ETC Final Project

Description

In the Show Production program, students engage in what we call “Live Labs”. As a class, and part of the curriculum, artists are brought in to Full Sail and the students must combine their efforts to create a live event. Over the course of the four hour lab, the students are responsible the following:
• Preparing the main stage technically. This includes focusing the lighting rig, setting up the audio PA system, wiring all of the audio equipment, setting up cameras, and ensuring the proper working order of all technical equipment.
• Assist the band in loading in and setting up the instruments and equipment.
• Operating all aspects of a live production, producing a one-hour show.
• When complete, the students must “load out” the artist, strike any additional equipment that was needed for the show, and ensure that all gear is returned to a standard default setup.
In the past, I have always lectured students on the need to share information with each other after each one of the Live Labs that they do as a class. The reason for this is because each individual student performs a new “job” for each live lab. Therefore, a student who operated the moving lights in the first lab may be in charge of directing cameras in the second lab. Because of this, I stress that the students should seek out the classmate who had their job responsibilities in the prior show, and ask for any suggestions, tips, pointers, etc. that they may have already learned during the process. Through communication, I hope to avoid a student making a mistake 5 months after a classmate made the same mistake.

Target Audience

The target audience for this Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario will be my April class in the Show Light Engineering course. These are Full Sail University students in the Show Production Bachelor’s Degree Program, and the average age would be in the early 20’s.

Materials

The materials needed for this exercise are the student’s personal laptops, as well as individual access to Google documents. (A Google username)

Objective

My objective with this RILS is to open up communication between students, allowing them to create a knowledge base of information to assist them in future projects. At the end of this exercise, students will:
• Analyze their experience in a Live Lab situation.
• Evaluate their performance and discuss what prior knowledge would have improved their performance in this specific case.

• Create a knowledgebase to educate their classmates for future Live Labs.

Procedure

1. Instructor (Shawn McKeown) will create a Google Form asking the following questions:

a. What is your full name?

b. Which SLE Live Lab does this information pertain to? (Lab 1 or 2?)

c. What technical position did your work for this particular Live Lab?

d. Please describe anything that worked well, didn't work well, or suggestions you have for future students performing at this position.

e. Outside of your specific position, are there any other thoughts or suggestions pertaining to live labs?

2. Instructor (Shawn McKeown) will publish the form and require that all students of his SLE 1104 course fill out all necessary information on the day following Live Lab 1.
3. Instructor will gather information from the submitted forms and post it to a shared Google document spreadsheet.
4. Students will be able to review the comments of their classmates prior to Live Lab 2.
5. Students will also be asked to repeat step 2 on the day following Live Lab 2.
6. Instructor will combine new information gathered from survey and add it to the results from Live Lab 1, and share the document with the students.

Web 2.0 Tool

The web 2.0 tool that I will utilize for this exercise is Google Documents. The form allows me to gather the individual student contributions, ensuring that their fellow classmates have edited nothing either accidentally or otherwise. https://docs.google.com/

Social Participation

The social aspect of this project is to allow each student to learn from the experiences of their classmates. My goal is to provide the students with the opportunity to communicate through a collaborative document, allowing easy access to the information for the students to be able to review whenever and as often as needed for further comprehension of the material. After each Live Lab, the students will be able to reflect on their experience, such as what worked well, what didn’t work, and things that they learned. By collecting this information into a shared document, each student will have the ability to learn from their classmates’ experiences, and be able to continue to learn and grow through the collaborative nature of the knowledgebase.

Making Connections

This entire scenario is based on students connecting with their classmates, being able to not only reflect on their own experiences, but being able to share that reflection with each other. I have always felt that you don’t truly know how to do something until you have to teach it. By sharing their experiences in Live Labs at the different technical positions, my hope is that every student can become the teacher, as well as learn from the collective knowledge of their peers.

Create/Produce

While the original learning environment for the students is in a Live Lab scenario, the final product of this scenario is the production of a user-contributed knowledge base. Many times, teachers may not be able to communicate certain information properly, or students may not understand the information. By producing this knowledge base, the entire class is coming from the same perspective, and the knowledgebase will lead to further discussion and assessment amongst themselves.

Assessment

To encourage participation, as well as to stress the absolute need for sharing information, I have decided to make the student participation in this project worth 20% of their final exam. I feel that what the students can learn from this project will have more of a long-term effect on their learning than basic facts and figures that can be repeated back to me on an exam. The grading rubric is as follows:

(This rubric will be applied twice, once for each reflection that a student turns in after each live lab)

• Survey properly filled out and submitted – 1pt
• Student response for to the following question will be worth 0-2 pts.
o Please describe anything that worked well, didn't work well, or suggestions that you have for future students performing at this position.
0 points will be awarded if the question is left blank.
1 point will be awarded for basic information.
2 points will be awarded for advanced analysis or critique that will further help fellow classmates.
• Student response for to the following question will be worth 0-2 pts.
o Outside of your specific position, are there any other thoughts or suggestions pertaining to live labs?
0 points will be awarded if the question is left blank.
1 point will be awarded for basic information.
2 points will be awarded for advanced analysis or critique that will further help fellow classmates.

Reflection

Most of this scenario is already based on student reflection of their experience in the individual Live Labs. Their reflection will be the building blocks of this technical database to educate their fellow classmates.
As the instructor, I hope to get student feedback on the process of this assignment, and to be able to streamline the process for future students. I will also be evaluating the student responses and critiquing the level of thought for each response. My hope is that the students will feel more comfortable sharing their experiences, both good and bad, through this simple interface.






I would like to thank my fellow teachers, especially John Sheldon, for the Live Lab footage that was integral in explaining the complexity and variety of the tasks that the students must perform during a live event.

"House Lights...Go"