Key+features+and+educational+rationale

= Key features and educational rationale = The protestsong community will be structured around three themes: **explore**, **create**, and **share**. The discussion of the site's key educational aspects will occur under those headings.

Welcome
The welcome area of the community will provide information about the purpose of the community, how it works, and how members can benefit from belonging to the community. In order to illustrate what the community is about we will develop a series of scenarios using animation and the avatars mentioned below to convey the purpose of the community. For example: we will develop a scenario of someone (represented by an avatar) who is upset about the abuse of their rights at work and has been looking on the internet to find out what they can do about it. They come across our community and visit the webiste to find out how it could be of help to them. The scenario then follows the avatar through the different aspects of the community and how they can learn how to write a song about worker's rights, how they can meet others with the same concerns, find information on how to set up a chair at work, and make a difference at work and in their lives.

In this area of the site there will be an opportunity for visitors to access a **tour of the community** to learn about the community and assess whether it is a community that they would like to join. The tour will be set up using a screencast software application, such as [|DemoFuse], and would use a range of muscially themed Avatars (developed according to interactive website design that us available at sites such as [|SitePal]) to act as tour guides. The visitor would direct the tour by selecting an Avatar of their choice and moving it around the community to explore its components. Alternatively, visitors can take an Avatar guided tutorial on a specific aspect of the community (using an Adobe Flash tutorial). The welcome area will also have a **noticeboard** where announcements can be made about current activities of the community, such as, groups forming to explore particular areas of social justice or new photos up in the share area or upcoming events.

A welcoming environment is essential to a feeling of community and to encourage participation and collaboration, both essential elements of learning. Welcoming members to the community conveys the message that members are valued and a crucial aspect of the learning community. Wenger (1999, p 237) describes three "modes of belonging" which can be combined to form learning communities and suggests that the challenge of design is to support the work of these three modes. The ProtestSong welcoming environment seeks to support the mode of "engagement", as described by Wenger (1999, pp237-238). Further experiential theories of learning such as the work of [|Kolb (1984)] support the use of a tour, such as is being proposed here, so that visitors can virtually experience the community and therefore be better informed as to their prospective membership, as Siemes (2004) suggest, decision-making is itself a learning process. The welcoming aspect of the community also adds to the formation of identity and sense of value for new members, which according to Ife (2002) is essential to building and maintaining a community.
 * Educational Rationale**

The use of intertactive Avatars web design to host the tours has several advantages ([|NetRecon] 2008):
 * Avatars can greet new visitors as you would in real life
 * Avatars inform visitors about the community and all its aspects
 * Avatarts assist with navigation
 * Avatars can use real voices

Organisers
The community will be moderated by a group of volunteer community orgnisers who will be responsible for the following processes (Salmon 2000):


 * Webmaster role**
 * welcoming new members via a personal email
 * setting up new member accounts
 * responding to requests/suggestions of new activities and technology
 * support the community to evolve whist mantaining its focus
 * monitoring and mantaining several sites of the community eg resources, photos, videos, articles, audio files, etc
 * provide support for member participation


 * Learning facilitation**
 * providing assistance and information to members to support learning
 * facilitation of useful 'meaning making'
 * update members, via email, about groups and other learning activities occuring in the community
 * support group work
 * setting up and maintain blogs on relevant issues
 * monitoring forum discussions and, if necessary, participate to assist the flow of discussion
 * monitor feedback process and ensure sensitivity and respect is practiced


 * Musical guidance**
 * Provide feedback on lyrics and scores
 * Participate in lessons

According to Salmon (2000) many online learning communities have been established with some prospering and others whithering because of the lack of guidance and direction. Further, Garrison et al., (2001, p.21) suggest that an educational environment "must be more than undirected, unreflective, random exchanges and dumps of opinions", it requires guidance, support, and nurturing which does not occur on its own. The role of the e-moderators is crucial to the protestsong community being a learning space as they will contribute to teaching and social presence in the community, which according to Garison and Anderson (2003, cited in Redmond and Lock 2006) are key elements to a community of enquiry. The comunity organisers or moderators will facilitate learning through the community by modelling participation and monitoring group dynamcs, crucial aspects of social learning (Saunders 2000).
 * Educational rationale**

The lack of moderation and guidance was an aspect identified by a member of our group as possibly limiting the learning experience in an online learning community (Lozano, 2009). A concern for the role of the moderator responding in a timely manner to the demands of an online community which operate twenty fours hours per day seven days per week was expressed by another group member. For moderators to act as models and faciliator of learning they need to respond and provide guidance to members in real time if possible (Sheaves, 2009).

Members
This area will allow members to share their story with others through biographies, lyrics, videos, and songs on their personal pages which will be collected in this member's space. This area will not be limited to text but will provide the facility to upload videos of members singing their favourite protest song, using Adobe Flash software. It will a also provide the facility for members to record themselves singing a protest song using software similar to that used in online kareoke sites such as [] and []. There will be a limit of one audio and one visual song per member in this area. Members will also be able to nominate tags for their profile area so that other members can do a search to identify common areas of interest.

According to the social theory of learning, adults learn through self-disclosure to others (Saunders 2000). Sharing of member's stories assists to form trust and promotes social exchange through disclosure of interests and commonalities. Trust is also essential in creating a sense of community (Palloff and Pratt 2005). We have envisioned this area to have multimedia options in order to provide members with a space in which to express themselves creatively, acknowledging that members are multidimentional and have a range of learning styles.
 * Educational rationale**

Groups
In this area, members will be able to form groups in order to work on collaborative projects, such as, writing protest songs together for a particular cause or context eg workers rights or organising a protest singing event such as a performance at the next NAIDOC week. This area will also provide a list of the existing groups working on protest issues such as "No War", which members can ask to join.

According to Palloff and Pratt (2005) collaborative learning can be facilitatied through group or team work. One of our team mebers found that without group or team work her learning experience in an online learning community was not as collaborative as it could have been (Lozano, 2009). The formation of groups with a particular goal will facilitate collaborative learning and may require the establishment of guidelines and expectations with the assistance of community organisers. Further, "proponents of collaborative learning claim that the active exchange of ideas within small groups not only increases interest amongst the participants but also promotes critical thinking" (Gokhale, 1995).
 * Educational rationale**

Resources
This area of the community will be like a virtual library as it will present information on various formats, including podcasts and vocasts, on topics such as: Under each heading there will be links to further websites such as [] and include videos such as: media type="youtube" key="yp5VtYYvSzo" height="344" width="425"
 * history of music and social justice
 * musicians that sing/perform protest songs
 * how to forming a choir
 * technology available to create and record songs and music
 * buidling a studio
 * recording (eg links to [])
 * publishing
 * record studios
 * songwriting lessons
 * legalities (to address issues of Copyright and licencing with links to advice such as the [|Arts Law Centre])

There will also be resources here which are also found in the create area of the community, such as: media type="youtube" key="OINStsPwgQ4" height="344" width="425" This section could be organised according to genres such as hip hop, folk, rock, black music, movements, etc
 * songwriting tips
 * writing lyrics
 * songwriting
 * songwriting books
 * song topics
 * examples of protest songs - audio, video, and lyrics, eg:

The ideas for the structure of this space are based on the [|Ultimate songwriting website]

Under resoruces we will also have a link to a **Second Life** music learning space where the Avatar hosts of this community could facilitate learning on protest songwriting. According to Mason and Rennie (2000) Seconfd Life can be a collaborative learning space which can assist to develop a sense of community. This option allows members to meet other people in Second Life who are learning how to write songs and thus add value to the learning experience of protestsong members. It provides opportunities to use simulation and the ability of participants to immerse themselves in the experience, which can be very powerful for learning according to proponents of experiential learning.

The resources area supports individual pursuit of knowledge in areas of relevance to writing protest songs, an essential element of a learning community (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1994, cited in Bielaczyc and Collins, 1999). This space supports members to construct meaning and building confidence in the area, which is crucial to learning and developing skills like songwriting. This site allows members to be individually active in seeking information, but members will also be encouraged by organisers to build and add to this knowledge through the wiki and other creative options available in the create are of the community, so as to depart from members being passive receptors of knowledge (Williams, 2002).
 * Educational rationale**

Glossary
This section will contain relevant terms used in the community site as well as music and song related terminology. The definitions will not be solely text based but will include audio and video files such as commoncraft illustrations. Within the community, jargon and technical words will be hyperlinked to the glossary for immediate access to definitions and explanations.

The glossary will add to the accessibility and user-friendly nature of the community, thus increasing the motivation and confidence of members. This will in turn promote participation and learning (Saunders 2000).
 * Educational rationale**

Create
This section of our community provides a space for members to be creative in their learning experience. This will be made available through a links to member's personal pages and the wiki section therein. This is the community area where collaborative learning can occur as well as individual learning. This space in the community promotes interdependence and communal congnition such that there is stimulation to learn and communicate about protest songwriting (Mason and rennie, 2008). Whilst this area is for creativity we will also ensure that there are resources and tools available to support the creative experience. One of those resources will be a visual prompt on social justice issues in the forms of an image of a large TV screen with current affairs/issues being broadcasted in a news-style format. Some information about copyright legislation is also provided in this section. While members are creating, it is important for them to undertand the implications of using other people's scores and lyrics. This section is about creating - not copying!

Writing lyrics
This area will represent the place in the community where members can have a go at writing lyrics in the private realm of their personal page. It will be supported by resources on learning how to write protest song lyrics presented in a range of formats, including videos, podcasts, and vodcasts.

Video, podcasts and vodcasts
Our community would include podcasts and vodcasts in this area so that members could download lessons such as "How to write a song" and listen/watch whilst on the move, for example: media type="youtube" key="RysJKIo8KRw" height="344" width="425"

The [|Horizon Report 2008] recognised the prominence of //m-education//, that is, an increase in mobile learners. Our community will facilitate learning for our members by acknowledging this phenomenum and responding to it with facilities for members to download lessons in audio or video format. According to Mason and Rennie (2008) these learning tools "can influence both cognition (adding clarity and meaning) and motivation (by conveying directly a sense of the person creating those words)" (p.70).
 * Educational rationale**

Writing scores
Members will be able to go to this space to practice composing scores for the protest songs they have created on their personal page, participate in lessons on writing song scores, and access software to write music scores. media type="youtube" key="tf2EBp-MNZU" height="344" width="425"

Educational rationale
The pedagogical approach supporting the creative endevour of member writing lyrics and scores is based on education theory which propose that a 'direct encounter with the phenomena being studied rather than merely thinking about the encounter, or only considering the possibility of doing something about it.' (Borzak 1981: 9 quoted in Brookfield 1983) is crucial to adult learning. This space encourages members to experience writing protest song lyrics and scores with the support of guided instruction. Wikis Within this area of the community we will provide the ability to set up wikis for collaboration on song and score writing as well as hosting a spacific wiki on "How to write a song" such as [] allowing members to add suggestions on songwriting.

The main reason for provding a wiki in our community is that it promotes both collaboration and learner-centred content. (Mason and Rennie, 2000 p.65) suggest that 'the medium deliberatively encourages participation in the joint creation of content and is 'consistent with a constructivist pedagogy with a focus on encouraging learner-centred content' (p.66).
 * Educational rationale**

The wiki also allows asynchronous member-to-member interaction and can add to the multimedia experience of our members as it can include sound, images and text. Further it constitutes an contributes an essential element of this learning community as it adds to the develoment of collective knowledge in the area of protest song writing (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1994, cited in Bielaczyc and Collins, 1999).

Blogs
Members will be able to create blogs in this area to share ideas, related to protest song writing, with the rest of the community. We also envision that community organisers may create blogs on related topics, such as "the experience of writing a song", to facilitate learning within the community, if necessary.

The blog will add value to the community as it will allow the sharing of information and ideas by members and community organisers. Mason and Rennie (2000, p. 62) suggest that the "many-to-many mode provides a learning framework that allows bloggers to acquire information very quickly, and report on what they have learnt". Further, it will provide a space within the community for self-reflection on issues including writing lyrics, translating social justice issues into song, and performing, which is essential to deeper or more transformative learning (Mezirow 1991). The blog will also allow members to learn from other members who have expert knowledge and experience in the area of protest song writing, thus facilitating learning even further.
 * Educational rationale**

My Page
As mentioned above in order to allow members to privatley experiment with lyrics and scores before sharing with other community members, this area will have a link to members' personal pages to facilitate this process.

TV Screen
The purpose of the TV screen image is to support members identify social justice issues about which to write protest songs. This learning support will be regularly updated by the community organisers and kept current. Its role will be like a visual community newsletter where issues of relevance are promoted for further discussion and exploration through song writing.

Share
This space in our community will be where members can share a whole range of ideas and recources with each other:

How good is this?
This area will allow members to either put up their lyrics/scores or sing their songs and receive feedback from other members and community organisers. It would be set up smilarly to:

Lyric/score feedback
Click on the link below to post your lyrics and comment on the lyrics of other song writers.
 * [|Song writer, post your lyrics here.]
 * [|Comment on previous lyric submissions here.]

Song Feedback
This function would be set up using software like [|JamJunky]so that members could get feedback from other memebers and their friends.

According to social learning theory, 'interpersonal understanding and learning occurs through self-disclosure, feedback and sensitivity to the disclosure of others' (Rogers 1961, cited in Saunders, 2000 p. 30). This area of our community will enhance the learning of members through a feedback mechanism which, if expresses with sensitivity, should reduce defensiveness, maximise collaboration (Littlejohn 1996, cited in Saunders 2000) and contribute to member's confidence and motivation - all essential elements of collaborative learning. An effective feedback system will also build further trust within the community and enhance its learning capacity. Robinson (1993, cited in Saunders 2000) proposes that adults learn through conversations where feedback can be given to imporve performance.
 * Educational rationale**

Forums
The protestsong community will also provide the facility for participation in discussion forums which will not be set up by community orgaisers but will be open for members to initiate and participate in. The forums will add to the feeling of community and facilitate learning by creating dialogue between members who share and learn from each other's experiences and knowledge.

Both the blogs and forums will support collaborative learning which "requires students [members] to be active and interactive" (Williams 2002, p. 266). Members will learn actively through dialogue and debate in these platforms, as it requires an openess to other's views and the ability to construct opinions to be shared with others.
 * Educational rationale**

The reason for setting up the blogs and forums differently is because "when blogs are used ... as well as online forums, students [members] may experience a conflict regarding where to post their reflections or comments" (Mason and Rennie, 2000, p. 91). This was a confusion felt by some of the group members in their learning in EMT1 where there were several places to make comments and share information, eg Ning member profiles, Ning blog, Ning Forums, Ning Group, Edublogs, UTS Online.

See and watch
This will be the area where personal **photos** and **videos** of members singing/performing protest songs will shared with the community. These will be uploaded using uploaders like those used by Ning and we will include a link to [|Flickr].

Listen
This will be the area where **songs** and **music** created by members will be uploaded by members for others to listen using software that allows the uploading of songs.

Read
This will be the area where **articles** (as opposed to the more interactive resource area) will be made available by the community and be uploaded by members for others to read, for example: [|Employing Music in the cause of social justice]

Chat
The community will provide an opportunity for synchronous communication which allows members to see who is in the community at any given time and engage in conversation with them. This form of communication can also be useful for members helping each other with navigation of the community, development of skills, knowledge clarification, and relationship buidling.

Events
This space will be used to make announcement of relevant events and provide the ability for members to also share up-coming events, for example relevant conferences: [|Music and Social Justice Conference]

The pedagogy behind the mulimedia nature of the "Share" area of the community is that the diverse group of people that make up the members of the community learn in different ways, that is, each and everyone has a different learning style. Many e-communities remain predominantly text based despite the availability of technology that allow many platforms for learning. To maximise learning in protest song wirting we will encourage members to create their own photos, videos, and songs for uploading, thus supporting a learner-centred approach and acknowledgeing that the community is a collaborative space where kowledge is created through member's contributions (Mason and Rennie 2008). This space will contribute to the social presence and design elements identified by Wenger (1999) which are applicable to online learning - we socialise by sharing our stories through photos, videos, music, and synchronous chatting.
 * Educational rationale**