save to DISC: Documenting Innovation in Music Learning

The paper discusses an approach to determining the worth and value of innovation in music education and measuring it’s capacity for meaning and engagement. It also aims to identify new examples of innovation across a broad range of music learning contexts and establish a rigorous digital process for documenting, evaluating and distributing innovative cases and resources for present and future contexts. It discusses specifically a pilot project that seeks to document innovation in sound curriculum (DISC). save to DISC is an exploratory study in an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that proposes to establish flexible and effective procedures for the sourcing, evaluating, refereeing, editing, producing, validating, storing, publishing, and distributing of a wide range of media and content types. It involves documenting innovative and successful practice in music education, creating and evaluating programs in difficult/challenging school contexts and commissioning and encouraging the production of resource materials for 21 st century contexts

El profeso de musica como gestor cultural (The concept of a music teacher as a cultural manager)

The concept of teacher as cultural manager examines two teachers working in a difficult school context and compares their characteristics and behaviour in this context to theory derived from a larger ongoing study. The paper outlines a preliminary study that has been created to identify a framework of research strategies that are able to capture the characteristics of good practice in music teaching that promotes social inclusion. The study is philosophically founded upon Buber’s notion of inclusive relationships and explores a description of the characteristics of the teacher and community derived from a doctoral study into the meaning of music to children and the ways in which teachers give access to meaningful music making. The findings suggest that the teacher performs multiple roles to facilitate access to meaningful music experience through their relationship with community and the students. The role of teacher as builder of context and as a manager of the cultural life of students emerges as an important concept that requires further study in a larger investigation

Designing relational pedagogies with jam2jamXO

This paper examines the affordances of the philosophy and practice of open source and the application of it in developing music education software. In particular I will examine the parallels inherent in the ‘openness’ of pragmatist philosophy in education (Dewey 1916, 1989) such as group or collaborative learning, discovery learning (Bruner 1966) and learning through creative activity with computers (Papert 1980, 1994). Primarily I am interested in ‘relational pedagogies’ (Ruthmann and Dillon In Press) which is in a real sense about the ethics of the transaction between student and teacher in an ecology where technology plays a more significant role. In these contexts relational pedagogies refers to how the music teacher manages their relationships with students and evaluates the affordances of open source technology in that process. It is concerned directly with how the relationship between student and teacher is affected by the technological tools, as is the capacity for music making and learning. In particular technologies that have agency present the opportunity for a partnership between user and technology that enhances the capacity for expressive music making, productive social interaction and learning. In this instance technologies with agency are defined as ones that enhance the capacity to be expressive and perform tasks with virtuosity and complexity where the technology translates simple commands and gestures into complex outcomes. The technology enacts a partnership with the user that becomes both a cognitive and performative amplifier. Specifically we have used this term to describe interactions with generative technologies that use procedural invention as a creative technique to produce music and visual media

Examining Meaningful Engagement: Musicology and Virtual Music Making Enviroments

In the twenty- first -century music is being made in new ways in both real and virtual environments. This study builds on an ongoing examination of meaningful engagement in the production of music curriculum and experience design in music software and examines the adaptation of musicological strategies for research in these fields. The study reports upon the use of musicological analysis of both music making processes and communities that have been applied to the production of networked improvisational musical environments and community music projects. It advocates an exciting emergent role for musicology and ethnomusicology as a means of observing, evaluating and creating meaningful and engaging environments for music learning that enable interactive engagement with real and virtual musical worlds. The paper serves as the beginnings of a methodological meta study that examines a series of music projects involving youth community music and the effects of music making on social and cultural inclusion and the creation of Networked Improvisational Musical Environments. This project suggests a ‘contemporary musicianship’, which embraces the computer as instrument, the network as ensemble and cyberspace as venue. The paper focuses upon the implementation and adaptation of musicological strategies of musical analysis in software design and ethno-musicological methods for ethically observing and documenting mutli-cultural and urban Indigenous music communities. It is suggested that these methodologies and strategies that are inclusive of the artifacts and symbols systems common to music making practice should be used more in music education research than text and number based educational methods, which it is argued, filter the meaning inherent in music experience

Music, Meaning and Transformation: Meaningful Music Making for Life

This book and the series which builds on the philosophy examines the musical experiences that students find meaningful and ways in which teachers, parents and community music leaders might provide access to meaningful music education. This is particularly relevant today because school music often fails to provide sustainable access to music making for life, health and wellbeing beyond school. The book seeks to reframe the focus of music education within a pragmatist philosophy and provide a framework that is culturally and chronologically inclusive. The proposed book is aimed at current and pre-service music teachers, community music leaders and coaches and designed to be a useful professional development tool and reference resource for teacher/community arts workers. Secondary audiences for the book would include all general and trainee elementary school teachers and interested teachers in disciplines other than music particularly those from the community arts concerned with music, cultural health and wellbeing in community settings. Another secondary market would be private music teachers in the community and recreational music-making coaches who need strategies and techniques for the provision of culturally inclusive music experiences within complex multi cultural and cross cultural settings

Paranotis halfordii (Rubiaceae: Spermacoceae), a new species from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, in a recently described Australian genus

Paranotis halfordii K.L.Gibbons & S.J.Dillon, a new species from the Dampierland and Central Kimberley IBRA bioregions of Western Australia, is here described. Paranotis Pedley ex K.L.Gibbons was recently described to include some Australian species previously included in Oldenlandia L. A key to the species of Paranotis is provided

Foundation Giving for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Infrastructure 2004-2012

In the special report Foundation Giving for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Infrastructure 2004-2012, Foundation Center presents the first-ever analysis of U.S. foundation support globally for nonprofit and philanthropic infrastructure organizations and services. This analysis spans nine years of funding, encompassing 717 different funders and 12,200 grants. It finds that a set of the largest U.S. foundations provided $134 million in support for nonprofit and philanthropic infrastructure organizations, networks, and services in 2012; since 2004, their support has totaled more than$1 billion. About 41% of this giving funded philanthropy-specific organizations and networks -- from the Mexican Center for Philanthropy to Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. The other 59% targeted a range of organizations and activities -- from funding nonprofit-related research at major universities and think tanks to providing operating and project support to Foundation Center. This special report was created with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Influence of Acute Turkesterone Dosing on Resting Metabolic Rate and Substrate Utilization in Recreationally-active Males

Turkesterone is a relatively novel phytoecdysteroid compound that has become increasingly popular amongst recreationally active adults seeking to improve body composition. Although many of the these hypothetical benefits arose from prior rodent data demonstrating enhanced substrate utilization, no data presently exist amongst humans in this regard. PURPOSE: to determine the effect of multiple turkesterone doses on both resting metabolic rate (RMR) and substrate utilization in a healthy human population. METHODS: Eleven recreationally active males (23.3±2.2y) visited the laboratory on three occasions separated by at least seven days and were randomized in single-blind, placebo-controlled, and counter-balanced crossover fashion to either 2000mg cellulose placebo (PLA), 1000mg turkesterone + 1000mg placebo, (1000T) or 2000mg (2000T) turkesterone. RMR and respiratory exchange ratio were assessed using a metabolic cart for 20 minutes prior to supplement provision (i.e. baseline [PRE)), as well as 60-minutes (POST60M), 120-minutes (POST120M), and 180-minutes (POST180M) post-acute supplementation timepoints at each visit. RMR, as well as both carbohydrate (CHO) and Fat (FAT) oxidation were analyzed using a two-way (condition [PLA, 1000T, 2000T] x time [PRE, POST60M, POST120M, POST180M) ANOVA with repeated measures at a significance level of pRESULTS: Analyses failed to reveal any significant condition, time, nor interaction effects for RMR, nor CHO or FAT oxidation (p\u3e0.05). Nonetheless, both 1000T (2.7%, 5.6%, and 7.8%) and 2000T (0.7%, 4.2%, and 3.6%) increased mean RMR above baseline at POST60M, POST120M, and POST180M timepoints, respectively. Conversely, PLA decreased mean RMR by 0.9% and 0.7% at POST60M and POST120M, respectively. Incidentally, the 1000T condition displayed increased mean FAT oxidation by 1.85, 5.34, and 7.96% at the POST60M, POST120M, and POST180M timepoints, respectively, and when compared to the consistent decreases observed with both PLA and 2000T. CONCLUSION: Although these data fail to display a significant turkesterone-mediated enhancement in the investigated metabolic parameters, there were interesting mean differences that should be further explored to determine any longitudinal and/or exercise-dependent permissive impacts on RMR and substrate utilization