Week 7 Reflection - Productivity through technology

As I began reading this week, I was really excited to find myself thinking "ooo, I do that....I do that too!" at many of the technologies Bauer mentions in communication and organization. Perhaps what I feel I have gotten out of this class that has been so beneficial was how to combine certain technologies to make my life more efficient. For example, on the first week of class we were asked to set up a Feedly account. I had never heard of Feedly, but have since found it very helpful to get all that information routed into one location for my review. I even attached all our class blogs and twitter feeds into Feedly so I didn't have to go to three different places each time I needed to work on a PLN assignment. This week, I feel like One Note is the technology that has the potential to be a "Feedly" for my classroom. I can plan lessons, attach resources, send email, link notes and much more all in one place. I particularly liked how One Note takes certain aspects of other technology that I like to use (such as Google docs collaborations) and included those features in a more central location.

Throughout this music technology course we have been exploring how students relate to technology. Another feature that I appreciate a little more each day about technology is how more and more is available for free, cross-platform and "in the cloud" or available on any device. I find myself often beginning a project at school and having to finish it at home. I think back to my school days and the frustration I felt when I didn't have enough time in school to complete a project, so I wouldn't start until I got home. This was a waste of my learning time and frustrated both my teachers and me! Even if students don't have access to a computer at home, it seems that most have access to a smart phone or tablet computer. These technologies are making it so much easier to gain access to projects, reminders, notes, etc that students will soon have no excuse for not completing work because they "didn't have access" or it "got forgot at home..."

Perhaps what I find most amazing about many of the technologies we have studied over the past several weeks is the opportunity for collaboration. When all is said and done, our job as educators isn't to make sure each kid leaves with a vast knowledge of music (even though that is our hope and often our goal) but it is to make sure that each student leaves with the tools to become an upstanding, productive, collaborative and motivated member of society. This is exactly why we insist on the dreaded group projects...its not because we enjoy making you partner with someone you don't like, or because we are "life ruiners..." no, we want you to learn to work in diverse environments, with diverse people, working together to create something that betters you and the others around you. These technologies are allowing us to work together, while not physically together. The idea that you could create a song as a class and send it to another classroom across the world is a fantastic, but very achievable goal with the aid of technology. Overall, this course has excited me about the idea of using technology to enhance what I am already doing in my classroom and to explore new ides and methods to give my students better tools each day!

One Note Overview/Review

One Note was something I was very unfamiliar with before this week. In my previous position the entire school was moving to Office 365 and I was very excited to use this technology to create interactive lessons with my smart board and integrate videos and audio clips into lesson where I was introducing new music. The idea that I could tie my email and calendar to this as well was very exciting – but I don’t seem to remember much about One Note.

            That being said, I could really see how One Note would be very beneficial to any teacher, but especially a music teacher. We spent most of last week discussing how to reach students in this technological world and with the music that they enjoy listening and responding to. Having so many tools like linked notes, easy access to pictures/videos, etc would make meeting these students on their turf so much easier! I was also surprised by how One Note seemed to combine several other technologies that I am already used to using, such as Google Docs, email, and some of the lesson planning aspects like WebQuest. With how busy everyone is, this helps keep everything in a central location. On the other hand, there was so much packed into those videos, I feel it would take me a while to play around with this (like all summer) in order to set this up to be used with the most efficiency. There is nothing I hate more than trying a new technology and feeling like I don’t know how to use it to get the most out of it! I am also confused as to how this fits in with Office 365? Is it the same or a separate program? If your school has a subscription to 365, how do you use both programs to the biggest advantage?

            Overall, I look forward to playing around with One Note further and finding new ways to incorporate this into my classroom while keeping myself more organized. I have attached a screen shot of my first quick notes after downloading One Note and setting up an account. This was so easy to add pictures, I could write myself reminders - I could even put daily agendas up on the board this way...(and just for fun...don't you think my baby looks like Carlos?! I laughed pretty hard!)

Week 6 Reflection - Responding to Music

I feel like I consistently have to re-evaluate the way I was taught music and how that translates into my teaching style today. I have always been so focused in my own education and in my classroom on working with the students who have an interest in music and participate in band and/or choir. But more and more I find myself asking why we don't provide classes to incorporate those students who may not want to perform music, but do find music interesting in their own way? I was taught to teach the classics and to appreciate "classical" music, and yet, I find much of that boring - why wouldn't the kids I teach? But it is ingrained in my head that to learn to listen to, respond to and teach more "modern" music is basically blasphemy to all a school's band and choir program holds dear! (OK, a bit dramatic, I know).

I'm still skeptical, but I was very interested in Elizabeth's story from our Bauer text. This excerpt described a classroom in which many of the "classical" techniques, vocabulary and concepts were taught in relation to modern music that students were invested in. In real life would this work? I still find it a little unbelievable that the discipline issues magically went away and these uninterested kids from weeks before were so excited that they would stop their teacher in the hallway for music discussions - but I find myself asking, if that was a possibility, would I be willing to make a change in my philosophy to find out if this could be a reality. I have argued many times for music in the schools and how important music is for social, emotional and even physical development that all students should be involved in music - but I have also found out that students who have no interest or investment in the subject rarely receive those benefits. This leads me to the conclusion that I need to find a way, like Elizabeth did, to relate to students in new ways that can blend the "classical music education" with modern songs and technologies to reach each student and not just the students who are already invested in a band or choir program.

The other point that really hit home for me was how music is part of the human experience. All cultures have music and music can effect everyone in a culture. Music draws out emotion, moods, even sets toes tapping from people who swear they have no rhythm and "don't like music." If every person is "pre-programmed" to relate to music, my goal as a teacher is to find the "right" kind of music to motivate each student. This prospect both excites me and scares me to death...what if I can't relate to their music. I guess I need to teach myself to appreciate music as I teach students to appreciate music. I think I will have to begin this process by revising my philosophies about modern music...yikes!

Designing Instruction noitcurtsnI gningiseD - Week 5 Reflection

This week's materials were a really great reminder and walk through of instructional design techniques for me. Specifically, I really enjoyed exploring WebQuest this week as I had never used or even heard of this program before. I particularly appreciated how the WebQuest works as a kind of outline and really emphasizes backwards design. As a teacher, I feel I have always struggled in writing lesson plans because I wasn't sold on the value of a written out plan that I would end up changing several times in a performance-based classroom class period. However, the idea of backwards design makes so much more sense to me as a music performer. By determining the end goals, I can design an entire concert circle around a final outcome. This backwards design still allows me the freedom to make adjustments to the daily plan while working towards a solid final goal. I could see myself making a "big plan" lesson plan, but perhaps not as specific of daily plans to better incorporate the "pros" of this system into my instructional design.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how easy WebQuest was to use. I felt like this site really helped me organize my ideas better than a traditional lesson plan and was a great way to incorporate technology. Just writing the outline helped me to better organize my thoughts and put them forth in a more organized, clear and concise way. I was also surprised by how easy it was to incorporate other resources such as videos and reference sites into the lesson plan. My goal was to have a video for each instrument playing the same "popular" song so kids can hear the similarities and differences in the sound and get them excited about hearing a song they love (which is why I chose "Let It Go" from Frozen).

I also found the refresher on evaluations, well, refreshing. Perhaps the concept that stuck out to me the most was how to make musical assessments authentic. This was another topic I always struggled with in undergrad because the assessment methods they taught didn't seem to directly relate to music for me. In reading the Bauer chapters this week, it was really helpful to see musical examples of how some authentic assessments methods in certain contexts are not authentic in others. In the example our text gave us, Bauer stated that if the goal was to see how many major scales a student could play on their instruments, a paper and pencil test in which they wrote the scales out would not be an authentic assessment of the task at hand. This really helped me put assessment into perspective for me. WebQuest also helped me this week in honing my rubric writing skills. Having a rubric already formatted and simply needing to fill in, with the added assistance of other WebQuests as a model helped me create an authentic assessment for this upcoming WebQuest project.

Week 4 Reflection - Using Technology to enhance the music classroom

I came into this class expecting this chapter to be the focal point, goal and outcome of this class. I wanted to have a my question answered; "How can I use technology to enhance my music teaching?" Most of the software, hardware and other technologies we have used during this class have been completely new to me which is both exciting and overwhelming. This week I finally felt like I was on somewhat familiar ground.

As I read Chapter 4, I was a bit surprised that Bauer went into so much detail about music teaching methods. These were all things that I had to actually take classes on to get my teaching license, and yet it was refreshing to have a reminder given from the viewpoint of music teaching - because let's face it, most of us were taught "how to teach" by someone who was not musical at all. I particularly related to the idea that musicians are often already intrinsically motivated by music. As music educators, we work so hard to find new ways to motivate students, and not that we can stop doing that, but sometimes I forget that these students are generally in music because they want to be. This idea really helped me relate back to one of our first weeks in class; one music teacher on the lecture video pointed out that our job is to teach music effectively, but if we can do it better with technology, then it is our job to "do it better." That is what this chapter emulated to me.

I also enjoyed working with the software we got to explore this week. SmartMusic was one of the few programs we have worked with in this class that I am somewhat familiar with. I have certainly enjoyed and benefited from learning about new technologies, but it is encouraging to be on familiar ground. I wrote fairly expansively on my experience with SmartMusic in my other blog post this week, but I have included a bit of a recap as it is an essential piece of what I focused on this week.
      SmartMusic would be a bit more difficult to implement in the classroom because there is the cost factor, needing to have computers available for student use and/or requiring students to obtain their own microphone and software for home use. There is also a fair amount of setup work that has to be done by the teacher, such as setting up assignments, finding the correct books to align with the class method book, etc. However, once the footwork has been done to prepare to use SmartMusic, I always felt it was an incredibly easy program to use. Students can simply select their assignment or an exercise out of a book and play along. The program provides immediate feedback in green and red not only notating if the student made a mistake, but what that mistake was (was it the wrong note? the wrong rhythm? etc.) and notates it in red to make it easy to see and correct (see screen shot below from the SmartMusic website). As a teacher, although the computer grades it automatically, I can still override the grading system. SmartMusic also allows me to see how long it took a student to complete the exercise, record their playing, and store recordings on my iPad or tablet for use at parent conferences or lessons with the student. As students grow "out of" the method books, smart accompaniments become available which has really helped my high school students rehearse for solo/ensemble contests. These accompaniments listen to the player as a real accompanist would and will match the tempo of the performer. I think this is an incredibly powerful teaching and learning tool and, in my experience, is something the kids enjoy using! It makes practicing much more appealing and provides educators with tangible progress proof, taking away some of the subjectivity of grading performances. 

This week has really gotten me excited to get back in a music classroom next year and begin to implement not only these new technologies I am learning about each week, but building/scaffolding on the music teaching methods and technologies I am already familiar with. 

Chromatik vs. SmartMusic

As someone who has seen SmartMusic implemented in the classroom, I was already sold on using SmartMusic in the classroom. This assignment left something to be desired because you can't really play around with SmartMusic the way you could with Chromatik because it isn't free, however in my experience SmartMusic is well worth the cost.

SmartMusic would be a bit more difficult to implement in the classroom because there is the cost factor, needing to have computers available for student use and/or requiring students to obtain their own microphone and software for home use. There is also a fair amount of setup work that has to be done by the teacher, such as setting up assignments, finding the correct books to align with the class method book, etc. However, once the footwork has been done to prepare to use SmartMusic, I always felt it was an incredibly easy program to use. Students can simply select their assignment or an exercise out of a book and play along. The program provides immediate feedback in green and red not only notating if the student made a mistake, but what that mistake was (was it the wrong note? the wrong rhythm? etc.) and notates it in red to make it easy to see and correct (see screen shot below from the SmartMusic website). As a teacher, although the computer grades it automatically, I can still override the grading system. SmartMusic also allows me to see how long it took a student to complete the exercise, record their playing, and store recordings on my iPad or tablet for use at parent conferences or lessons with the student. As students grow "out of" the method books, smart accompaniments become available which has really helped my high school students rehearse for solo/ensemble contests. These accompaniments listen to the player as a real accompanist would and will match the tempo of the performer. I think this is an incredibly powerful teaching and learning tool and, in my experience, is something the kids enjoy using! It makes practicing much more appealing and provides educators with tangible progress proof, taking away some of the subjectivity of grading performances.


 On the other hand, I was given the opportunity to explore Chromatik this week as well. I have had no personal experience with Chromatik and so the only reflection I can give is on the basic information I received from the website, lecture and a limited amount of time to explore the site myself.  I believe that implementing Chromatik in a classroom would be much easier than SmartMusic. This is a free program which solves the issue of finances for both the school and the students. This is also web-based (not software) and cross-platform which means it is more accessible to students anywhere they are going. There are apps available as well for tablets, smart phones and of course, access via computer/laptop. For these reasons, Chromatik would be easier to implement in a classroom. From my limited experience with Chromatik, this is where the classroom benefits end. Although the site is easy to use, there was limited repertoire and although it provides a play along feature using videos, it doesn't visually show you where mistakes were made. Students can still record their performance and submit it as an assignment, but the feedback isn't immediate and it would be up to the teacher to grade each individual assignment, make annotated corrections and send it back to the student. The screen shot below shows the features that I would most use for educational purposes in tracking progress of students. I can see where the music selection would be more intriguing to a student - seeing as how I explored mostly with the Disney's Frozen sheet music! These are songs that excite kids and could be used to simply get them to play their instrument/sing more.

Perhaps with more actual experience with Chromatik I would begin to see more benefits for the music classroom. In my opinion, I feel like SmartMusic wins hands down for the music classroom, but Chromatik could be a great tool to inspire kids to practice and perform more music they enjoy!