Compilation Post
EDLD 5317 - Resources for Digital Environments
Joseph Fisher
October 2025
Introduction
The lessons learned through synthesizing readings, videos, discussions, and collaboration during EDLD 5317 Resources and Digital Learning Environments have helped me take my approach to using technology in the music classroom and strategically share my pedagogical innovations with the wider educational community. The eight weeks of work culminated not just in an article but in a complete publication strategy that centers on the belief that technology should be integrated into the learning environment. Even before this course, my goal was to share the successful methods and beliefs that have engaged my elementary music students through technology. My core strategy focuses on transitioning from a teacher as a content consumer to an influencer educator who creates multimedia, customized resources to enhance student musical experiences. Through trial and error that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing me to learn video editing skills, I have transformed my teaching strategies to embed video and engage with students as a facilitator of music-making rather than a lecturer. Using methods I developed along with exemplars from the worldwide creator community, I have organized content and created a database to teach concepts relevant to each grade level and interest (Swick, 2022).
Evaluation of Successes
My greatest success lies in the articulation of the technical process of creating videos that allow students to play along with music. Through clear, accessible, and pedagogically grounded content, I have shared the story behind my entry into content creation and the impact it has had on students. Through research, conversations with published professionals, and collaboration with my peers, I have developed a publication strategy, complete with digital resources, to guide readers on their journey. The consistent branding of my website and educational company, Fishy Beats, has created a collaborative digital space for music educators, offering resources that facilitate their engagement with my work (Hughes & Roblyer, 2023). Aware that I will never have enough time to create a play-along for all of the music used to educate students, I have focused on enabling members of the music education community so we can, together, build a database of content that engages students and promotes our craft. Extending this into the Publication Final Draft and a corresponding Media Project demonstrates a cohesive and multi-platform publishing vision.
Areas of Growth or Improvement
While my strategy is cohesive, I am seeking growth by addressing a few concepts after drafting my final article. First, I am interested in addressing the needs of secondary music educators in addition to the elementary audience of my original article. To create relevance in the music education community, a pattern can be established that follows a K-12 curriculum. Students become familiar with designed multimedia in elementary school, making for an easier and natural response to video in secondary levels. There is much to add to the video to meet the needs of a secondary curriculum and standards, such as scrolling sheet music and separate parts for voices and instruments. This will present a new challenge as I seek to further articulate my thoughts.
In addition to expanding to K-12 music concepts, I would also like to expand my target audience beyond the music education community. Although my content is specific, the underlying principles, using self-created media for scaffolding and modeling complex concepts, would be relevant for many other disciplines in elementary and secondary education. I could address this by crafting an approach that showcases general content in a separate article or blog post that links to my article.
Publication Outline
This was the foundational step, used to help me define my voice, my audience of music educators, and the purpose: to empower teachers. Completing the outline informed my decision that music education journals such as PMEA News or the NAfME Journal for Music Education would be an appropriate publications to feature my writing.
Publication Rough Draft
The rough draft was where I began the journey of translating my innovations on the computer into a formal, structured argument, including the technical and pedagogical approach connected through my story of the trial-and-error experience from 2020 to hook readers. The revision process, completed with the help of my classmates, was critical for ensuring clarity in the technical instructions for my audience.
Media Project
"The Music Tech Leader Podcast" served as the multimodal delivery strategy. This provides a conversational and accessible introduction to my article’s core ideas, positioning me as a thought leader and driving listeners to engage with the written content.
Publication Final Draft
"Becoming Your Students' Favorite Influencer” is prepared for submission to publications and additional peer review. This will become a valuable and authentic experience that others can follow on their path to creating media for their students.
Contribution to Your Learning Community
Reflection of your collaborative discussion group
As a leader, I took responsibility, organizing a GroupMe, Padlet, and Zoom meetings. Together, Sarah McDavid, Tamie Land, Kennedy Tarbutton, Ashley Rose, and I established a community within our course’s cohort. Using my time wisely, I spent hours each day reading, researching and creating, and crafting thoughtful communication ahead of due dates for others to be able to respond. By sharing references and including citations, I was able to provide a source for my thoughts so others could refer to the shared materials. Observations of our Padlet will show how I have engaged and responded to my classmates’ posts by sharing advice, ideas, answers, or affirming that they were on the right track. Chatting between classes allowed us to share thoughts on information from the course meetings and resources. I have obtained new knowledge and perspectives on the overall field of education from each of my group members’ outlines, media, and proposed publications. Additionally, I learned the importance of active listening, particularly in providing feedforward rather than just feedback.
The exercise of reading and providing feedback on their writing has led me to improve my own delivery. Articulating my thoughts on my creative process in words was a difficult task, but the feedback and feedforward from Tamie, Sarah, Kennedy, and Ashley provided me with a successful drafting process as I revised each of the assignments. Initially, I tended to over-explain the technical complexity of video editing, and my group members, acting as my first audience, consistently helped me refine my language to focus on the educational outcome.
Over the duration of EDLD 5317, I completed all course readings, watched the provided videos and resources, and attended and rewatched the class meetings. I met all deadlines for the course assignments, presenting what I believe to be my best work. Concluding with this page, I have organized the publication strategy in a format that can be easily shared, which includes links to all previous resources.
If I could change one thing, it would be to propose structuring our feedback and feedforward differently so we can utilize our notes to each other as a database. The multiple methods of communication were helpful; however, they scattered our conversations, making it difficult to organize the feedback.
Contributions to my learning community have enhanced my efforts, as the feedback and feedforward from my group have helped me craft a publication strategy that will resonate with the music education community.
Conclusion of Course and Your Learning
This course has transformed my experimentation with content creation into a formalized publication strategy. I began with an innovation born of necessity during the blended learning environment of 2020, and I leave with a professional digital footprint that articulates a clear vision (Hughes & Roblyer, 2023). The strategy of creating media that can model complex concepts and becoming an influencer educator is grounded in the cognitive science principle that learning is an active, dynamic process (Hughes & Roblyer, 2023). By synthesizing an outline, a peer-reviewed article, a media project podcast, and this reflection, I have demonstrated the ability to be a leader who can effectively communicate and present innovative digital learning initiatives while ensuring that student learning is always first.
References
Dhallé, J.-P. (2022, October 14). Photo of black and white piano keys. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-black-and-white-piano-keys-14029214/
fauxels. (2019, November 5). Photo of person holding laptop. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-holding-laptop-3184164/
Hughes, J. E., & Roblyer, M. D. (2023). Integrating educational technology into teaching: Transforming learning across disciplines (9th ed.). Pearson.
Swick, T. (2022, November 30). Case study: Using YouTube as a teaching tool. Yamaha Music. https://hub.yamaha.com/music-educators/learn-peers/case-studies/ellis-elementary-youtube/