This week, our primary topics were using technology for assessment and for personal productivity and organization. Our activities for this week included interacting with our PLNs, completing the assigned readings about assessment and professional productivity, creating a quiz using Google Forms, beginning to develop our class ePortfolios, exploring technological tools for administration and productivity, and participating in the class discussion board.
With my PLN, I found several resources that were very useful for classroom organization. One of them was a "mega-binder," which contained all of the worksheets and lesson plans for a unit organized together in a binder. To incorporate this with technology, I can either use software that will make the worksheets an original copy which I print and keep in the binder, or I can simply organize the entire "binder" as a digital file in it's own folder. I have a portion of my hard drive with a folder devoted to music curriculum. It would be great to organize that folder into more folders with specific unit titles and all of the worksheets and other paperwork that I'd need for the unit. I find myself singing West Side Story's "Somewhere" as I dream of a perfectly organized music curriculum.
There were many great ideas for incorporating technology into music assessment in the readings for this week. I already use a lot of technology for assessments. This particular applies to live assessments. I have been using an app on my iPad that allows me to draw on pictures. I make the rubric into a jpg file, open it in my drawing app, and I write the child's name at the top of the page. Then, I circle the child's score according to the rubric, save it as the child's name and the name of the assessment, then open a new one for the next student. It is very quick and saves a lot of paper.
Another major part of the readings was related to apps that can help organize the classroom. This is an area where I dream of having things completely together, but I have simply never found the time to do so. The textbook referenced the app called "Evernote," which has been downloaded to my iPad since I first got it, but I have never used. I intend to further explore the app in the near future to see how it can help with organization. I already use a cloud-synced calendar to keep track of my lesson plans, extra activities, and other important events and requirements on my iPad and iPhone.
The mini-projects this week were quite fun and useful. I have used many different types of documents before, being both a Mac and PC user, but I haven't spent lots of time on google docs. We are highly encouraged to use them in our classroom, and now I see why. It would be very simple for me to require my students to create word documents and presentations and share them with me. I could easily create quizzes and other simple assessments that my students could quickly complete on their 1:1 laptops during class using google docs. I intend to follow through and actually create assignments this way. Another thing I was thinking that would work well is to create a google form that is the worksheet we are filling out (this is particularly useful for in-class assignments where the students are graded on participation only), and use the Flubaroo to grade whether they completed the answers or not without actually having to make paper copies. I am sure my school district would appreciate me making less copies since I make at least 100 for each grade level when I do written work.
In the discussion board this week, we talked about different ways that we currently use and could use technology in our assessments and in our professional productivity. I found that there are a lot of great ways to use online storage systems like dropbox for storing my documents related to my classroom. I have a dropbox account, but it is too full of personal items to use for school, so I think I'm going to make a second dropbox account through my school email as a school account where I keep all of my information. This will greatly help, I think, with keeping my school work organized. I really enjoyed some of the ideas related to assessment, particularly those where we can use technology to actually grade the assessments, which is one of my biggest concerns with time management as a teacher.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Module 6 - Instructional Design and Technology
This week, our primary topic was instructional design and technology. After having recently taking the course for this masters program in instructional design, I found most of the information to be an extension of what I learned previously but with a special focus on the technology aspects and incorporation of instructional design. This week, we interacted with our PLNs, completed the readings about instructional design and technology, learned about copyright and Creative Commons, learned to create websites using Google Sites, learned more about WebQuests and began the WebQuest project, and participated in discussion related to instructional design with technology.
In my PLN, I read some useful information mostly related to using technology to create forms that help with organization of instructional design. The ability to use these forms was particularly useful in the studying of WebQuests and in beginning to create my own. My WebQuest will be related to the history and information about the madrigals that my (imaginary) madrigal group would be performing for the purpose of giving an historical context to their music performance. I found several other previously made WebQuests that were made using Google Sites, and I plan to use their formats when creating mine in the coming weeks.
A big focus of our discussion, both in our assigned reading and extra reading and in our discussion boards was related to copyright and Creative Commons. Copyright is a tricky subject with music teachers, particularly, because we have to provide ways for our students to listen to a great amount of music and access information about it without pirating, whether accidentally or on purpose, the work of others. It seemed to be a relief to several teachers in our discussion that fair use prevents most of us from accidentally stealing someone else's work when used in an education-related setting.
I am really looking forward to using Google Sites as I work more on my WebQuest project. I have previously only used the school's already made website and my school-related blog to be involved. It seems that Google Sites basically will give me the option to incorporate the two into an all-inclusive, useful central point for parents.
I found this week's information to be very useful and immediately applicable to my work as a music educator. I look forward to incorporating my knowledge of instructional design with my new knowledge of the technology that can be used so that I become more organized and can use hopefully many WebQuests and other technology-related learning opportunities for my students.
In my PLN, I read some useful information mostly related to using technology to create forms that help with organization of instructional design. The ability to use these forms was particularly useful in the studying of WebQuests and in beginning to create my own. My WebQuest will be related to the history and information about the madrigals that my (imaginary) madrigal group would be performing for the purpose of giving an historical context to their music performance. I found several other previously made WebQuests that were made using Google Sites, and I plan to use their formats when creating mine in the coming weeks.
A big focus of our discussion, both in our assigned reading and extra reading and in our discussion boards was related to copyright and Creative Commons. Copyright is a tricky subject with music teachers, particularly, because we have to provide ways for our students to listen to a great amount of music and access information about it without pirating, whether accidentally or on purpose, the work of others. It seemed to be a relief to several teachers in our discussion that fair use prevents most of us from accidentally stealing someone else's work when used in an education-related setting.
I am really looking forward to using Google Sites as I work more on my WebQuest project. I have previously only used the school's already made website and my school-related blog to be involved. It seems that Google Sites basically will give me the option to incorporate the two into an all-inclusive, useful central point for parents.
I found this week's information to be very useful and immediately applicable to my work as a music educator. I look forward to incorporating my knowledge of instructional design with my new knowledge of the technology that can be used so that I become more organized and can use hopefully many WebQuests and other technology-related learning opportunities for my students.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Module 5 - Responding to Music with Technology
This week, our course module was about responding to music with technology. This included topics such as teaching our students to speak intelligently about music, listen to music actively, engage in analyzing music activities, and evaluating music and music performances.
In our reading this week, the discussion was about different technologies that facilitate responding to music. There were several ideas in the text that sparked interest and ideas for me. I really like the idea of students blogging about what they are listening to. I also liked the option to give students choice about what they were listening to. Since our students have 1:1 mini laptops in 3rd and 4th grades, I am always looking for new ways to incorporate the laptops, and I think a listening journal would be a great first step. Another idea that was sparked in the reading was activities for evaluating music, especially related to the students creating the rubrics and concepts that they should be evaluating. This has been a struggle for me, as I am not sure what young students are capable of grasping, so I was not sure how in-depth I could be with the concepts. Overseeing the students creating their own rubric will help me to see what concepts they grasp. Primarily, I want our evaluations to be more musically meaningful than just "this was something we did well in the concert" and "this was something that could have been better," which has been the extent of our evaluations in the past and rather non-meaningful musically.
In our PLN this week, I actually found some evaluating worksheets for elementary students that are downloadable. If I don't want to use the exact worksheets, I can at least have an idea now how to edit them to be useful for my classroom.
Our projects for this week were to complete the music software evaluation and the social bookmarking activities. For the music software project, I evaluated The Orchestra for iPad, which I found to be an excellent app. It cost about $14, but the cost was well-worth it. Another thing I discovered in the reading this week was that Apple TV will hook the iPad up to the SmartBoard, which I did not previously know. I have Apple TV and an iPad and I have never used them in my classroom besides organizing activities and reminders for my students. The app is truly excellent for teaching the instruments in the orchestra, how they sound, and what they look like. It will greatly improve my teaching unit in this area, and I'm truly looking forward to using it. The social bookmarking activities was something with which I have been previously unfamiliar, but I found it to be very useful. I plan to keep using it because I need ways to organize what I have found. I found it very similar to Pinterest, which I use all the time, but with a rather more professional look. I will definitely continue to use it.
In our discussion board this week, we discussed activities that involve responding to music in our classroom and how we can incorporate technology into those. Many students came up with excellent ideas for using technology in new ways. I'm going to try to incorporate several new things related to music responding and technology. I will try creating a listening map on the ActivBoard with my students so that we can all follow along, and perhaps involving the students in developing the listening map and choosing the pictures to accompany it. I also want to do activities where the students choose from a list of music which pieces to listen to, and then we put together presentations as a class about the different pieces that we chose. Each student could individually analyze their chosen piece and write about it. This would be great to use on the individual laptops that my students have access to. Students could also get writing practice in by typing their reports on the mini laptops. The discussion board was very helpful with getting ideas of all types for students of all ages. One area where I'd really like to improve is getting my students to evaluate music using musical terms. My students all say things like "that was good" or "I didn't like that" instead of giving valid musical reasons for their opinions of the performance. Including technology into these practices and ideas could help to engage students, especially because of the generation they are growing up in, more deeply into their evaluating activities.
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music Learning Today. New York, NY: Oxford.
In our reading this week, the discussion was about different technologies that facilitate responding to music. There were several ideas in the text that sparked interest and ideas for me. I really like the idea of students blogging about what they are listening to. I also liked the option to give students choice about what they were listening to. Since our students have 1:1 mini laptops in 3rd and 4th grades, I am always looking for new ways to incorporate the laptops, and I think a listening journal would be a great first step. Another idea that was sparked in the reading was activities for evaluating music, especially related to the students creating the rubrics and concepts that they should be evaluating. This has been a struggle for me, as I am not sure what young students are capable of grasping, so I was not sure how in-depth I could be with the concepts. Overseeing the students creating their own rubric will help me to see what concepts they grasp. Primarily, I want our evaluations to be more musically meaningful than just "this was something we did well in the concert" and "this was something that could have been better," which has been the extent of our evaluations in the past and rather non-meaningful musically.
In our PLN this week, I actually found some evaluating worksheets for elementary students that are downloadable. If I don't want to use the exact worksheets, I can at least have an idea now how to edit them to be useful for my classroom.
Our projects for this week were to complete the music software evaluation and the social bookmarking activities. For the music software project, I evaluated The Orchestra for iPad, which I found to be an excellent app. It cost about $14, but the cost was well-worth it. Another thing I discovered in the reading this week was that Apple TV will hook the iPad up to the SmartBoard, which I did not previously know. I have Apple TV and an iPad and I have never used them in my classroom besides organizing activities and reminders for my students. The app is truly excellent for teaching the instruments in the orchestra, how they sound, and what they look like. It will greatly improve my teaching unit in this area, and I'm truly looking forward to using it. The social bookmarking activities was something with which I have been previously unfamiliar, but I found it to be very useful. I plan to keep using it because I need ways to organize what I have found. I found it very similar to Pinterest, which I use all the time, but with a rather more professional look. I will definitely continue to use it.
In our discussion board this week, we discussed activities that involve responding to music in our classroom and how we can incorporate technology into those. Many students came up with excellent ideas for using technology in new ways. I'm going to try to incorporate several new things related to music responding and technology. I will try creating a listening map on the ActivBoard with my students so that we can all follow along, and perhaps involving the students in developing the listening map and choosing the pictures to accompany it. I also want to do activities where the students choose from a list of music which pieces to listen to, and then we put together presentations as a class about the different pieces that we chose. Each student could individually analyze their chosen piece and write about it. This would be great to use on the individual laptops that my students have access to. Students could also get writing practice in by typing their reports on the mini laptops. The discussion board was very helpful with getting ideas of all types for students of all ages. One area where I'd really like to improve is getting my students to evaluate music using musical terms. My students all say things like "that was good" or "I didn't like that" instead of giving valid musical reasons for their opinions of the performance. Including technology into these practices and ideas could help to engage students, especially because of the generation they are growing up in, more deeply into their evaluating activities.
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music Learning Today. New York, NY: Oxford.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Module 4: Performing Music with Technology
This week, our focus was all about performing music with technology. We interacted with our PLNs, watched videos about Digital Audio and Audacity on lynda.com, did a project using Audacity, reviewed SmartMusic and youtube as performing tools, read the chapter in the book on performing, and discussed what we read in the discussion boards. We also discussed last week's projects from using Soundation.
First, I read about performing with technology and got lots of great new ideas for using technology in the band room. I already use quite a bit of technology at the elementary level with performing (to the point where if my technology is not working for some reason, I am at a loss as to what to do sometimes), but I have been greatly struggling with teaching band. I sent home a survey. It seems that most of my band students have access to what I would consider the normal types of technology at home, including a working computer and internet access. I am considering looking into pricing for SmartMusic, because I think it would greatly inspire my students to practice at home.
I contributed my pinterest board about school-related projects on my PLN, and I've gotten several kind remarks about it's helpfulness and several new ideas for things to pin from others. Pinterest is a great social media tool because you organize and permanently post whatever you want to remember in a place that is easily accessible and can be seen by many others. I have found it to be a useful extension of my PLN.
I found the videos on lynda.com related to Digital Audio Principles to be much easier to follow this week, primarily because I have so often used the technologies describes such as input/output devices, misers, and microphones. I found the course about Audacity to be wonderfully helpful. I would have been remiss without its instruction, as I found the Audacity project to be rather taxing.
The Audacity project involved using a lot of features of Audacity that I have never before used. For the most part, I have simply recorded into one track whatever I've needed. I have never used Audacity for mixing tracks because I use a mac and am used to and know GarageBand better. I found Audacity to be quite comparable to GarageBand, however. The most complex part of the project was undoubtedly trying to cleanly edit an extremely syncopated piece of music, all of whose musical phrases seemed to start on beat two of the measure instead of beat 1. Overall, the project was very informative and helped me to become familiar with software that I would not have originally chosen. I could see it being very useful in my classroom since GarageBand is not readily available. I have already talked to the technology person at my school about downloading the software into the students 1:1 mini laptops.
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music Learning Today. New York, NY: Oxford.
First, I read about performing with technology and got lots of great new ideas for using technology in the band room. I already use quite a bit of technology at the elementary level with performing (to the point where if my technology is not working for some reason, I am at a loss as to what to do sometimes), but I have been greatly struggling with teaching band. I sent home a survey. It seems that most of my band students have access to what I would consider the normal types of technology at home, including a working computer and internet access. I am considering looking into pricing for SmartMusic, because I think it would greatly inspire my students to practice at home.
I contributed my pinterest board about school-related projects on my PLN, and I've gotten several kind remarks about it's helpfulness and several new ideas for things to pin from others. Pinterest is a great social media tool because you organize and permanently post whatever you want to remember in a place that is easily accessible and can be seen by many others. I have found it to be a useful extension of my PLN.
I found the videos on lynda.com related to Digital Audio Principles to be much easier to follow this week, primarily because I have so often used the technologies describes such as input/output devices, misers, and microphones. I found the course about Audacity to be wonderfully helpful. I would have been remiss without its instruction, as I found the Audacity project to be rather taxing.
The Audacity project involved using a lot of features of Audacity that I have never before used. For the most part, I have simply recorded into one track whatever I've needed. I have never used Audacity for mixing tracks because I use a mac and am used to and know GarageBand better. I found Audacity to be quite comparable to GarageBand, however. The most complex part of the project was undoubtedly trying to cleanly edit an extremely syncopated piece of music, all of whose musical phrases seemed to start on beat two of the measure instead of beat 1. Overall, the project was very informative and helped me to become familiar with software that I would not have originally chosen. I could see it being very useful in my classroom since GarageBand is not readily available. I have already talked to the technology person at my school about downloading the software into the students 1:1 mini laptops.
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music Learning Today. New York, NY: Oxford.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Module 3 - Creating Music with Technology - Focus on Composition
This week, we continued our discussion of creativity with technology, but this time with a focus on composition. First, we read in the textbook about composition with students and technology, including finding five reasons why composition is an important part of a child's music education, the usefulness of critique and revision (which is something I think is very important for students to learn), and the importance of developing audiation skills, which happens with both graphic-oriented software like GarageBand and notation-based software like Finale, since students can hear the music and watch a cursor follow it. There was also a list of helpful music composition and improvisation activities that could be used in the classroom, of which I have done some already and plan to do in the future.
In our discussion board, we discussed the use of NTM classes. The primary discussion seemed to be based in the concern for money or resources to create courses like this for students in middle and high school and the concern that completely technology-based music courses will be an "easy fix" for students, who will not learn to understand the hard work and dedication that it takes to master an instrument like the ensemble participation students would learn. It was an enlightening discussion.
We also spent time on twitter and google plus interacting with our PLNs. I found an article about why music is important that was aimed toward music advocacy with administrators, which I found to be very helpful. Both our principal and assistant principal are leaving at the end of this year, and I want to make sure I am ready to support music in case the new administration does not value it the way my current administrators do. I also found an excellent blog called "Beth's Music Notes" that includes great music lesson plans. I would love to have a blog just like that, completely full of music lesson plan ideas and resources for other teachers.
The next part of our coursework this week involved lynda.com. It was a course on Principles of Audio in music, and it was very interesting. The course explain a lot of basic ideas about audio and the way it works. Most of it was completely over my head. I tried to watch and follow along, and the instructor did a great job trying to simplify things, but I simply do not have enough background knowledge to really understand what he was talking about. I did understand the portion about waveform, I was pleased to realize. I understood the concepts of higher quality sound as well, but I did not understand the "whys" of the terminology, such as the language.
We also completed the soundation project. I found it to be pretty similar to GarageBand, which I have used quite a lot. In some ways, it was easier to use than GarageBand, but in other ways, I had trouble figuring out how to do things since it worked differently from GarageBand. I found Soundation to be rather limiting since I could not record my own voice without paying for a subscription. I will likely do some kind of composition/arranging project in Soundation with my students using loops, although I think I liked Incredibox better.
Here are references for the websites I mentioned and materials I read:
Soundation
My Soundation Song
Lynda
Beth's Music Notes
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music Learning Today. New York, NY: Oxford.
In our discussion board, we discussed the use of NTM classes. The primary discussion seemed to be based in the concern for money or resources to create courses like this for students in middle and high school and the concern that completely technology-based music courses will be an "easy fix" for students, who will not learn to understand the hard work and dedication that it takes to master an instrument like the ensemble participation students would learn. It was an enlightening discussion.
We also spent time on twitter and google plus interacting with our PLNs. I found an article about why music is important that was aimed toward music advocacy with administrators, which I found to be very helpful. Both our principal and assistant principal are leaving at the end of this year, and I want to make sure I am ready to support music in case the new administration does not value it the way my current administrators do. I also found an excellent blog called "Beth's Music Notes" that includes great music lesson plans. I would love to have a blog just like that, completely full of music lesson plan ideas and resources for other teachers.
The next part of our coursework this week involved lynda.com. It was a course on Principles of Audio in music, and it was very interesting. The course explain a lot of basic ideas about audio and the way it works. Most of it was completely over my head. I tried to watch and follow along, and the instructor did a great job trying to simplify things, but I simply do not have enough background knowledge to really understand what he was talking about. I did understand the portion about waveform, I was pleased to realize. I understood the concepts of higher quality sound as well, but I did not understand the "whys" of the terminology, such as the language.
We also completed the soundation project. I found it to be pretty similar to GarageBand, which I have used quite a lot. In some ways, it was easier to use than GarageBand, but in other ways, I had trouble figuring out how to do things since it worked differently from GarageBand. I found Soundation to be rather limiting since I could not record my own voice without paying for a subscription. I will likely do some kind of composition/arranging project in Soundation with my students using loops, although I think I liked Incredibox better.
Here are references for the websites I mentioned and materials I read:
Soundation
My Soundation Song
Lynda
Beth's Music Notes
Bauer, W.I. (2014). Music Learning Today. New York, NY: Oxford.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Module 2 - Creating Music with Technology - An Overview of Creativity and Improvisation
This week's module was lots of fun! The primary points of the week were a discussion of creativity and a discussion of improvisation. Additionally, we used free software programs for music notation. And, as we will always, we interacted with one another on our PLNs, finding useful information that could be immediately applied to our positions regarding music and technology incorporation.
Our discussion of creativity was very similar to the course that many of us were part of in the fall semester. We discussed the basics of creativity, such as its utmost importance in well-rounded students and future workers. We also discussed how difficult it is to assess creativity, and that it is born in every person, but must be developed. It was good to review these concepts of creativity as we ventured into the next topic, improvisation.
Our discussions of improvisation took place on the discussion board. Our creativity class in the fall talked about improvisation as part of the creative process, and, as we discussed in that class, many of us have not had much experience with improvisation. For most of us, it was completely ignored unless we were part of performing jazz ensembles. In our PLNs, many people posted excellent sources for the incorporation of improvisation in our classrooms, and the textbook discussed a 7-step model for the steps of teaching improvisation to our students.
Undoubtedly, the most purely fun portion of our assignments this week was our use of copying scores from MuseScore and Noteflight applications. I found that both of these applications were much easier to use than Finale and Sibelius, and, as an added bonus, they are both free to access. MuseScore is a downloadable application, and Noteflight is on the internet. I think I will create a Noteflight project with my students since we have 1:1 laptops for 3rd and 4th graders, and they can actually notate music that they compose for me into "fancy form," as I'll call it, print it off, and take it home to show off to parents. I think the "official-ness" of the formally printed music notation will help the students feel even more proud of their work.
Overall, this was a fun and insightful week. I look forward to expanding upon our discussions of improvisation and creativity along with other uses for technology in our music education classrooms.
Our discussion of creativity was very similar to the course that many of us were part of in the fall semester. We discussed the basics of creativity, such as its utmost importance in well-rounded students and future workers. We also discussed how difficult it is to assess creativity, and that it is born in every person, but must be developed. It was good to review these concepts of creativity as we ventured into the next topic, improvisation.
Our discussions of improvisation took place on the discussion board. Our creativity class in the fall talked about improvisation as part of the creative process, and, as we discussed in that class, many of us have not had much experience with improvisation. For most of us, it was completely ignored unless we were part of performing jazz ensembles. In our PLNs, many people posted excellent sources for the incorporation of improvisation in our classrooms, and the textbook discussed a 7-step model for the steps of teaching improvisation to our students.
Undoubtedly, the most purely fun portion of our assignments this week was our use of copying scores from MuseScore and Noteflight applications. I found that both of these applications were much easier to use than Finale and Sibelius, and, as an added bonus, they are both free to access. MuseScore is a downloadable application, and Noteflight is on the internet. I think I will create a Noteflight project with my students since we have 1:1 laptops for 3rd and 4th graders, and they can actually notate music that they compose for me into "fancy form," as I'll call it, print it off, and take it home to show off to parents. I think the "official-ness" of the formally printed music notation will help the students feel even more proud of their work.
Overall, this was a fun and insightful week. I look forward to expanding upon our discussions of improvisation and creativity along with other uses for technology in our music education classrooms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)