary of basic Internet terminology.  Links are provided in both the teacher and student area to Musical Connections, a more complete website I have available for use in the elementary music classroom.

Metacognitive support for students:

1. Prediction and prior knowledge: Project begins by asking students to predict how old the recorder is and brainstorm what they know about the recorder.
2. Modelling: First site is an example of the term "virtuoso" to provide modeling of excellent recorder playing.  Other sites include the performance of students.
3. Help tools:

• Links to reference materials (dictionary, encyclopedia, atlas, world maps).
• Example of recorder programs
• Note-taking form for keeping track of online information that can be printed.

4. Student Rating Form
   The student rating form is intended to provide metacognitive support to help students be aware of how a website might contribute to personal and musical learning. This includes site design, multimedia elements, meeting the music standards, and learning modalities (aural, visual, kinesthetic). A second goal is to encourage awareness of musical behaviors through performing, creating, or listening to music.
5. Self-evaluation based in part on the work of Bransford, et al (2000) and for the intent to:

• Prompt thinking about predictions made before starting the webquest, which gives a way to connect to prior knowledge and promote later transfer
• Prompt thinking about personal musical progress
• To make suggestions for other students who may later participate in the Webquest (Schwarz, et al)

Feedback:

Feedback to students was provided through ongoing open-ended questions throughout the activity:

• Opening questions about students' current knowledge of the recorder
• Comments during the historical presentation to stimulate thinking about world or historical events
• Use of programs as examples of what music performers might include in a musical event
• Questions regarding how the project will be organized, such as how to make a musical presentation interesting to the audience
• Questions in the evaluation section meant to guide students in their own thinking about how their project worked
• Information provided in the student rating form as a message of how to consider sites that promote musical knowledge.

Reflections:

Hardships:

1. I had some difficult setting up the frames to work as I wanted them to.  I had to create two separate frame groupings, whereas I would rather have used one location for all information.
2. Finding something useful on the web requires much discrimination.  Selections have to be straightforward for students, so they don't have to do other searching when they get to the intended site.  For example, one excellent example of a Brazilian recorder player required searching at other (and commercial) sites in order to find the sound files, so I did not include it.
3. Consideration of audio files and the use of plug-ins.  Teachers may not yet have a usable knowledge of plug-ins, so Shockwave or Beatnik or other less common formats were not included.
4. Many, many sites are primarily for performing artists or for commercial companies and therefore have much advertisement.  I included one site that has annoying pop-up ads mainly because it was a good source of a Basque folk recorder (txistu).  I changed which page the link goes to because of photos of contemporary artists, which included one who is smoking.  While this activity is not expressly intended to teach specific values, I was careful to look at underlying messages such as the smoking musician.  (Some pages had cultural practices, such as military references, or the use of wine and liquor within the culture). 
5. Last minute formatting difficulties for this document and another one, which were written in Word. Front Page (required by my server) would not read a Word formatted html document. I had to send to my husband to strip down the formatting in Dreamweaver and transfer into Front Page. This worked, but characters such as apostrophes and quotation marks didn't come through, so there was still a lot of proofreading needed! 
6. I have decided I need to change the opening example because of its Shakespearian quote about playing the recorder is as easy as lying. In the context of a literature class, I'm sure some interesting discussion could take place, but in this context I think I need another example. The unfortunate thing is that the page is very clear, gives a picture of a recorder, really is an excellent example of expert recorder playing as a model, and requires minimum download time! Maybe a good solution is to find another great example and seek permission to embed it in a page that I create. I am always sensitive to the kind of modeling I provide to students. Howevver, it will take time to solve this dilemma.   
7. The biggest difficulty is stopping!  I find I continually keep searching, though I think that each find has added richness and depth to the activity!

Highlights:

1. My intention was to broaden students' perspective about the recorder.  I certainly have learned a lot!  While I knew that there are contemporary recorder societies, I have sure gained my own global perspective!  Recorder playing exists and is popular all over the world!  I'm sure I have only begun to discover the countries where recorders are being played.  This includes Australia, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Hawaii, Israel, Italy, Japan, and Sweden.    .
2. In addition, I made some fabulous discoveries about historical instruments, such as bone flutes of the Neandrathal and Paleolithic age. Pictures of the oldest known recorders really add a dimension for students and myself regarding history of the recorder.  At the other end are sequential pictures of how to make a recorder by a practicing recordermaker! 
3. I found an excellent and very artistic online slide show that coincides with my vision of one of the things I have most wanted to do with students- create a multimedia presentation of students' original music, art, and writing.
4. I also discovered an excellent recorder site that will serve as a scholarly resource for me.  In addition, this site includes a Virtual Recorder, which has accompaniment music for well known pieces so that a player can play the recorder with accompaniment (music-minus-one approach).  I may have to locate the music and resurrect my own musicianship!  
5. In my teaching experience, I have accumulated my own personal collection of recorders, flutes, panpipes, and ocarinas from various locations that I have always shown to classes in the beginning of a recorder unit.  This web activity makes a wonderful addition to having actual instruments in hand.
6. My daughter assisted me with partial editing for this project, and in the process found her own musical models.  As a bassoon player, she discovered some beautiful wooden bass recorders that would be a lovely alternative to having her own personal bassoon (which probably is in the range of $10,000-50,00) for a good instrument. 
7. I feel good about using this activity as an example for a presentation in January.

Future improvements:

1. This is a work in progress.  I will be on the lookout for other additions, particularly for contemporary recorder playing.  I came across references to jazz recorder and electroacoustic recorder, but haven't yet found good sound files. 
2. I would also like to find examples of other cultural instruments, such as the Japanese Shakuhachi, South American pipes or ocarinas, Irish tin whistles, Chinese flute.
3. It might be interesting to include a page of links, organized by recorder playing in specific countries. 
4. It would be wonderful to have accompaniments for student recorder literature.  I found some sites that had examples of student literature, but that were for the purpose of selecting musical literature, not to be used as accompaniments for children's playing.  There is a new music site that is available that provides this capability, but I didn't include it because of their linking policy and subscription price.
5. The opening example, as described above.
6. Somewhere in this activity I'd like to add a challenge to have kids think about how many countries they have heard and seen recorder playing--another good way to make broader connections. This could include a hint (drop-down menu or pop-up window about domain names for countries). Similarly, making connections with careers of musicians (such as artists, instrument makers) could add another dimension!
7. I am happy with the visual appearance of this project and I now think I need to overhaul and revise my website Musical Connections! 

 As I said, a work in progress!

Conclusions:

I feel that I have begun to tap into what I see as one of the potential applications for using the Internet in a classroom.  I think this project will expand learning beyond the walls of a classroom.  I have had a great time "traversing" the world to hear and learn about recorder playing around the globe!  In the process, my own knowledge has certainly expanded.  It is my hope that children will also have an engaging and enriching experience that expands their musical knowledge, while helping them to be thinking musicians!

Reference list:

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How People Learn (Expanded ed.). Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.

Clark, R.  Four Architectures of Instruction, [www]. Clark Training. Available: http://www.clarktraining.com/research/4architectures.pdf [2001]

National Music Standards, [www]. Music Educators National Association. Available: http://www.menc.org/publication/books/prek12st.html [2001]

Schwarz, D. L., Lin, X., Brophy, S., & Bransford, J. D.  Toward the Development of Flexibly Adaptive Instructional Designs, [www]. Learning Technology Center, Vanderbilt University. Available: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/ctrs/ltc/schwartzD/STAR.Legacy.html [2001, 11/4] See STAR-Legacy

page created: 12/03/01
last update: 05/27/03

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