Flash Animation

After many unsuccessful attempts, I FINALLY posted my flash animation successfully on my website! Here is a run-down of how it all happened:

1. I download Adobe Photoshop CS4 without realizing that you can't make flash animations in Photoshop (duh). I return to the Adobe website to download the correct program, Flash CS4.
2. I import a bunch of Christmas-y images to create A Very Special Christmas Flash, and play around with the different ways of manipulating the pictures to become a flash animation. (This was surprisingly the easiest part of the process.)
3. I save my work as a ".fla" file. I import this into my public.html directory and find that is NOT the way to post a flash on the internet.
4. I publish my work and import the "flash.html" into my public.html directory. Again it doesn't work.
5. I discover you need both the .html and the .swf files in one directory for the flash to run. Accordingly, I import both into public.html and still it doesn't work.
6. I find out that renaming the files after you have published will prevent the animation from playing. So, I import the .html and .swf files into public.html exactly as I named them when I published, and, voila, my animation appears.

I was often frustrated through this process because I didn't know what I was doing wrong, and even after searching the internet I couldn't find the answer. It seemed the only way to figure out the problem was with the help of the professor. (Thankfully the professor is almost always available and willing to help!)

So what does this all mean to the music educator? I think there will be many times when students keep trying and trying and don't quite "get it," whether the "it" be playing an instrument or singing or composing or improvising. Also, students usually don't have the resources at home to solve musical problems.

To alleviate this problem, I wonder how music educators can provide their students with resources for solving problems. The resources could be over a myriad of media. I could make practice CDs with examples of right and wrong ways of playing, and examples of interpretation. I could also post those audio files on the internet. Additionally, I would consider being available at a specified time by AIM or Gchat to answer practice questions in real time. (I know it might be really hard to get students to use that; they may not want to practice at that specific time. But I could take a survey to find out the most common practice times and fit my online chat into that time. I might even vary the day from week-to-week to give access to different students each week.)

In short, I can infer that music education doesn't stop when class is over. We put so much responsibility on our students to practice outside of class, but we don't provide them with the tools for successful practice sessions. I hope in the future I will be able to provide examples of successful practicing during class, then make available the resources I mentioned above. Hopefully this will produce students who can use their own know-how to solve musical problems, and know when and how to access available resources when their know-how falls short.