Dmlis 540 Spring 2004 Information System Project mecca pop and Jazz Music For Family Learning and Enjoyment All Team members participated in the development of the spec Project Manager: Carolyn Karis Information Architect: Emily Wheeler
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- Home-schooling Scenario using Mecca
- Sample images and fonts
2.2. User experienceScenario: A scenario from the experience of the Garner family illustrates the user experience. The Garners want to incorporate the Mecca music website into their home-schooling of Maggie and Ewan. The entire family enjoys music but the parents wish to use music as a means to expand and deepen the education of the children. As home-schooling parents, they maintain the educational philosophy that integration of all disciplines provides the best means to learn. Recently Maggie has expressed an interest in the music of Nelly Furtado. Maggie heard the music at a friend’s house and came home bubbling about this great new music and played several of the songs from the borrowed album. After listening, Lou, her father, thought he heard some ethnic elements in the music and suggested that together they check Nelly’s website. Learning that Nelly has a Portuguese heritage that influenced her music, Lou decided that this music offered a learning opportunity. [Note: in the home-school philosophy the focus is upon learning opportunities, not teaching opportunities.] In doing some further research on his own, Lou learns that Nelly draws influences from “…Leonard Cohen, …Bob Marley,…Soul, good films, visual art, … jazz and “improvisational anything” (quote from Nelly Furtado Biography, http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Nelly-Furtado-Biography/3498BA0A64523A5148256A08000F9FF8 . This biography spurs Lou to create a learning challenge for Maggie and Ewan. Lou himself has always had an interest in jazz. He now thinks that Nelly’s music can provide the impetus for an in depth study of the history of jazz. He will follow the path of interest of his child (Maggie’s interest in the pop singer Nelly Furtado) in developing the learning experiences around the topic of the history of jazz. For this “unit” on the history of jazz, or Journey into Jazz, the children will follow the jazz elements present in pop songs, rock and roll, etc. back to their jazz roots. Some places to explore will be information on jazz artists, the instruments used in jazz, the links of jazz to the Harlem Renaissance, which as a cultural and social movement included visual art (especially painting and graphic art), music, poetry, theatre, and the cultural rise of the Black artist. The historical time period with its ethnic and cultural connections would provide insight into this truly American music, which has influenced the world. Lou feels that starting with jazz would be excellent for home-schooling. The topic is rich in music, history, culture, and social elements. He is excited about the approach and knows that he will share it with others in the home-schooling network.
Maggie has gotten to like Nelly Furtado. Her best friend clued Maggie into Nelly. Maggie heard some of Nelly's music at her friend’s house but she wants more. After first hearing Nelly’s music, Maggie came home bubbling about the music. Lou listened but didn’t immediately pick up on any possible home-schooling use for this new interest of Maggie. A few days later while exploring the Net, Maggie stumbles upon Mecca. She notices two things on Mecca's website: an album cover image showing Nelly and a way to get more songs and information about Nelly. Maggie decides to click on the album cover. It's the one for the album of "Whoa, Nelly!" that shows Nelly lying in the grass. Maggie has seen Nelly’s “Folklore" album and its cover at her friend’s but doesn't know this album and is curious. At this point, Maggie notices that she can do several things. She can get a list of the songs on the album or listen to sound clips of the songs on the album. Always first finding what she likes by sound, Maggie clicks to listen to the sound clips. From the list, she chooses “I'm Like a Bird,” a rather funny title. She likes the sound of the song, tries one or two others and comes back to the “I'm Like a Bird” clip just as her dad Lou enters the room. Lou quickly takes in the Net activity of his daughter and particularly notices that Maggie is listening to something interesting. Being a wise parent, he asks to hear the song clip again. Maggie is happy to share this newfound piece with her dad. At this point Lou recalls that Maggie has mentioned Nelly Furtado before. Lou, as he's listening, notices the "rather seductive looking" image of Nelly Furtado that's on the album cover, still showing on the screen. Deciding that he needs to learn a little more, Lou asks Maggie about Nelly. Who is she? Maggie knows that Nelly is her most favorite singer of the moment and sings these wonderful songs. But Maggie knows little else. Lou decides in his mind that he needs to do some more research before either encouraging or discouraging Maggie in her interest. Lou is concerned about the stuff Maggie might find on the Net. He asks Maggie what website she’s on. He learns that it is Mecca, a site he just recently read about in the paper. He mentally notes the URL and then involves Maggie in some conversation about a home-schooling project which leads her off of the Mecca website and even out of the house. He had come into the room to start collecting Maggie for her swim lesson. Back home from the swim lesson, Lou uses the Web to hunt up the article he had read in the local paper, The Eugene Register-Guard, about Mecca. Recalling the URL, he visits Mecca again—on his own. He wonders why an educational site such as Mecca would include Furtado. He searches for Furtado. He notes that there are two Furtados, Nelly and Stephen. He notes that Nelly is listed in the Rock/Pop category but Stephen is in Jazz. Because Lou likes Jazz, he explores Stephen Furtado and learns after some time on the Mecca website that Stephen played trumpet with the Count Bassie Orchestra and one of the albums included songs of Bessie Smith. Intrigued by the name connection to jazz, Lou wonders if there is any other connection. He remembers that the sound of the Nelly Furtado song he heard earlier that day had hints of jazz. Lou searches for Nelly Furtado and listens to several songs before he finds the “I’m Like a Bird” song, the one Maggie had been playing. Listening confirms his thought of a possible jazz element. He notices that Mecca allows searching of the background and bios of Artists. From the biography of Nelly, he learns that she has Portuguese heritage and that jazz influenced her. She played trombone in a jazz band in high school and she draws influence from jazz and “improvisational anything.” At this point, Lou decides Maggie’s new interest in Nelly Furtado will be a great learning opportunity for some guided home-schooling. Drawing upon his background knowledge of jazz, Lou searches out some important jazz greats: Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Duke Ellington. He also notices that Mecca has both classic jazz names and current artists such as Wynton Marsalis, the founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He thinks that the Furtado name opens up the way to jazz. In doing some preliminary searching on Mecca, he notices that the site allows parents to build a set of items as home-schooling lesson guides or unit starters. He likes the possibilities this suggests. He searches for, locates, and saves pictures of Armstrong, Smith, and Ellington into his newly created Music Toolkit. He finds the colorful album cover of Wynton Marsalis’s “Magic Hour.” He also easily finds clips of their music. Some of these clips contain elements that resemble what he had heard in Nelly’s music. He rounds out this first “lesson plan” by including links to that bio of Nelly that mentioned jazz, a brief description of jazz that mentions jazz instruments such as the trumpet. Lou notices that the Mecca website includes instruments but he decides to save that for Nelly and Ewan to explore on their own. Knowing that Ewan, his son, likes album covers and pictures, Lou is happy to notice that Mecca provides lots of images. He observes that the site includes not only musicians but also some art images showing jazz musicians or jazzy scenes. He doesn’t explore fully but some of the paintings remind him of the Harlem Renaissance. Just before finishing, Lou finds a link to a San Diego County Office of Education website with lesson plans on the Harlem Renaissance. With just a cursory look, he notices that there are links to jazz musicians, artists, and writers connected with the Harlem Renaissance on this website. http://dewey.chs.chico.k12.ca.us/har-ren.html. He decides to save this link to a separate parent Music Toolkit. Overall, Lou was beginning to realize that this Mecca site would live up to the claims he had read in the paper. The site could provide the basis for much learning by his two home-schooled children. He finds that the site has a jazzy/commercial look rather than the staid educational look and feel of most educational website. Since Maggie had found it and used it, he knew that it appeals to kids and not just adults. He is glad that he hadn’t reacted negatively to his daughter’s “pop” listening and the “seductive” album cover. He has always wanted to get her interested in jazz (his main musical interest), but up until now she had just tolerated listening to jazz. Now he thinks he might have a way to involve her and spark her interest. He knows that the Furtado name, common to Nelly and Stephen, and the jazzy sound of Nelly’s music will be the entry key. He thinks that Ewan can get involved also. Ewan will like the album covers and the colorful art of the Harlem Renaissance painters. Lou knows a few of these artists but he knows he could and will learn lots more. The next day Lou casually mentions to Maggie that he liked the sound of Nelly Furtado and that overnight he had been thinking that it reminded him of some of the jazz music he likes. Maggie frowns a little but decides to give her dad a chance to explain since he suggests that they go back together to that website where she had listened to Nelly’s music yesterday. Maggie says she hadn’t really noticed what site she was on and she doesn’t know if she can find it again—the Web is just so huge and she has often found it hard to find things. When her dad Lou says that he remembers how to get to Mecca, Maggie is really impressed. Together they sit down to explore. Lou decides to just let Maggie explore with some suggestions before directing her to his chosen items. He had found Mecca easy to search and thinks Maggie will have fun learning. Lou suggests that Maggie look up Furtado to see everything that the website has for Furtado. He knows that this search by name will lead Maggie to both Nelly and Stephen. And, of course, it does. Maggie is surprised and curious. Questions such as, Are they related? Do they perform the same type of music? start Maggie on the journey into jazz. With her father guiding, Maggie checks out the biography of Nelly, reads the background on Stephen Furtado that links him to Count Bassie and Bessie Smith. They listen to some clips of Bassie and Bessie. And of course, more by Nelly. Ewan joins them just as Lou is showing Maggie some of his findings. Ewan is immediately attracted to the album cover of Marsalis and the art images of the Village Quartet by Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden’s Jamming at the Savoy. The instruments in those pictures move the trio into an exploration of jazz instruments and their sound. Some time during the morning lesson which has totally engrossed the trio, Maggie notices the words Harlem Renaissance and wonders what that means. Lou starts to explain but decides that they have spent enough time for one day. He shows Maggie how to save items into her own learning Toolkit. [Note: The prototype of the Music Toolkit for learning can be found at http://www.arabissmo.net/meccahomepage/Login.asp.] He helps Ewan create a special Ewan Music Toolkit and save some of his favorite things—mostly images and song samples. Maggie’s Toolkit has a mixture of song samples, bios, lyrics to “I’m Like a Bird” (her current favorite Nelly song) and almost everything she has found so far related to Nelly, and some other links such as: Bessie Smith—PBS Jazz http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_smith_bessie.htm Louis Armstrong and Jazz -- http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_armstrong_louis.htm Golden Age of Jazz (American Memory http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wghtml/wghome.html Duke Ellington—NYT 100 anniversary http://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/ellington-index.html. Lou suggests that tomorrow the three of them should go to the library to get some books about jazz and about the Harlem Renaissance. With the books, they will have a way to explore more deeply into Jazz and the Mecca site. They are well into a Journey into Jazz. And so begins a long and happy relationship between the Garner family and the Mecca website. The Garner family will use the Mecca website almost daily as part of their home-schooling lessons. The richness of the site will not soon be exhausted. Lou also thinks about the possibility of trying to catch a concert that includes Wynton Marsalis. He hopes that he will be appearing at one of the many Eugene musical events. And perhaps the family can experience Jazz at Lincoln Center if they are ever in New York City. (http://www.artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/perform/lincoln.asp). The scenarios suggest several elements of the User Experience. The sounds of music will be the main entry point for the user. Multiple means of searching will be necessary. The site will be both kid-friendly and interesting for an adult. The site will use bright colors, such as those suggested by the paintings of Harlem Renaissance painters Archibald J. Motley and Jacob Lawrence. This art incorporated into the site will provide the means for home-schoolers to integrate all arts into the study of the jazz music and the history of jazz. Since children find San Serif fonts easier to read (research by International Reading Association, IRA), most fonts will be selected from the San Serif family. Sample images and fonts:
Jazz-Poetry: 1920-30s, found at <http://members.cox.net/academia/jazzpoems.html>, has a soft appearance which is more adult than the look and feel that Mecca seeks to develop. However, the website does offer some ideas for the inter-connections of Jazz, Poetry, and Music. The PBS website African American World includes a section on Arts and Cultures that highlights the Harlem Renaissance Arts & Culture. This site, found at <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/arts/spotlight.html>, also offers some ideas for the look and feel. The design for the website will have elements of the clean but appealing look of the Exploratorium site < http://www.exploratorium.edu>, an educational website devoted to science. Another website that provides a suggested look and feel for Mecca is the new Britannica Original Sources database. Bright, attractive colors, an uncluttered page with only the essential features presented will be most appealing to the home-schooling families. Young people, aged 6-12, plus their parents will be the primary users of the Mecca site. It is important to make the site easy to use and visually appealing without being too childish since home-schooling adults will be guiding their children in the use of the site.
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