Blog Posts By Me, Lifestream - Possibly Archived, Netography

Netography 8 – Verbatim posts from a thread I started on Drumeo

Looking back at my posts in this thread what I’m seeing is that the academic debates of the role of the teacher in the age of digital culture mirror similar experiences in drumming education.

No matter what the subject, whether they are learning in schools, university or online  students look for:

  • Guidance in navigating the deluge of information that the internet enables. What’s important? Where do you start? What do I need?
  • Motivation and to be pushed just beyond what they think they are currently capable. But not pushed too far beyond what they are capable of that they “fail” and become demotivated. The value of this is particularly felt during real time interactions.
  • An authoritative assessment of their own skills by somebody who has greater expertise than them.

These messages also threw up some classic “themes” within Digital Education debates:

  • The power to bestow accreditation makes certain educational formats more appealing for some students. Which institutions should have this power?
  • Is online the inevitable “future” for all education?

THREAD QUESTION – Do you use drumeo and have an IRL teacher?

Hey all,

 

If anyone would like to take the time to answer the following questions I’d be most grateful.

 

Do you have lessons with a live drum teacher and use drumeo? Whether it’s yes or no can you say what your reasons are? How are the two experiences different for you?

 

To show willing I’ll tell you about my experience so far:

 

I’ve recently started having lessons again once every two weeks. As I aspire to one day be a teacher I find that these lessons are just as useful learning how to teach in realtime as they are useful for drumming knowledge.

 

I think I find the openness and depth of the archive on drumeo a bit overwhelming. I quite like having a teacher saying “this is where I think you are at now, this is what you should focus on for the next two weeks”. I imagine the student focus feedback section of the website fulfils the same purpose but I find it easier to go see someone in person than rig up a whole camera and recording set up.

 

I have to be quite disciplined with myself to not just constantly browse drumeo lessons rather than playing. It’s great for when I am at work and I want to think about drums though. There are a good few lessons on here that I can’t wait to get my teeth into. The cha cha lessons this week was great. Never thought of using dead and open strokes on the snare.

 

I guess the main difference between the IRL experience and the online experience is being able to pause, repeat and fast forward videos. You can’t fast forward a person if you don’t think what they are saying is what you are after.

 

Just so you know I am asking this as part of my preliminary work on a project for my masters degree in Digital Education. I have to a month long mini project on online learning communities and thought this site would be particularly interesting. So yeah, any replies would be very much appreciated.

 

 

 

Thanks for replying both of you.

 

 What makes you say that drumeo particularly represents the future at college level? Is there a particular reason why you think it is the future of at that level but not others?

Cheers. Academic is entirely the point of the question. It’s part of my degree after all.

 

I think having the level of self knowledge to be able to judge what your own musical needs are can be tricky to develop. I honestly feel I’ve only been able to practice in the last year or so. Never had the patience to be structured and consistent before that.

So what I’m getting for that it’s the persuasive “push”  real time contact with a teacher can give you. With internet lessons if something is too hard it’s easier to just switch it off. Even if the instructor has encouraging remarks in the video e.g. “this is a tricky exercise so take your time, you can do it”, it’s not quite as emotionally affecting as when someone is in the room with you saying that.

 

Would that be a fair summary or have I go off on one there?

Cheers for replying.

Is accreditation important to you? Having had a traumatic experience with grade 4 saxophone at a tender age (there was a vocal part of the exam which I wasn’t warned about and my voice was breaking at the time) I never wanted to do accredited exams with drums.

 

Would you do accredit courses if they could be offered through drumeo? Or maybe something like a certificate of completion for certain courses? They get offered on Massively Open Online Courses a lot.