---
tags: workshops
---
# MUSIC250HFA Digital Tools Workshop

We are excited to work with you today! The Learning Lab folks around for the workshop in case you forget:
* Marlon Kuzmick, Director of the Learning Lab
* Siriana Lundgren, Media & Design Fellow in Music
## Tools and Links
This page from FAS Academic Technology offers a nice "[Overview of Harvard Supported Technologies](https://atg.fas.harvard.edu/supported-technologies)." These are tools that are supported centrally.
- Instructional Design Tools
- [a definition of backward design](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z7F6atu3JFw1c9R81CvY8AuzemIyK8ufjeUVVh-t1r4/edit?usp=sharing)
- [bloom's taxonomy](https://docs.google.com/document/d/19opOwA_Uumk0huSTP1eqSPetao-bn0NcMRXKnNOjxWU/edit?usp=sharing)

- Timeline.js
- [the Timeline.js site](https://timeline.knightlab.com/) (if you want to get started yourself)
- [an example Siriana made about Opera History Chronology](https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1izZoalGC8TsH9v5Z5EI3M0gMD9gxNxcyjUMohnVeado&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650)
* another example from this year's Media and Design Fellows' ScrollLab: [A scrolling story about the Gates of Harvard Yard](https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1OJVF9nPPqKUyVHKTAP9obssyooxUtD9PoyiiatKXwjk&font=Dancing-Ledger&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650)
- ArcGIS StoryMaps
- [link to the Harvard resource that can get you started](https://gis.harvard.edu/arcgis-online)
* [a scrolling story about Widener's Canopy](https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/836b308634524f4397627772b839024e) made by one of this year's Media & Design Fellows
- Video Essays
* [Adam Neely example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epqYft12nV4)
- [a sample from Vox on a recurrent visual trope we find on album covers](https://www.youtube.com/embed/_V10kWLh71U)
- podcasts and audio essays
- [a sample from This American Life (Dr Phil)](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/339/break-up/act-one-14)
- [the opening of Serial](https://www.youtube.com/embed/nMSxiHuDa00?start=28)
- [the Bok Center's Podcast resource page](https://sites.google.com/g.harvard.edu/ll-podcasting)
- [tips on grading and responding to podcasts](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WEGrqE6DNQamfPMjLa11MiGcFeTEYUpx/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107537220148069160041&rtpof=true&sd=true)
- tutorials on [GarageBand](https://hackmd.io/hQB8hJ3bTkGLFMTkcahuYA), [Logic](https://hackmd.io/hQB8hJ3bTkGLFMTkcahuYA), and [Audacity](https://hackmd.io/xV_mauV0Sf-6LYtQzi0yzA)
- Web-based essays (though vibe coding and storymaps and timelines can achieve this too)
- [Canva](https://www.canva.com/design/DAFTPgMObA4/wr0-uLcp6ILEwxEOQL-y_Q/view?website#2)
- 3D, XR
- [Unity](https://unity.com/)
- [Blender](https://www.blender.org/download/)
- Web and code-based tools
- [Chrome MusicLab Experiments](https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/)
- [Spotify API](https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/)
- [Web MIDI Node module](https://www.npmjs.com/package/webmidi)
- Collections, Galleries, Databases
- [Scalar](https://atg.fas.harvard.edu/scalar) and [Omeka](https://atg.fas.harvard.edu/omeka)
- [Canva gallery](https://www.canva.com/design/DAFTPiTX0ag/Wf6AXqaum20Y3pH7_wbI6w/view?website#2)
- Airtable
- [sample Pokemon base](https://www.airtable.com/universe/expBnjEvgt28vYKbG/the-airtable-pokedex?explore=true)
- [sample David Bowie base](https://www.airtable.com/universe/expgUKB29QrEDV4AT/david-bowie-1969-1983-the-golden-years?explore=true)
- [our Gallery of Music MDF projects](https://airtable.com/shrWFElN48s7z2rsr)
- [Slack](https://atg.fas.harvard.edu/slack)
## Notes
- How can we scaffold multimedia assignments (i.e., like a visual essay) in our courses?
- using a notation software to compare two verses from a song
- work on making assets ("the audio/visual bits and pieces") for the final project earlier in the term
- close-reading of stills from music videos with annotations (could turn these into a video essay but work well as standalone things as well)
- in discussion section - have students make micro-visual essays (some text, some media)
- could use PowerPoint or Google Slides or Canva to prototype something like this, with callouts and circles, etc.
- using a tool like reaper, record different spaces and then make an audio clip that combines all of those ambient sounds and have students think about the context for sounds/sounds in different environments
- weekly video assignments where students learn to perform different processes on the computer and by the end of the term you'd have a big tutorial that students have made
- What would students learn from the process of making an alternative form that they wouldn't learn from writing an essay alone?
- the process of making can address the learning goals you have for students!
- think about the analytical moves you'd want students to be able to make and how they can learn to make those moves in a new form/in some form beyond text alone
- the point is not to do something super high-tech/technologically complex but to design activities that build toward the final assignment in an intentional way, that engage the form and what it enables in terms of academic communication
- what are your goals for yourself, as a researcher, intellectual, teacher? how could an alternative mode, form, etc. help you address those goals? what are our motivations?
- engaging a public audience and having some kind of social, political, ethical stakes at the heart of your work
- using the media you study to convey your research findings about that form
---
## Contact Us!
learninglab@fas.harvard.edu