Welcome
So after years of much resistance, I have decided to finally start blogging - however - with a difference. Unlike many of the other blogs I have seen, I don't want this to be a ego-driven, navel-grazing, vehicle of narcissistic ramblings. Instead, the main purpose for this blog is to provide a space for my online students in GHUM 1040 -"Good Vibrations: The Evolution of Pop Music" - to discuss the issues, concerns, discoveries, and insights that you and I will develop over the course of the semester. Our course moves from the early days of American Popular Music to whatever we are listening to today and my experience has shown me that students - especially online students - need a forum to discuss the material and their discovery of it. It is my hope that this blog provides that forum.
Music - especially popular music - needs to be alive to be vital. In a somewhat sterile environment like online learning, that vitality can sometimes gets lost. What I hope to achieve here is to apply "jumper cables" to our material - to use video and sound clips, interviews, articles, YouTube pages, and whatever else we find interesting and relevant to give our course depth and substance that we might lack if we limit our exploration to just the textbook and PowerPoints.
This will not be done by me alone. Effective online teaching occurs on both sides of the computer screen. You have insights and perceptions about the music and other course material that is just as valuable as mine. Let's share what we know and feel with each and let's use this space as the place to do it.
I am looking forward to this new experience and hope that you be will as excited as I am. Let's see what we can each discover in this journey through the Evolution of Pop Music. As the old Louis Jordan song goes: "Let the Good Times Roll!!!"
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