Our company has held the “Finale Intensive Course” for the past few courses, and in this article, based on our experience holding the course, we would like to consider the general pros and cons of online courses and the future possibilities of online courses.
[Table of Contents]
1. Pros and cons in terms of planning
1-1. Face-to-face courses before going online
1-2. Changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the online-zation of the “Finale Intensive Course”
1-3. What are the cons of online courses?
2. Pros and cons in terms of operation
2-1. The audio/visual environment can be optimized for individuals
2-2. Use of supplementary teaching videos and trial of flipped classrooms
2-3. To facilitate communication between instructors and students
3. Conclusion and future possibilities
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1. Pros and cons in terms of planning
First, let's consider the pros and cons from the perspective of planning, that is, feasibility in terms of cost. In conclusion, when comparing online courses with face-to-face courses in terms of planning, I can only think of pros, and almost no cons.
1-1. Face-to-face courses before going online
The roots of the “Finale Intensive Course” held by our company go back to a face-to-face course of the same name that I was in charge of planning and held in the summer of 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, online courses were not common, and the courses offered by music production software vendors were mainly courses held in cooperation with educational institutions such as universities and music stores, where the employees in charge served as visiting lecturers, or courses planned by the company itself using conference rooms or event spaces.
These face-to-face courses all involve the movement of people and goods, so participants cannot participate if they live in rural areas and cannot travel to the venue in a city, and organizers have to pay for the transportation costs of staff and equipment, and in some cases accommodation and venue costs, and ultimately cannot hold the course if there is no prospect of recovering these costs through tickets and product sales.
1-2. Changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the online-zation of the "Finale Intensive Course"
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, led to a long-term abnormal situation in which traditional face-to-face courses could not be held at all, but this triggered the rapid development of online communication technology in society, and online courses, especially those using Zoom, became widely used.
By going online, the cost of moving people and goods was basically reduced to zero. Organizers could hold courses at any time as long as they had a place to distribute the course and staff and instructors available, and participants could take the course at home no matter where they lived as long as they had the internet connection. This is an advantage of online courses in terms of planning.
In fact, after the Finale Intensive Course went online, participants who live outside the Tokyo area accounted for approximately 80-90% of the courses every time, and this continues to be the case to this day.
1-3. What are the disadvantages of online courses?
The disadvantage of online courses in terms of planning is that participants cannot participate if they do not have an online environment, such as a viewing device or an internet connection. (However, this can be solved by getting support from family or friends, and is not a fundamental disadvantage.)
2. Advantages and disadvantages in terms of operation
In addition to the planning advantages of not being bound by time and space and keeping costs down, online courses also have operational advantages.
2-1. The audio/visual environment can be optimized for individuals
In face-to-face courses, such as courses on how to use software, it is common for the computer desktop screen to be displayed behind the podium on a projector or large display, but this can be problematic in that the screen can be difficult to see depending on the seats of the students in the classroom, and in some cases it can be difficult to create an optimal audio environment.
However, in the case of online courses, students can view the software operation screen shared by the instructor on their own computer screen with the same viewing angle and resolution as if they were operating it themselves, and they can use the audio environment that each viewer normally uses. These are the benefits of taking an online course that are difficult to achieve in a face-to-face setting.
2-2. Use of supplementary video materials and trial of flipped classroom
We have been paying attention to the flipped classroom method as a new way of taking courses that mainly uses videos provided online.
This is a teaching method that takes advantage of the characteristics of video materials, such as being able to change the playback speed to suit your learning situation and being able to watch the same content repeatedly, so students can use the video materials in advance to prepare at their own pace, and then pursue deeper learning in the lectures they take afterwards.
What we learned from actually adopting the flipped classroom style was that there was a greater demand for review videos that recorded the lecture content provided for review than for the preparation videos that we had taken a long time to prepare.
While the preparation videos were introduced in each course and their audience continued to grow, the review videos were only available to a few students on that day, but on average the number of views per week was nearly twice as high as the preparation videos.
This was because the students in the Finale Intensive Course were basically working adults, and they could not find the time to watch the preparation videos in the limited time before the lecture, even if these videos were only a few minutes long each.
Also, they may have thought that it would be more efficient to watch the review videos after the lecture, once they had gained a certain understanding, rather than spending the same amount of time watching them in their busy schedules.
For this reason, the Finale Intensive Course did not stick to the original concept of the flipped classroom, but instead changed its policy to make full use of the benefits of video materials by focusing on the review videos instead of the preparation videos.
Specifically, we set up a detailed table of contents for a review video that is only available on YouTube for an unlimited viewing period, for example “00:32:56 Incomplete Beam Tool”, so that viewers can quickly access the part they want to review by searching keywords in their browser.
This takes several hours to prepare, but we do it after every lecture because it is not only convenient for the students, but also an important resource for the organizers to provide better lectures in the future.
2-3. To facilitate communication between instructors and students
One of the disadvantages of online courses is that the density of communication between instructors and students is low, making it difficult for instructors to get responses to gauge the students' level of understanding.
Especially when there is variation in the participants' levels of understanding and proficiency, it may be more difficult to take care of this in online lectures than in face-to-face lectures.
When the Finale Intensive Course was first made online, we used the breakout rooms feature of Zoom to compensate for this, but we found that it was often more useful to share answers to individual questions with the entire class, so we eventually discontinued using the breakout rooms after the second session.
Instead, we reduced the enrollment limit from a maximum of eight people in face-to-face courses to four, with a maximum of six, as it became possible to hold courses at a lower cost, and we enhanced communication with participants through other ways, such as by conducting individual email correspondence later.
3. Conclusion and future possibilities
If we summarize our findings so far in a table, it looks like this.
Because online courses are more cost-effective than face-to-face courses, we expect their use to expand in the future, particularly for classes in areas that can be completed on a computer screen, such as how to use software and using it to compose and arrange music.
In music classes at schools, we often hear people say, "I would like to learn software and use it in my classes, but I don't have the time." However, we believe that with the spread of higher quality online courses in the future, music educators will have more opportunities to learn software efficiently, which could contribute to laying the foundations for better music education.