DISCOVERING DIVERSITY Teachers Resource USERS MANUAL Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 1
INTRODUCTION: Cultural Infusion and DEECD work together to create an innovative on-line programme to bring the music of the world to the Classroom. Sound Infusion is an online resource where students can explore the world of music from around the world. Students can learn about music, musical instruments from other countries and even produce their own music using the vast 5,000 music loops to create their own original music. Sound Infusion is part of the Discovering Diversity Programme delivered by Cultural Infusion. The Sound Infusion project created by Cultural Infusion that has been kindly funded by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD). Cultural Infusion is an organisation dedicated to culture in education through its Discovering Diversity programme which delivers school incursions, intercultural, multicultural and indigenous programs, concerts, tours, interactive workshops, artist-in-residencies, teacher professional development programs to promote cultural appreciation, wellbeing and engagement. To enhance this programme, Cultural Infusion have developed this online resource Sound Infusion as a wonderful application that can enhance the classroom learning in regards cultural studies. Cultural Infusion develops supporting programs and tools to assist teachers in the development of student s understanding of the origins, uniqueness and diversity of Australia s multicultural society. This Sound Infusion application Web 2.0 content will feature in the FUSE website providing access at both teacher and student level and is funded as part of the digital education content initiatives and strategies of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. The Sound Infusion Application This exciting and innovative application is an online sound studio where students at both primary and secondary level can work with a large range of royalty-free cultural music loops to create their own unique music with a cultural flavour. Accessible through FUSE and via the Cultural Infusion website Sound Infusion stimulates an exploration of cultures through videos of cultural performers discussing the background, instruments and music from the culture. Online support material includes videos, photos, text-based information and web-links to further explore and discover. Students are then encouraged to use the Sound Infusion application to make their own interpretation of this music and can share this music. One of the most exciting aspects of Sound Infusion is that it is an online application that requires no alterations to the computers on your school network. Students can save their project and come back to complete it or advance it at a later stage and when completed can save the finished composition as an mp3 file. They can also work on their project at home. The possibilities are endless. Music teachers, LOTE teachers, Humanities teachers will all use Sound Infusion to support their class work and stimulate creative thinking and further develop student s online skills and becoming global citizens. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 2
Using Sound Infusion Online Cultural Infusion has tailor-made the FUSE resources to support learning across multiple areas and utilizes a majority of online pedagogy as identified by the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Sound Infusion is a designed to be used as an Individual project activity but can be used as a group activity. Please refer to suggestions in Lesson Plans. This resource is broken into seven clear pedagogical areas of focus for whichever subject or learning outcome that is desired. 1. Registration and Teacher training 2. Student editing and Publishing 3. Student starting their own project 4. Editing 5. Publish and Share 6. Investigation into further online material 7. Acknowledgements and References Each of these areas contains identified online pedagogy that are covered in this program. Teachers can simply understand this very simple programme via the Getting Started videos that can be found on the Sound Infusion home page which shows all the necessary elements for demonstrating the program to students. All the Sound Loop are royalty free and any music developed by users are with the understanding of the Creative Commons which allow others to use and listen. Sound Infusion is a single-user Audio Sequencer with the capacity to design and develop custom length cultural themed fusions of sound material collected from professionals trained in the music art forms from cultures all over the world. Music created with Sound Infusion can be further enhanced via a third party interface (a further more advanced audio sequencer for example) which they can create a more sophisticated sound with sound overlays, remixing, and alterations. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 3
1. Registration and Teacher Training Time to register (as a teacher) 1. Start at http://culturalinfusion.org.au/soundinfusion/ 2. Click on the Register as a Teacher button. 3. A similar page will appear and click REGISTER NOW. 4. Fill out all the details and read the Terms and conditions then click Register Now 5. An Email with your password is now in your indicated email address. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 4
2. Creating a project and Creating Student Logins for your students 1. Login using your Teacher ID (password was randomly generated and emailed to you). 2. Click on Project and User Manager. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 5
3. Follow the prompts to create a project. a. Click Manage projects on the side menu then create a project name, e.g. New Class Project Name b. Then click Add project. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 6
c. Now click User Manager on the side Menu, then step 2: Add Students d. Create individual logins and passwords for each student *note: email address is not necessary for this step Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 7
e. Assign your students to your created project file. f. *note: only students in the project can participate in that project forum 4. Distribute login details to students and your students are ready to go. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 8
3. Student starting their own project just drag your selected sound loop 1. Get your students to login with their login and allocated password. 2. Once they login they will start with a blank panel ready to start creating their own music. 3. Now students can choose instruments by searching through CULTURES or INSTRUMENTS tabs in the upper right corner. Once they have chosen the sound loops they would like to use, they simply drag the loop to the middle. Students can find more information about the sound loops by clicking on the i button next to the instrument description. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 9
4. Editing TURNING OFF CERTAIN PARTS OF THE LOOP: If the student would like to only use the instrument during certain parts of the song, they can turn off the loop simply by clicking on bars which will then turn that bar into a shaded area. This denotes that you will not hear the loop during this period. SPEED OF LOOP: Once the sound track has been dragged. The speed has already been predetermined. If they would like a faster speed they must choose the same loop with a faster speed. In order to do so, select the Beat per Minute adjustment button (BPM) under the record button. VOLUME: You can increase and decrease the sound of the whole loop by adjusting the VOLUME button by sliding it from left to right but you can also click on the track which will show a line which you can change up and down to control the sound at any point of the loop. VOLUME IN CERTAIN PARTS: Click the sound loop and a line will appear where you can change the sound volume at any part of the composition by dragging the point up (for louder) and down (for softer). SOLO: When you shade this button in orange and press the PLAY button it will only play that Sound Loop MUTE: When you shade this button in orange and press the PLAY button it will mute this Sound Loop PAN: This will allow you to control where the music of the sound loop will come from the left or right speaker. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 10
5. Publish and Share When the student is happy with his music composition and is ready to save, simply click the Save button to save it on the server. Once the sound is saved, the student can open it at any time. When the student wants to publish his song so that everyone can see it, he first needs to record it with the Red record button. Once the recording is made he can either click the Share button to publish his song on his page and share it with his teacher or click the Download as an MP3 button to save the music creation into a MP3. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 11
6. Investigation into further online material Students can investigate more about the culture through Cultural Information on the homepage. Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 12
7. Acknowledgements and References Victorian Education Department DEECD Websites List of VCE Subjects http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/index.html VELS resource booklets http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vels/downloads.html e5 instructional model http://www.education.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/teachlearn/innovation/e5/e5_a1postertable4.pdf http://www.education.vic.gov.au/proflearning/e5/about/default.htm Cultural Infusion 2012 Page 13