I’m a little late in posting this, but still wanted to share a few thoughts…
On 14 November Drake Music held a London team training day. It was great to see that in addition to the London team, there were quite a few new faces in the crowd who were interested in learning about Drake Music – about 20 people in all! After introductions, Gawain (DM Associate Musician and recently appointed Associate National Manager of Research and Development) led the morning session on assistive music technology (AMT) used within DM. We discussed some definitions, an overview of lesson planning, and then dove into learning about the actual AMT. The majority of the session was spent on setting up and using the Soundbeam. Personally, I found this to be helpful as I feel it is one of the more intimidating instruments to set up and one of the more likely to remain inside its box burried within a school closet. A bit of time was devoted to learn about the Skoog, which is fairly intuitive with its plug-and-play design. And last but not least, a few minutes on the iPad, including features such as Guided Access and a couple recommended apps. At this point we took a lunch break and had the opportunity to get our hands on the AMT. Demo’ing the Soundbeam below is DM’s very own Phoebe Osborne (Associate Musician and Trusts and Foundations Fundraiser).
We spent the afternoon session on disability equality training with Lynn Cox, a disability arts consultant and equality/awareness trainer. We started out in small groups to discuss the portrayal and representation of disabled people in the arts and media, which I found to be an enlightening experience. Upon initial thought, some characters seemed to be portrayed in a positive light, however, Lynn shared a variety of perspectives with us and really challenged our thinking. We discussed some disability myths, the models of disability (mainly social vs. medical), appropriate terminology (which I’ll point out is actually a bit different in America in some cases), and we discussed several scenarios of how to assist disabled people. All in all, it was an informative day and great learning opportunity!
