SOS Classroom

Jessica Cha

Service Project Proposal: SOS Classroom Music

I. RATIONALE

SOS Classroom is committed to providing easily accessible resources in music education to students [K-8] in the greater Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). With California’s budget cuts ending summer and after school programs, resources such as the SOS Classroom are now, more than ever, in dire need for continuing education. Education, as President Obama proclaimed, is a “moral obligation”, and we as members of the community have the duty to assist the people who have been affected by the loss of. Our approach to aiding the community is improving our already existing website (www.sosclassroom.org), and use it as a tool to educate children with online resources right at the comfort of their homes. Our goal for the music site is built upon developing creativity and inspiration for young students by constructing our website with content and activities that are both accessible and engaging for specifically children in K-8.

Needs Assessment

Before developing lesson plans and adding new content to our existing site, the SOS Classroom Music page, first and foremost, needs to be redesigned with a more simplified, engaging, and visually attractive webpage. Being the only non-academic subject among all the categories offered in SOS Classroom, our section has to be a platform for stimulating interest, imagination, and inspiration. Studies show that children learn more effectively and easily with graphic integration. By revamping the website with more visuals, students will draw more interest to the subject, and identify the contents with less difficulty.

Second, the site lacks adequate audio players and videos. Most music education is done through private lessons and one-on-one instruction. But with the understanding that many families lack the financial support to afford such luxuries, the website needs to integrate more audio and video interfaces so that students can learn the fundamentals on their own. This will enable a deeper, more effective, and accessible learning without the guidance of private instructors.

We will only include content that is teachable via web. Technology has proven to be an effective tool for education with the vast array of knowledge on the web. Although more in-depth music training requires one-on-one instruction, most of the general elements can be self-taught with so many resources offered online. Our current website is over-flooded with material that is too difficult for beginning learners to understand. We will rid those elements that are too specific, namely genres (afro-beat, grunge rock, etc.) and advanced levels of theory/aural skills, and focus more on general topics. The site will then be narrowed down to these four categories: About, Genres, Instruments, and Activities.

Another issue with the current music site is the excessive links to other websites. We want to incorporate as much of the content within our page. By keeping as much information within our page, our viewers will have less confusion on information from different sources. In addition, students will experience less delay in loading/viewing the content if they don’t have high-speed Internet. And most importantly, by keeping as much content within our website, students will ultimately navigate through other subjects offered in the SOS Classroom website.

However, we will also include a list of links to external websites that contain information, media, contacts, etc, which we don’t have the access or skills to offer. Websites such as http://www.8notes.com/childrens/ contain free sheet music, lesson plans, and a curriculum on how to read/learn music. Our SOS Classroom team are limited in our skills with web-design and do not have the funds to hire professionals to program games/animations as some of these established websites have. With our budget, we would rather spend on planning field days to work with the children hands-on.

As our main objective for the music site is to generate more creativity and imagination more than conceptual knowledge, we want to incorporate more activities that will enable them to exercise their artistic senses. Knowing that most students will be self-taught through our website, we want to integrate fun games and activities that will inspire children. For instance, we are currently in the works of developing a page that teaches how to write lyrics, another page that displays diagrams of ‘make-your-own instruments’ with household items, and another page consisting of music players to identify the sound of an instrument.

Ultimately, we want to make music education fun and feasible for students. Overloading our site with too many concepts and theory will most likely deter interest away from our site. By being aware of what our target audience needs, enjoys, and seeks, the SOS Classroom Music will make a difference in the students’ lives and will continue to serve the education system of California.

II. METHODOLOGY

In order to improve our website, we need to strategize a plan to organize the content of each of the music site’s four categories: About, Genres, Instruments, and Activities. The website right now has enough information to keep the site afloat, but it needs major filtering and especially needs more organizing of the data. Although we will keep some of the old content, we plan on removing most of it because much of the data does not pertain to our purpose for the website.

For instance, we will remove most of the Theory section because it is too advanced level, some even at college level, for young students to understand.  Right now, there is comparatively a larger and more thorough section on subjects like theory and aural skills than on instruments, genres, and history. Most of theory and aural skills require previous knowledge and training and since we are aiming for students with no background in music, we will exclude all of those elements. Instead, we will expand on instruments by adding images, music players, diagrams of ensembles, etc. We will touch base on theory but focus mainly on beginner’s level material (learning to read music, scales, fingerings, etc.).

As for the Artist page, it needs major improvement in organization as well because there are too many artists listed that are also not interlinked properly with the other content on the site. In order for students to have a deeper learning and understanding, we want to, first of all, get their interest by choosing a select few artists/musicians that they are interested in, and in the artists’ brief biographies have links to genres, instruments, and other bios that are related to the artists. This way, we can utilize the advantages of the site’s Web 2.0 format to amass all the content together. This section will also include embedded flash players, videos, and images.

Additionally, the Artist page needs to be narrowed down to only relevant musicians in music history. In each genre of our site, we will pick out 5-8 notable artists who can be connected to other artists and information on the site. We will also take the same approach to the Genre section because there are too many specific genres listed on the site, namely ‘afro-beat’ and ‘garage punk’.

Lastly, the Activities section will be the most important, if not exciting, page of the website. This section will consist of games, DIY activities, and entertainment. Since our group is limited in our own knowledge, budget, and time to create these activities, we will present links to other websites for the time being. Because of the broad age-range we are targeting at, we will research on what activities are engaging to each age group.

My contribution to the SOS Classroom Music project is to redesign the website. I will use the bit of knowledge I have with html formats and graphic design to create a fun and attractive design to our webpage. The key changes that will be made to improve the design are the additions of visuals and images to make it appear more kid-friendly.

III. TIMELINE

IV. Budget

By the end of week 11, our group should at least have a detailed outline with most of the content compiled for next term’s SOS team. Since the majority of the time that will be devoted to this site will be spent during class lab hours, we roughly have two hours a week to work on this project in a twelve-week span.

Any additional time spent outside of class will be on researching, but that will be at our own discretion. Launching the website by the end of the 11th week may be too ambitious for the amount of time that we have in comparison to the assessment of work that needs to be completed. Rather, we want to set the groundwork with as much details included for the next term so that they can fill in the rest of the website and launch the website earlier into the semester. We want the next term of SOS Classroom Music team to focus more on tailoring the website in response to feedback, as well as devote more of their time on planning focus groups and events.

When it comes to web design, setting deadlines is crucial for effective results. Although our project does not request a copious budget, and therefore do not need to be concerned with fees, we do need to maintain a strict timeframe because of all the details that must go into completing this project. If a timeline is not formed, it is very likely that this project will consistently get delayed. We need to appoint an overseer (Professor Marino) to keep track of deadlines and administer the work of each section in the project.

V. ASSESSMENT

The layout of our website will largely be influenced by big music education websites.

VI. SOURCES